A New Option for Pharma Social Sharing
I wanted to tell you about a new option that I hope will help pharmaceutical companies - especially those in the U.S. - take a new look at social sharing. It's called sharesendsave , and its the industry's first "pharma-friendly" social sharing widget. The sharesendsave widget enables content sharing through social networks, links via e-mail, and by saving or bookmarking information to Web browsers. It's similar to free widgets currently available like ShareThis, but with one key difference: it's designed especially for the highly regulated pharmaceutical industry, so it offers added control over how content is shared. You can view the press release here , or visit the sharesendsave website for more information and to see it in action. How It Came About We started working on sharesendsave some time ago when we noticed currently existing free social sharing tools posed certain risks to our clients, such as the possibility of added advertising and the unauthorized sharing of user and site data. We soft-launched a beta version of sharesendsave earlier this year. Then, when the U.S. FDA issued an untitled letter to Novartis concerning its social sharing widget, we dug even deeper into the challenge. While working short-term with our pharma, medical device, and animal health clients to review and update any sites that were in violation, we were working on a long-term solution as well. We were able to make some updates to sharesendsave that helped address DDMAC's new concerns outlined in the letter. (For more background on that situation, see our point-of-view on implications and recommendations here: http://blog.intouchsol.com/2010/08/fda-widgetgate-implications-and.html) We've received lots of interest and many companies are considering implementing it at the enterprise level, across all company, brand, and corporate websites for consistency. How It Is Different Our goal with sharesendsave was to enable pharma companies (and other similarly regulated industries) to empower site users to share content while minimizing risk. It does that through some unique features that provide added control, such as: ? Only specified content and images are shared across channels. You can calibrate sharesendsave so that you define what message and image (if any) is shared. Then, the same message is sent by the widget to be shared on any and all channels of choice. ? It uses special share-friendly social tags and keeps standard metadata intact. So sites can be optimized for search engines as well as social sharing at the same time - you don't have to choose between search and social. ? Shared URLs can be shortened to save space and also prevent product names or conditions from appearing in the URL if inappropriate. If you want the full URL to show, that's an option as well. ? This widget offers enhanced tracking and analytics. Detailed data around social sharing behavior on the site is available to site owners (in other words, that data is not owned by a random free sharing tool). The sharesendsave data also can be incorporated into existing analytics packages such as Omniture, Google Analytics, and Webtrends. ? The widget offers some flexible customization options. We developed the product - but more so - we developed it for our clients' websites. The look-and-feel of the widget can be customized (color, etc.) to match site branding. ? When users choose the "send" option to send an email to a friend, the secure e-mail can include detailed important safety information and other customized information to help ensure the messages shared via email are in compliance. ? It provides the option of an interstitial you are leaving this site disclaimer popup. This was included for added peace of mind for the same legal and regulatory folks that require disclaimers like this for external links. ? It allows site owners to choose what channels (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) are active. Don't want people to "digg" your content for whatever reason? Turn off that channel, and they won't have the option. New social sharing destinations emerging? We'll be evaluating and adding those too. Above All, Share Responsibily Social sharing isn't for every company, brand or website. In the U.S., unbranded websites and non-black-boxed product sites are still the safest environment for pharma social sharing. Above all, site owners should really be working extra-hard to offer content that is share-worthy to begin with. Tell Us What You Think What do you think? I'm counting on the vocal pharma social media community to provide honest feedback and reviews. Does this solve a problem? Are there things we missed and ways we could improve the product? ... Does it matter? Is pharma waiting silently for DDMAC guidance until they make any big social sharing moves? Do people really want to share pharma's content anyway? Thanks in advance for your feedback. The pharma industry has enough problems, and if we can help solve just one, that makes me happy!