Creating a Facebook Page for Your Brand : 3 Things Marketers Need to Know
If you're a product manager thinking about launching a Facebook page for your brand, there is much to consider.
By on Mar 26, 2009If you're a product manager thinking about launching a Facebook page for your brand, there is much to consider.
Not only is Facebook a difficult medium for pharma because there are so few trailblazing examples, but it is very unlike creating a standard Web page or traditional piece of any kind.
A recent article from ClickZ (see http://www.clickz.com/3633037) provides some advice for using Facebook thats much in line with how we counsel our clients. Entire books could indeed be written on the subject, but in the meantime, here are three key things for pharma marketers to remember about Facebook (and other social media for that matter) ...
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1) When launching on Facebook, companies have a unique opportunity to personally introduce their audiences to the face of their brand or company. Think carefully about what that face will be ... Branded? Unbranded? Corporate? Franchise? Educational? And to be successful, the reason must tie back to a specific objective.
2) One thing pharmas tend to want to do is to try to control things too much by creating a static, one-way, overly-polished page for audience consumption. From the article: "Consumption by itself is not the right goal for this medium -- that would imply you are treating it like an advertising channel and not social media, which are two distinctly different things." Amen. There really are some ways that pharma can have a valid -- even two-way -- presence on Facebook, you just have to be smart and creative about it. Make sure you partner with an agency that knows digital marketing, knows social media, and ESPECIALLY knows pharma rules and regulations.
3) Make sure the companys commitment is ongoing and resides in more than one enthusiastic supporter, and in more than a single campaign. An abandoned Facebook page is much worse than no Facebook page.
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Nobody said it was easy. But I have been encouraged by the amount of social media ideas that not only made the cut for most of our U.S. clients' 2009 plans, these projects are some of the first things we are getting off the ground this year. For example, we recently launched a YouTube channel for one of our clients at www.youtube.com/goinsulin.
Let me say this again: There really are some ways that pharma can have a meaningful presence within the social media spectrum. What are you waiting for?