From the category archives:

public relations

Alone We Can Do So Little

by Sarah Morgan on October 28, 2008

It’s becoming accepted that Boomers are (cautiously) going online for health information - but now over 50% of people 13-24 are looking online for health information . Which is great news for pharma: you can reach more age groups now.

We’ve always wanted trusted sources for information, especially when it comes to our health. But “trusted,” increasingly, means personal - not faceless. And if that’s a bit touchy-feely for you, new statistics show that regionally specific health information is the most popular . And just today, J&J bought HealthMedia, an online health-coach service provider.

So you’d think pharma would be all over social media. It’s cheap and it’s targeted. And, quoting the fabulous B.L. Ochman : We’re in a recession. You need to play like every move counts . Scrips are dropping . Budgets are slashed. It just makes sense.

This Brandweek article, “Why Pharma Fears Social Networking ,” has been making the rounds. And I’m glad the issue is getting traditional-media attention, but wow, is it old news. Nielsen did some awesome research that Melissa Davies blogged about in September. But even before that, I guest-blogged for Colleen Coplick in July all about this exact issue, after my very-first-boss Marc Monseau and I talked about it.

But.

Here’s the thing we have to realize.

Talking amongst ourselves isn’t going to fix anything.

We’ve got lawyers, regulators, and scientists who must approve what we say, and where and how we do it. That’s a fact, no matter how we grouse about it. But we forget: they’re human, and they have to understand it before they can approve it.

And while articles about how pharma lawyers didn’t know what Google is let us feel delightfully superior, which can be specially nice if you’ve been in some really frustrating conflicts with them: it doesn’t help.

We just can’t, for our own self-preservation, be all smug and elite about what we know.

If I’m any sort of social media anything, I’ll only be successful when I’ve made myself unnecessary. When everyone around me is fluent in these media, knowing which ones are good for what, when, that’s when I’ve done my job.

You’ve got to teach what you know for it to matter. And not just on panels or in presentations. You can’t just be an evangelist on Sundays, right?

Don’t just talk to the ones who “get it”. Tell the people who have no idea what you’re talking about. The ones who think you’re crazy. Keep doing it. They’ll keep thinking you’re crazy. That’s fine. Because one day, they’ll point out some cool new social media thing to you - and you’ll see that you’ve made a bit of a difference. They get it too.

B.L. is right: you need to play like every move counts. But you can’t do that till you manage to get a team into the game.

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Fake It Till You Make It. Or, Better Yet… Don’t.

by Sarah Morgan on September 9, 2008

There are a few cheats to make a photograph seem more interesting than it really is. Use the macro setting, tilt the camera about twenty degrees, add a Photoshop effect - any one of these, or a combination, and you’ve got yourself a picture that’s good and artsy. People may not even notice that you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing.

It’s the same way with most of life, I think. Posing, that is. A few tricks can get a person pretty far.

It’s not hard to look like you know what you’re doing to someone who has no idea how it’s done. The question is whether you can hold up when you’re among people who know far more than you.

I was reminded of that today when I read Colin’s latest Canuckflack post, “I Am a Capable Strategist and Thoughtful Person.” It’s a delicious skewering of 99% of all blog posts - mine included, I’m sure.

There are people who seem to act their way through their profession by knowing the rote way to say things (like Colin points out). And they live in constant fear that someone is going to expose them as frauds.

It’s incredibly uncomfortable to be hopelessly out of your depth - if you’re trying to pretend otherwise. It’s embarrassing, stressful - a horrific strain. But if you’re out of your depth, honest about it, delighting in it, glorying in how much there is you don’t know yet, it’s not in the least scary. It’s learning, and there isn’t much that’s better.

So you have to be honest about how you’re using tricks of the trade. If you use crutches too long, next thing you know, you can’t stand on your own two feet alone.

And of course this tied back, to me, to social media, because it focuses on the individual - not the tricks but an actual person’s thoughts and actions. It’s much easier for someone to be outed as clever, as relatable, as human (or otherwise) when you’re hearing one person, not a faceless corporate “position”.

With that said, though, social media itself can be the worst bag of tricks of all. And Jeremy’s Pop PR Jots post today relates to that - a caution that the technology you use doesn’t define whether you’re good at what you do. Any medium is just a conduit for communicating information - it’s what you’re actually trying to communicate that’s the point. We can’t become so enamored of what the latest cool toy does that we forget what the point of the toy is.

Technology, by definition, enables us to do what we do better. The question is, what do we do? It can be surprisingly easy to forget what the answer to that question is. It helps to sit back and think about what we’re really trying to do, and whether we’re really any good at it at all.

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Welcome

by Sarah Morgan on July 19, 2008

I said it six years ago, and I’ll say it again: welcome, world.

saranne03.blogspot.com did me right, but it’s time for a move. And just like real life, the new place is a work in progress. Getting things in order, learning how everything works, choosing the decor, unpacking over 900 posts. But just like real life, you can’t wait until it’s perfect to have anyone over, can you?

So again: welcome. I’m glad you’re here. And I hope you’ll like what I do with the place.

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