February 15, 2012
Top Social Networking Sites in Canada and the United States
When it comes to online social networking sites, Canadians and Americans are not that different. According to Hitwise, for the week ending January 28 2012, the majority of the visits from both countries went to FaceBook, and then YouTube. The rest of the sites all got less than 2% of the visits, and that includes Twitter. So if you are a small firm marketing to both countries, this is good news, because you can focus on the same top sites to get traffic from your target audience from both countries. Here is a side-by-side comparison of both charts:
January 10, 2011
Canadians, FaceBook and Healthcare
I am a believer that FaceBook can have positive influence on healthcare. With so many healthcare stakeholders involved on the network, it seems like the perfect place for everybody to get connected. Just looking at the number of people who are members of this network should be enough to make any marketer stop in their tracks and decide whether they should reach out and engage with their target audience on this medium. And over the past couple of years, there have been several reports that have suggested that Canadians really 'like' their FaceBook time (yes, that was an intentional pun, but it is true). The most recent report that I have seen was the one from eMarketer.com's November 29th 2010 post "Canadians Say Yes to Social Media".
Almost 10 million Canadians went on FaceBook per day in September 2010. That is a lot of people when you consider that the Canadian population in 2010 is estimated at just over 34 million people by Stats Canada.
If that is not enough to convince you to at least consider whether FaceBook fits into your strategic objectives, take a look at the video clip below. It is part of Time's Person of the Year issue, in which Time put together a fascinating video clip showcasing statistics about what happens on FaceBook in 1 minute . The statistics are global, not Canadian-specific, but it is worth taking a look at.
The facts from the video are noted below in case you are having trouble viewing the video:
- Shared links: 50,304
- Photos tagged: 66,168
- Event invites: 74,204
- Wall posts: 79,364
- Status updates: 82,557
- Friend requests: 98,604
- Photos uploaded: 135,849
- Messages sent: 231,605
- "Likes": 382,861
- Comments: 510,404
If you need more Canadian-specific stats to help you make your decision, here are a few articles that you might find helpful:
If you are interested in seeing examples of various healthcare FaceBook pages, just go to the Dose of Digital social media wiki. Here, you will find lots of creative uses of FaceBook from all over the world. Keep in mind that advertising and promotion guidelines for healthcare products vary from country to country, so some of the examples that you will find in the wiki may not be suitable for Canada.
I am not suggesting that all healthcare marketers jump on board and set up a FaceBook page. It needs to make sense for your business. Social media is nothing more than a tactic designed to help you reach your organization's strategic objectives. What I am suggesting is that all healthcare marketers should take the time to at least consider whether FaceBook fits their strategic goals or not. For marketers who are not on FaceBook themselves (and I know quite a few are out there), it might seem a little bit overwhelming and obscure to market in this new environment, but that should not stop anybody from at least considering the possibility that the fit might be there for the target audience. Do a little bit of monitoring to see where your audience hangs out, and if they are already on FaceBook, then you might want to join them there.
If you have considered a FaceBook page and decided to forego it, what is stopping you from setting one up? Leave a comment below.
Stay in touch,
Natalie
Connect with me on the following networks:
January 3, 2011
Pfizer Canada shares its social media response flow chart
What better way to kick off 2011, than to provide you with a gift from Pfizer Canada: their social media response flow chart which provides guidelines as to when and how to respond (or not respond) to comments on social media networks.
Every company should have some sort of guidelines as to how they will respond to social media comments about their brand(s) and corporation. Even if an organization has not implemented social media tactics, they may be (and should be) tracking mentions of their brand and corporate names via tools such as Google Alert. Such mentions may require intervention by the company, and a plan prepared ahead of time will help ensure that an appropriate response is provided.
Pfizer Canada has modified an assessment chart that was originally developed by the U.S. Air Force . The flow chart will guide Pfizer Canada in responding to remarks on social media networks which are either the property of, sponsored by or have a relation of some kind to Pfizer Canada (ie. the Canadian Medical Association, CMA, discussion panel which is hosted by Pfizer). In fact, the flow chart was set up when Pfizer Canada launched the discussion panel on the CMA site. At the moment, Pfizer Canada is not scouring the internet for comments. They focus only on the comments made on the networks that are linked to Pfizer Canada in some way.
Pfizer Canada estimates that the original Air Force chart covers approximately 80% of potentialv scenarios. Therefore, Pfizer Canada fine tuned the diagram to address potential medical, legal and compliance issues. Both the original Air Force chart and the Pfizer Canada chart are found below. The most noticeable difference between the two are the 3 columns that Pfizer Canada added, which are found at the far right of the chart. There are a few other modifications that were made by Pfizer Canada, but none of these appear to be major shifts from the original chart.
The response flow chart was designed for the Canadian subsidiary of Pfizer. It is not used globally by the organization.
A picture of both the U.S. Air Force and Pfizer Canada flow charts are included below. They are small, but if you click on them, you will see a larger version.
[caption id="attachment_1646" align="aligncenter" width="468" caption="Pfizer Canada: Social media response flow chart"]
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I applaud Pfizer Canada for their level of preparedness, and I thank them for allowing me to share their response flow chart on my blog.
Christian Roy (Vice President, Marketing, Pfizer Canada Inc.) and Elena Chouw (Manager, eMarketing, Pfizer Canada Inc.) originally presented this diagram at the Eye for Pharma eMarketing Canada conference, which was held in Toronto, on November 1-2 2010. Many thanks to Elena for taking the time to discuss the flow chart with me.
What do you think of these two social media response flow charts? Do you think there should be any changes to the modifications that were made by Pfizer Canada? Leave your comment below.
Happy new year,
Natalie
Connect with me on the following networks:
FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn
November 12, 2010
Is PAAB Doing a Good Job in Educating us on Social Media Regs in Canada?
Several months ago, the PAAB (Pharmaceutical Advertising Advisory Board) held 3 social media marketing sessions called “Social Media Marketing in Pharma: What Works in Canada”, twice in Toronto and once in Montreal, where they provided some of their insights on Canadian regulations regarding pharmaceutical social media marketing. This meeting even had a representative from Health Canada as a panel member.
Then earlier this month, they presented even more guidance at the Eye For Pharma eMarketing Canada conference. Just yesterday, they made their slides from the conference available on the PAAB website: PAAB Guidance on Social Media Marketing (61 slides). Enable audio on your computer as each slide has audio. The audio track on each slide is by Patrick Massad (Chief Review Officer at the PAAB). Beware - the file is huge. It slowed my computer down for several minutes. But once you go through the slides and audio, you will find that it is full of valuable information, some of which was not presented at the recent eMarketing conference due to lack of time.
The PAAB has also made itself more available to the Canadian pharma community by setting up a LinkedIn, FaceBook and Twitter profile. The PAAB has been using these avenues to not only update the industry on PAAB activities, but also to share information about social media from other countries. On Twitter, the PAAB even posted a request for people to join one of their social networs and to start a discussion.
As far as I know, the level of outreach by the PAAB to the pharma industry with regards to guidance on the regulations that impact social media marketing is the first of its kind worldwide. Please correct me if this is inaccurate. I am aware of the FDA meetings held a while back, but so far, no guidance has been made available since those meetings.
Whether we like the regulations or not, and whether we feel the regulations are doing justice to the mantra of social media being open for engagement by all stakeholders, we have to give credit to the PAAB for their efforts in helping the Canadian pharma industry understand what we can and cannot do within the legal framework. I am not a fan of the current Rx DTC regulations in Canada. They are outdated, and I would like to see these regulations re-visited and modified. But I don't blame the PAAB for those regulations. They did not make the rules. They just help us work within them.
The only recommendation that I would have for the PAAB (and Rx&D as well for that matter), is to include something about social media guidelines as part of their overall set of guidelines. Perhaps that is in the works and I am just not aware.
Do you think the PAAB is doing a good job in educating the Canadian pharmaceutical industry on how to apply current regulations to social media campaigns? Do you have any suggestions for them to improve their outreach to the industry?
Disclaimer: I have been involved with the PAAB on various social media activities, but this post is my personal opinion. The PAAB has not had any input or influence in the content of this article.
Stay in touch,
Natalie
Connect with me on the following networks:
FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn
November 4, 2010
eMarketing Canada – Twitter Transcript
Eye for Pharma organized the 1st eMarketing Canada conference, which was held in Toronto, on November 1-2 2010. The Twitter hashtag used was #efp.
Here is a transcript of the online Twitter posts and discussion which used the #efp hashtagh : Down #efp transcript pdf file.
For those of you keen on stats, here are some data from the tweets that took place on November 1st and 2nd, using the hashtag #efp (via What the Hashtag):
- 673 tweets
- 61 contributors
- 96.1 tweets per day
- 75.6% come from "The Top 10"
- 24.4% are retweets
- 30.6% are mentions
- 2.8% have multiple hashtags
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