Getting involved in social media has been challenging for many OTC brands that worry about questions over content and responsibility for misinformation, as well as a myriad of other regulatory issues. As we all await the FDA’s “official” guidance for social media marketing in the healthcare category, we wanted to share these “best practices” recently put out by an industry group and reported on in Medical Marketing and Media on Feb. 6, 2012. RL&A, by the way, has been adhering to these guidelines and counseling clients on these same issues since we first started blogger outreach back in 2005. These seven guidelines cover a lot of ground – and there’s really no reason to wait anymore, as indicated by the first principle.
1) Regulated healthcare companies should endeavor to participate in social media as a means to promote public health, improve patient outcomes and facilitate productive patient/physician relationships.
2) Regulated healthcare companies are not responsible for user-generated content online that they do not control. Regulated healthcare companies are deemed to “control” health and medical content if (i) it owns such health and medical content and has material editorial authority or (ii) it paid for the creation of such content and has material editorial authority over such content.
3) Regulated healthcare companies have a responsibility to report adverse events they become aware of. Regulated healthcare companies should follow the existing adverse event reporting rules in place at the FDA.
4) Employees of regulated healthcare companies should disclose their material company relationship when posting comments/content or engaging in an online conversation relating to a company product or relevant healthcare issue.
5) Regulated healthcare companies should endeavor to respond to questions on sites they control within a reasonable period of time, and to implement reasonable measures to enable timely responses to crisis and emergency situations.
6) Regulated healthcare companies should endeavor to make reasonable efforts to correct misinformation that is factually incorrect.
7) Regulated healthcare companies should endeavor to appoint employee(s) tasked with the role of “patient liaison” focused on representing the best interests of the patient online.
For the full article, click here. http://www.mmm-online.com/industry-group-releases-digital-best-practices/article/226439/
Tags: Beauty PR, Blogger Outreach, Facebook, healthcare public relations, healthcare social media, OTC brand marketing, OTC marketing, OTC social media, Social Media, social media PR