Brad Einarsen
Toronto
Top-tier digital agency
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Articles by Brad Einarsen
The DHC Spring 2013 Workshop
On Monday the DHC hosted it’s Spring 2013 workshop. This event combined a group brainstorming session with the launch of the DHC and Klick Health report: Social Media Landscape: Pharmaceutical and Device Best in Class. Crowdsourcing Social Guiding Principles for Pharma and Device The brainstorming session was split into three themes and the participants were asked to come up with solutions to some of the industry’s thorniest issues.
Klick Health & WEGO Health Compare Patient and Marketer Opinions on Ads
What do you get when you take 11,000 Facebook ads for prescription pharmaceutical products and then take five of those ads and ask Patient Influencers what they think of them? You get the latest installment from Klick Health's Social Team and WEGO Health. This Report This report contains two primary sections: Tracking Rx: An overview of 11,000+ ads in the Klick database that looks at the ad types, the conditions served, and the content in those ads.
Social Isn’t Optional
It's 2019 and social platforms are no longer optional for marketers. Not leveraging the time spent on social today is akin to ignoring the mobile screen in 2016: you can create what looks like a full plan but it has a massive hole in it. Social Usage The driver of social advertising is, unsurprisingly, usage. While “social media” in the form of online forums has been around since 1984 it didn’t really take off until the age of Friendster, MySpace, and then Facebook.
The Klick Wire Turns Seven
Seven years ago we started a work hobby of collecting interesting news stories that combined the three things that are of interest to Klick: digital, health, and marketing. Two years later the internal newsletter had grown to ~50 recipients and we were using Silverpop to send it out rather than just a mailing list. The obvious next step was to see if anyone external to Klick wanted the information.
Your retweets metric is about to tank
If you're looking at your retweet numbers, be prepared for them to tank for April and every month after (unless reporting gets fixed). Earlier this month, Twitter rolled out “Quote Tweet” functionality. They announced it on April 6 with a cute donkey demo: Say more with revamped quote Tweet! Rolling out on iPhone and web, coming soon to Android.
QR codes - a captive audience experiment
If you’ve been following Digital Rx for a while you’ll know that we are not big fans of QR codes in general. In fact, the death of the QR code was one of our predictions for 2012. In some select circumstances the little codes can serve a purpose, this is the story of one such circumstance. A client needed to get specialists at an association annual meeting, the largest gathering for these specialists, to consume its scientific content.
#Hashtags and regulatory issues
Hashtags are in the news because they were added to Facebook this month. They have been with us for a long time, however, and they may pose a regulatory risk for companies using them because they are essentially links to content not under the control of the poster. We recommend not using hashtags in a branded social environment nor do we recommend encouraging others to use them in a branded manner.
Facebook Rolls out “Info and Ads”
Today, Thursday June 28th, the Facebook "Ads and Info" tab is rolling out and pharma marketers who use this platform need to review their pages to ensure that any "dark" ads that were only available as promotions are ok to be viewed in a timeline together.
Real-Time and Pharma Social
Ever since Oreo’s “ you can still dunk in the dark ” post during the Superbowl power outage in 2013, marketers have talked about the power of “real-time” social. Normally, pharma does not engage in these activities but in this case Sanofi US has responded with a combination of timeliness and wit that is exceptionally rare in the industry.
test link | Klick Health
test link Senior Director, Social Media Go from news to action. Klick Wire Weekly Digital Health Newsletter Klick Health will NEVER spam you. Read our privacy policy Thank you! You're now signed up to get the Klick Wire every week - news from the world of digital health marketing. Sorry there seems to be a problem. Please try again later.
The Facebook Data Privacy Issue in Depth
A news frenzy has erupted around some data taken from Facebook's platform in 2014. This data was purportedly used to target ads and some have made the leap from targeted ads to affecting the 2016 presidential race and the Brexit vote. Ultimately, the story is rather mundane but debunking the press spin is rather entertaining. Check out our full POV (download at bottom of post) to get the full story.
Facebook News Feed Changes: Don’t Panic
This is the executive summary from our recent POV on Facebook's News Feed changes . You can grab your own copy of the full report and get the whole story. On January 11, 2018 Facebook released a news post that highlights how the social network is going to change its post ranking algorithm throughout 2018. When the world’s largest social network talks about changing how it chooses content to show to users people pay attention, as shown by the number of news stories over the past 24 hours.
Unmetric Your Social Measurement
A relatively new tool is available for tracking social platforms, including walled gardens like Facebook, and can help marketers see how their efforts stack up against the competition. We took Unmetric out for a spin on their three-day trial and compiled some thoughts for pharma marketers everywhere. The Unmetric platform looks at social properties and compares their activities.
Facebook Ad Transparency - Pharma Implications
Facebook is working hard to improve its public reputation regarding ads on the platform in the aftermath of the Russian political interference scandal. This work has centered on how to give the audience the tools needed to determine whether or not to trust the information being promoted to them. For the first time as a species, humans live in a world where information is abundant.
The Three-Act Play in Six Seconds
The focus on 6-second video spots from Facebook, Google, and even Fox TV have sparked some ideas inside Klick on the format. We think that the goal of a 6-second video has to be resonance because you only have time to plant the seed of an idea during your allotted time rather than present a full call to action. In this blog post I’ll take you through how to think about a 6-second video to create resonance. Think of a 6-second video as three, two second parts.
Social Moderation: Layers of Safety
Moderation of social platforms is a critical piece of any social program in any industry but is especially important in pharma. The FDA's guidance on the ownership of user-generated content is fairly clear by the regulator's standards and places the ownership of user-generated content (UGC) on the pharma company when it "influences" the content.
Seven Years of #ASCO by the Numbers
The annual ASCO meeting is the largest professional social media event of the year and 2017 continued the growth trend. Most of the chatter happens on Twitter which is promoted by the organization with the use of its preferred hashtag, #ASCO17 . The annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is the largest medical meetings in the world. This year over 39 thousand attendees shared information and learned from studies about the current leading edge of cancer research.
SERMO Drug Ratings
Everyone wants to be the "Yelp" for this or the "Uber" for that but in this case SERMO is much better than a public rating service, it uses it's vast reach to physicians to get ratings for the medications they prescribe every day. Because they are providing drug ratings to doctors, SERMO has set the gold standard for drug reviews.
The Top 7 Pharma Social Media Best Practices of 2017
Your pharma social media heroes (#psmh) Brad and Spitz recently shared top line insights from this year’s “Best Practices” landscape analysis at the DHC Spring Summit.
Providers still tied to desktop
Providers still tied to desktop Senior Director, Social Media A new study from HiMSS shows that desktop usage is still king of the hill for healthcare organizations, even as they develop mobile plans for the clinicians in the organization.
Facebook: the Known Pages
Our ongoing analysis of social platforms feeds into our continuously-updated Best Practices report. Last week we finished an comprehensive update of the Facebook section and created a list of known pharma properties. Want to know what your competition is up to? Read on and download the PDF report at the bottom of this blog post.
Facebook First for Pharma
Facebook First for Pharma Director, Digital Insight In the market of social platforms there is always a new “shiny object.” These can seem attractive when they are young and the growth percentages are high but marketers need to look carefully at their social projects’ fundamentals when crafting plans.
Twitter Ads Without Profile
Social advertising can get efficient engagement, massive reach, and interest targeting that other channels struggle to achieve, but it comes with a price: you typically have to have a profile on the platform that holds your posts. Not anymore for Twitter, brands can now post ads without having a profile with a service called, surprisingly enough, Ads Without Profiles.
Facebook Posts with Scrolling ISI
Facebook showed an ad unit at Digital Pharma East that had scrolling ISI underneath full brand claim messaging. In this post we dissect that technique and show brand marketers how to create their own ISI-enabled posts. The most important thing to remember as a brand marketer is that this is a technique, not a technology. That means that any page can host these posts, not just branded pages (though comments will be set on for any unbranded pages that use this technique).
Instagram Just Became Pharma-Friendly
Instagram has joined the ranks of robust social platforms with the addition of Comment Moderation to the tool. This new addition to the platform provides the same functionality as Facebook and looks like it will make the platform much more "pharma friendly." A blog post by Instagram co-founder, Kevin Systrom, talks about the new functionality on the platform and why they took this step.
Facebook and Black Box drugs
Black box drugs and social media don't get along very well. Most social tactics depend on the "reminder ad" format to stay compliant when users share the material, but of course black box drugs are prohibited from using that format. We’ve been working on some options on the Facebook platform that should pass muster with the regulatory groups both inside the pharma company and with the FDA itself. Black box drugs cannot use Per federal regulations 21 CFR 201.100(f).
Social Best Practices 2016
Klick & DHC present the Social Media Best Practices for Pharma for 2016. If you are a digital marketer working for a pharma company, this report is for you. Started in 2013 the Klick Health / Digital Health Coalition partnership has resulted in multiple Best Practices reports for pharma marketers. This latest installment looks at even more platforms and compares properties with our scorecard.
The tempo of the times
There are a lot of articles about the research of the best time to post , the best rate to use , and the most popular days . These stats are behavioral and certainly show the truth in what they measure… but there are other elements hiding behind the data that social marketers need to consider. The random elements in a population of humans can’t really be over stated.
The Klick Wire turns 200… weeks
We've been providing the Klick Wire for four years and this week is our 200th issue. A look back on some of the highlights of the Klick Wire. We launched the Klick Wire on February 6, 2012 and have been publishing weekly ever since. During that time we’ve learned a few things about what our core audience likes to see. We tend to see interest in a few high-profile topics in our industry: If you’ve done any email marketing you know about email stats.
How much Facebook happens on mobile?
It's surprisingly difficult to find solid numbers about how much time (not user sessions) is spent on mobile devices accessing Facebook. This matters to marketers because the right rail ads only show on traditional computers so we need to know how much larger the audience will be when we move to more timeline (native) ads. First, let’s be clear, Facebook is still the dominant social network.
Curiosity saved the marketer
Digital Health Marketers are a curious bunch. That's not necessarily a comment on the personalities in the field, though if the shoe fits... No, it's a comment on how curious marketers are about their audiences. What they need, what drives them, the stimuli to which they will respond, and many other questions. A recent desk drop by our illustrious culture team here at Klick started me thinking about curiosity and perseverance.
Internet Explorer: End of Support
As of January 12, 2016, only the most current version of Internet Explorer will receive technical supports and security updates. Find out what that means for pharma marketers... You may have recently read about Microsoft ending support for versions of Internet Explorer prior to version 11, as of January 12, 2015. Internet Explorer 11 will continue to receive security updates, compatibility fixes, and technical support on Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10.
Sermo investigates physician social preferences
SERMO* just did a survey using its SERMO RealTime tool and asked US physicians about their social network use. The results show that there is a lot more activity happening than we previously thought and marketers should really take another look at these professional networks. I just love working with my suppliers on the research side (one of my three hats) because you never know where an offhand comment will go.
The top 41 health-oriented social media influencers
We were asked to come up with a list of digital health social influencers for a Klick event so naturally we figured this would make a great blog post. What could be more engaging to the health-focused social media audience than a list of influencers? Anyone not on our list of 42 names will immediately want to know why not, and the reason is simple, we were completely arbitrary in how we pulled this list.
Hunting and gathering - tracking healthcare social media properties
Recently we were conducting a review of the healthcare social channels that we track, and the almost infinite time spent tracking down these properties got me thinking about what I don't know. The work involved in finding these channels reminds me of a saying we had at the IBM Lab - don't try to boil the ocean. The problem with updating this deck, and the title of this post, is that I don’t know what I don’t know.
Where does regulatory responsibility reside?
Regulatory. When you're dealing with pharmaceutical marketing it's not just a fact of life, it's a force of nature. The number of conversations inside the Klick Health walls that revolve around regulatory is staggering, it permeates everything we do. And for good reason, there is nothing that will get you in hot water faster than a call to the client's regulatory group from the FDA. This post was triggered by an exchange with a salesman from a technology supplier.
The Internet of Things in healthcare
The "Internet of Things" is coming and we can't avoid it even if we wanted to. The question becomes one of how do we ensure our messaging survives in a world where machines are talking directly to one another. In a world where the patient visits the doctor across a telemedicine system to get advice, and sometimes a prescription, there are many opportunities for the IoT to lend a hand.
Social listening shootout: Sysomos vs. Crimson Hexagon
One of the perennial favorite posts on Digital Rx is our Radian 6 vs. Sysomos shootout. We used both tools and tried to describe when each was best for different uses. Our tool of choice after this post changed from Radian 6 to Sysomos. Today we’re looking at Crimson Hexagon and Sysomos. Who will win this time?
My name is Brad, and I’m a Buzzfeed clicker…
Have you ever been sucked into a Buzzfeed list or quiz? I think there should be a support group for people who experience the empty feeling of clicking those links and finding shallow, uninformed content. "My name is Brad, and I'm a Buzzfeed clicker..." The key to buzzfeed’s success has nothing to do with its content, which is average at best, but its headlines and internal links.
FDA revisits print DTC ads; digital marketers take note
Today the FDA released the revised draft guidance document “Brief Summary and Adequate Directions for Use: Disclosing Risk Information in Consumer-Directed Print Advertisements and Promotional Labeling for Human Prescription Drugs.” Print guidance? Why is an update to risk handling in print DTC ads in Digital Rx?
Bill to force FDA adoption of the industry-proposed “One Click” rule?
What would you say if I told you that the “one click rule” is now in a Bill making its way through the political process in Washington and if passed would compel the FDA to accept it as an adequate way to handle safety information in space-limited channels?
Download Two Apps and Call Me in the Morning…
The evolution of pharma from a researcher, manufacturer, and distributor of molecules to a service provider, community builder, and health and wellness manager is imminent. The inevitable and inexorable trend of going “beyond the pill” demands focus on patient outcomes rather than drug sales, and is already putting tremendous pressure on the industry to transform in a manner akin to IBM shifting from hardware to software to consulting.
The FDA defines accessories
The FDA released a draft guidance to clarify what constitutes a medical device accessory and how the agency intends to regulate these devices. “Medical Device Accessories: Defining Accessories and Classification Pathway for New Accessory Types” is available on the and is open for public comments 90 days from the January 20 publication date – somewhere around Sunday, April 19, so we would conservatively put the last business day for comments at Friday, April 17.
The FDA exempts “general wellness” devices and apps
The FDA released a draft guidance titled “General Wellness: Policy for Low Risk Devices” to exempt common consumer devices from its regulatory oversight. With over 41 new wearable devices launched at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) there may be a very good reason the FDA is backing away from these products: The FDA is saying that the majority of general wellness devices do not require its oversight, and that it will not be specifically examining new devices.
It depends how you ask
On a recent large study (results soon to be released, stay tuned) we had the opportunity to ask similar questions in different ways. We reinforced our understanding that asking about concrete actions provides more accurate information than general opinions. When we asked users about specific actions we got one answer and when we asked about general activities we got a very different one.
PEW social media roundup 2015
The PEW Research Internet Project (“PEW”) last week released a report on US citizens’ use of social media channels. We use this report as a way to challenge the numbers put out by the different social platforms and look at where healthcare marketers may find the most return. This data is based on a survey of over 2,000 people 18+ using the PEW methodology of extensive telephone activity to reach a representative number.
Instagram opportunities for healthcare
In December Instagram surpassed Twitter for number of monthly active users (MAUs). This has caused marketers to wonder if they should take another look at the smartphone-based image sharing platform. Instagram, more than other social platforms, is a mobile play. It is tied to the camera in a smartphone (or tablet, but mainly smartphone) for uploading images and provides only a mobile-focused experience even on a desktop browser.
New year’s resolutions and behavior change
Did you make any resolutions this year? Were they the same ones you made last year? Research by psychologist Peter Herman shows that 60% of people will make the same pledge they did last year. He calls this the “false hope syndrome.” Why is this? Why do people repeat the same pledges only to fail over and over again? The chances of a person without a plan to actually succeed in their goal is only 4% according to Herman. Good. The first step to actually making a change is wanting it.
Research options: choosing the right fit
Marketing research these days is pretty much purchased “off the rack” for many projects. For marketing insights the goals are to reach audiences that are representative, extract truthful and accurate information, and do it in less time and for less budget than ever before. Choosing the right sources for these insights is more important than ever before under these constraints a failure in source selection can lead to inaccurate insights, which can lead to wasted marketing dollars.
The editorial calendar
Seventeen years ago today my wife and I were married. It was a nice ceremony, small, and held at her parents’ house. But I didn’t wish her a happy anniversary this morning, I accidentally wished her a happy birthday instead (her birthday is Dec 10, year undisclosed). This isn’t marriage-ending, it’s not even enough to warrant a second text message from my very understanding wife, but it wouldn’t have happened if I was following an editorial calendar.
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