Blogs have potential for pharmaceutical marketers, but blog with caution.

Recently, I wrote about how pharmaceuticals can utilize chat rooms for marketing. Blogs are another area of interest within the marketing community, but require special considerations and approaches.

Blogs

A "blog," short for "Web log," is a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author. Blogs seem to be going in two opposing directions -- they're being looked at as niche marketing sites, and they're being customized by marketers as an extension of existing online initiatives.

For most people, the appeal of Web logs is their often informal or personal nature and the frequency with which they are updated. But it is these very characteristics that limit their usefulness as corporate marketing tools, especially in heavily regulated industries.

RSS Feeds

Many blogs are syndicated for distribution beyond their originating Web sites using RSS (Rich Site Summary). RSS is a form of XML which enables content from one site to be easily syndicated on another. It also allows end users to quickly browse through multiple blogs and other feeds using news feed aggregator software -- a procedure very much like browsing through your email inbox. These aggregators can either be standard computer applications, running in their own windows, or can be integrated with the user's desktop. Sites that want others to pick up their content develop an RSS document and register it with an RSS publisher.

Most people don't get their RSS feeds from a central source. Instead they tend to gather them over time. Very often, RSS feed recommendations can be found on someone's blog (also called a blogroll).

How are blogs being used?

The personal aspects of blogs make word-of-mouth advertising most effective, and a couple of approaches exist as far as business-branded blogs are concerned. Some companies have launched them to provide a window into their businesses or to humanize their image by allowing consumers to interact with employees. Google's corporate blog is one example. Some clients develop consumer blogs as an added-value service, providing third-party news and information relating to their businesses or, in the case of Nike, they create promotion-specific microsites  in conjunction with existing blogs.

Another option is advertising on contextually-relevant blog sites -- like those dealing with high cholesterol, hypertension, getting the most out of a doctor visit, etc. This type of contextual advertising can be very tricky for pharma companies, posing serious legal risks if an ad were to appear in close proximity to undesirable or negative content. Since it also "taints" blogs in the eyes of viewers, this may be the exact opposite of the result pharma companies are seeking.

Blogging and pharma

In the realm of pharmaceutical marketing, the main drawback with this approach is that the very nature of what a blog is supposed to be -- interesting, timely information delivered from a very personal perspective -- runs into many logistical and regulatory issues when talking about condition treatments. 

A better opportunity may be to use RSS to enable other sites to pick up and distribute relevant, accurate information about the brand. This can be a good way of ensuring that credible information is widely available throughout the Internet. The success of such a tactic may rely on the condition being treated, any stigma it may have, and the perception within the general community about the pharmaceutical advertiser.

In this way, a client could position itself as a provider of unbiased, timely and important information in one easy-to-use tool. Because most blog users check their blogs at least 10 times a day, the need for continually updated and fresh information will increase the likelihood that the content will be syndicated. To that end, one would need a well-planned, ongoing editorial plan to ensure information does not get stale.

There are, however, a few things to be aware of that add a cautionary tone to this recommendation: Because virtually anyone will be able to access and distribute the information, the brand will have no control on where its content resides.

This could, obviously, have a negative impact if sites are using the information in a manner that is inconsistent with the brand’s overall marketing efforts. 

Debrianna Obara is media director for i-FRONTIER, an aQuantive company. i-FRONTIER is ranked among the top 100 interactive agencies by AdAge, AdWeek and Media magazines, and has been honored with awards from groups including AdAge, Cannes, Deloitte & Touche, PricewaterhouseCoopers, American Advertising Federation, KPMG and others.