Healthcare communications and marketing news and information

Fard, here are some additional questions that you can ask:

* Are there any parallels that you see in other regulated industries? For example, you know that the Pharma industry is regulated by the FDA about what they can and can not say about "on label" versus "off label" use of products. Can you think of other heavily regulated industries like pharma but are not as far behind on blogging?

* Are bloggers in other industries changing the way companies work? Is the echo chamber that is so common in the blogosphere really making a dent in marketing messages and the way companies do business? Can this be extened to pharma?

* When you the growth of blogs in a particular industry or about a particular product do you see that as a positive for the industry/product or negative? Meaning, if most people start blogging about a product does that mean the product is generally superior or inferior? Do people find blogs are a good way to complain about a company that doesn't otherwise listen to the community?

I've given some tough questions which are long -- you can split them up into separate, smaller, questions as appropriate. Let me know if you need more.

-Shahid: Whew! These are tough questions. I'll break some of them up and choose a few to try and ask. Steve and I only have 30 minutes so I'll try to pack the questions in! :)

Best of luck with your interview! I'll be very interested to see it. Here's one question to which I'd like to know the answer.

*WOMMA’s web site gives the statistic that 85% of people polled believe word of mouth communication is credible compared to 70% who feel advertising and PR are. How would the added credibility of word of mouth marketing affect the healthcare industry and how they do business?

-From Fard: This is a great question Courtney, thanks for sending it in. I'll be sure to ask Steve this one.

I'm excited for you, Fard! Steve Rubel is even more blog-savvy than he is popular. I hope your interview with him goes great.

The one question I'd suggest you add to your list is whether Steve knows of any specific, top-notch, healthcare-related blogs - or what his favorites are. I've looked so far to little avail!

-Easton: Thanks for your question. I'll try to find time to ask Steve this question. BTW, I have lots of info on popular healthcare-related blogs. I'll be sure to post on this subject soon.

GlaxoSmithKline recently annouced a major word of mouth campaign with 8,000 employees, does this indicate that GlaxoSmithKline is following in the cluetrain?

When do you see pharma companies starting to blog?

How would you help a pharma company build relevant content on a blog?