It’s no secret that as an industry, pharmaceutical companies spend billions of dollars a year on marketing, yet public distrust continues to grow.  Why?  The system is broken.  The tried and true methods of marketing for pharmaceutical companies are quickly losing relevance.  To augment these tactics, many pharmaceutical companies have started to consider how to better leverage their public relations programs by tapping in to social media.  But the landscape for social media in pharma is littered with landmines—regulatory, culturally and tactically.

That’s where PRforPharma.com comes in to the picture.  I hold no allusions that there are significant barriers to successfully implementing social media programs for pharmaceutical companies.  But I also firmly believe that it can be done with the right mix of strategy, determination and execution.

On this blog, I will attempt to address the challenges facing pharmaceutical companies when it comes to effectively utilizing social media and public relations.  I look forward to chatting with you!

One quick programming note: I posted a few old blog posts I wrote from various other blogs including SHIFT’s (my employer) staff blog, Slice.  I did this for a couple of reasons—not the least of which is to get some content up here in a hurry.  But more than that, I think these posts are indicative of how hard social media for pharma really is.  Some of these posts first appeared in 2007 and are still relevant today.  That alone should tell you something.  There are a lot of issues to grapple with and two years later we are still trying to solve the same problems.  Progress has been made, but there is a lot more to go.

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