Recently I found an article on the
American Marketing Association's website
about drug companies and their advertising now moving to social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter. For quite some time now pharmaceutical companies have been allowed to put up banner adds on Google and various other websites but moving to social networks is a whole new step. I think that marketing your brand is great and every company should have the freedom to do so-but drug companies on Facebook and Twitter? There have already been problems reported with this type of advertising. In the article
, Drug Companies to Get Social Media Marketing Guidelines, it states that drug company's Facebook pages have contained comments from their prescription users talking about adverse effects or untrue statements about the company's drug. This can cause serious problems and give the public the freedom to post false content on these social network pages that millions of people see. Another problem, that was first seen in 2009, is that the drug companies do not have enough space on their online adds to put side effects; this is another big concern for consumers seeing these adds while casually surfing the web.
Personally, I think places on the Internet, such as Facebook and Twitter, are the wrong places for pharmaceutical companies to advertise their product. I believe banner adds are good and can be educational but not Facebook pages that are open for the widespread public to comment on.
So, do you think there is a time and place for certain marketing?
Article:
Drug Companies to Get Social Media Marketing Guidelines
