x-posted from www.thatdigitalstuff.com
The FDA is currently hosting a visitor survey on their website, www.FDA.gov, which asks a number of usability and information preferences. Among these questions are sections about a visitor’s social media usage, which is interesting in light of the recent FDA hearing on social media and the pharma industry.
The FDA held their briefing, the first ever on social media, earlier this month and invited experts from various industries including publishers, ad agencies and pharma companies. The FDA, which has notoriously ignored most digital advertising mediums and turned a blind eye to social media, now seems to be acknowledging the application of social media for consumers.
The web survey in itself is not unusual, but the question about social media may be a prelude to usage of such by the FDA themselves. One only needs to look at how successful the CDC has been in recent years, to understand the impact of social media on information dissemination and community outreach within the public sector. If the FDA were to utilize social platforms in a similar way, they could speed up the passing of information to consumers, marketers and manufacturers alike. FDA guidelines would be better known and the veil could be lifted on what is and isn’t allowed. Even more important, if the FDA were to go so far as to use social media to engage and gather feedback from the public, than consumers, marketers and manufacturers could contribute to a more transparent conversation with the FDA. Admittedly, this seems a long way off and until we know the FDA’s full position on social media usage, we can’t expect that they will be using it in this way. But, one can hope.
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