Facebook Connect--so last year, but not really

Last year, Facebook—the most visited social network in the world—launched something called Facebook Connect. What this does is allow you to comment Facebook style on third-party websites and publish to your network of friends—never having to leave those third-party sites. Obama did it via CNN. eMusic launched it last week (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29369646/). CitySearch is in Beta. Brands are jumping on the Facebook bandwagon—a fast-moving vehicle that we should all keep our eyes on.

So what, right?

Well, many of our clients as well as the industry at large are asking the same thing—but the key point is that they are asking. We can guess that Pharma won’t be jumping on board any time soon being that comments are real-time which means AE risk, figuring out who will monitor, who will be in charge of crisis control, etc. BUT we need to be ahead of the game. We need to extend the actions we want users to take (buying products, rating/ranking products or leaving comments) into the Facebook stream.

And what will probably happen re: Pharma is that people will start talking about drugs, side effects, etc. on sites that adopt Facebook Connect or allow comments in another way. And Pharma will be forced to read and ultimately be forced to respond.

Social media isn’t new—it’s just so much easier with the web, Facebook, email, texting, etc. We have to keep up. So let’s be cognizant of what is happening out there, and make a little money doing so. This is what clients will pay for.