Until now pharmaceutical companies could launch a branded Facebook page, post news and offers, yet disable comments by viewers to avoid monitoring for adverse event postings. Typical for corporate pharma facebook sites, product pages are harder to find.
However, Facebook has notified pharmaceutical companies that by August 15th they must allow dialogue on these walls. The reason was to enforce and preserve the social spirit of Facebook.
What choices do pharmaceutical companies have after this deadline? There seem to be three options:
(1) Keep their wall pages post free, rendering them like a static website and discouraging return visits and engagement. Per this example.
(2) Continual monitoring and vigilence of content for adverse events using a specialized app or wrapper around the facebook page, and reserving the right to screen for event tracking.
(3) Stay on the sidelines, hard to imagine viable in the long term, given the millions in target demographic consumers that regularly browse Facebook daily.
I would predict an increase in option (2) by this time next year.
