Facebook, Twitter, etc., new marketing tools

It's a brave new pharma-marketing world out there, with more and more hospitals and docs barring drug reps and companies turning to electronic detailing to get their messages across. But the online sales pitch has just begun. Networking tools like Facebook and Twitter will soon be de rigeur, replacing blogs as the must-use online tools. Or so says the Pharma Marketing Blog, whose author has been experimenting with a handful of connection-making sites and even Google Maps. The logic is tough to argue with, especially with examples like the one from a Dell exec who says the company's Twitter activity brought in a half-million in new business last year.

Coincidentally, there's an item in an internal-communcations trade pub about Pfizer's new RSS feed and its plans for a "Pfacebook" site. The article looks at these two initiatives from an internal point of view, but how long can it be before the drugs giant uses similar means to reach its customers?

- read the Pharma Marketing item
- check out a BusinessWeek story about e-Marketing
- find the Pfizer piece at the Internal Communications Hub