Editor’s voice – April 2011
Rebecca Aris
pharmaphorum
Welcome to my first editorial blog - a monthly feature giving me the chance to highlight some of the fantastic content on the site that you may have missed and to let you know what we’ve got coming up. You may have noticed that we’ve increased our weekly content from three articles a week to a new piece every working day this year (noting that we’re in the middle of two long weekends here in the UK).
As it’s so busy at pharmaphorum we thought it was about time that you got an idea of what’s going on behind the scenes and what you can expect to see on the site in the coming months.
What’s on now - pharma faces old and new
A lot of great authors have stepped up to the plate and agreed to regular pieces on pharmaphorum. We are pleased to feature Alex Butler’s regular insider’s view on pharma (with a definite social media slant), Emma D’Arcy’s review of the latest digital initiatives and Jean Samuel offering her perspectives on a range of areas from compliance to e-marketing. We hope you’re also enjoying the beginner’s guide to getting started with social media through Faisal Ahmed’s series co-authored with our very own Paul Tunnah and René van den Bos’s series on ‘Enterprise 2.0: where to begin’.
"A lot of great authors have stepped up to the plate and agreed to regular pieces on pharmaphorum."
But it’s not all digital and we’re aiming to cover every aspect of pharma and address global issues. To this end, Valentina Jaramillo recently began a new series on the emerging market of Latin America, an area we want to feature more on, so do get in touch if you fancy writing a piece on other emerging geographies. We’re interested in covering as many areas across the globe as possible and it’s nice to see a developing readership from new regions, including South America, Russia, China and India!
As well as some familiar authors we’ve been able to feature a lot of new faces on pharmaphorum too. For example, Steve Pollack recently offered his insight on how procurement and agencies could work better together, plus Jeff Waite kindly interviewed Leela Barham on our behalf to better understand the benefit of patient involvement in decision making by the UK’s cost-effectiveness watchdog NICE (The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence). For any others who are thinking of getting involved and writing something, don’t hesitate to get in touch – we don’t bite and would love to hear from you.
With all this increase in content, it’s been hard work but extremely rewarding and it’s nice to see the effort rewarded in our global readership, which has almost doubled since the end of last year. In addition, we’ve got a good split of visitors from the US, Europe and other geographies, which we’re keen to maintain. Welcome to all our new readers and thank you to all of you for your support!
Looking ahead - more variety
Not happy with sticking to just the written format of content, which would make our lives far too easy, we’ve been dabbling in the media of video interviews. Several pharma folk have already given their time to offer their opinions and experience via this format, all of which can be viewed on our YouTube channel and on our site, most notably in our ‘Social pharma faces’ series. The finished interviews don’t get to their glossy finished format without some professional help from our friends at OMP digital, Stanton Media and IDEA Pharma. However, we’re also looking to produce more video content, covering different areas and also focussing on industry leaders.
We’re also offering increased coverage of events in the form of post-event reports, such as the recent piece on the Biotrinity event in the UK. You can also expect video coverage of the recent eyeforpharma SFE Europe event to be on pharmaphorum shortly, with Paul Tunnah playing the part of ‘roving reporter’! Whilst we love to feature these pieces we’re not always able to attend such conferences, so do let us know if you fancy submitting a summary yourself.
"Great content can only be appreciated when people know about it."
Finally, we’re looking to cover broader functional areas, so we have a more even spread of articles across all aspects of pharma, such as commercial, R&,D, communications, regulatory and operations. As part of this process we have plans to develop an advisory board over the next few months to help guide the content. If you’re keen to be involved just let us know!
More outreach
Great content can only be appreciated when people know about it. To make sure this happens we have to shout about it! As we’re not allowed to stand outside in the street and physically shout about it we’re trying to use multiple online channels to flag new content and allow others to share it.
As you may have already seen we have our own Facebook page, which is updated daily when new content goes live on the site. We’ve also started playing around with polls here, with the current question being ‘Should pharma companies engage on Facebook without formal regulatory body guidelines?’ It’s pretty much neck and neck at the moment, so if you haven’t voted yet then have your say!
Of course we also have our trusty Twitter account with a strong and continually growing band of loyal followers (over 1,400 of you now!). We are currently offering a free mobile health report, courtesy of research2guidance for any new followers throughout April. So if you don’t yet follow us then there are still a few days left to take advantage of this offer.
There are also plans to open up our Linked group to let you follow our content this way, plus post your comments, so watch this space.
Events
As if we weren’t kept busy enough, we’ve been teaming up and partnering with lots of events companies to ensure our conference listings are as complete and up to date as possible. Through some of these partnerships we are able to offer exclusive discounts to pharmaphorum readers so it’s worth keeping an eye on our events page. In addition, we are currently offering a huge 30% off the price of registration for two upcoming eyeforpharma events, KOL and Stakeholder engagement and Sales Force Effectiveness USA 2011. We we only have five tickets in total for each (some of which have already gone at the time of writing), so be quick to click the link for the code if you’re interested!
"I know it’s a cliché but this site really is for you, our audience, and we want to make sure that our content is living up to your personal interests."
Stay updated and get in touch
You can be sure there will never be a quiet moment on pharmaphorum so if you don’t want to miss any content then just register to receive our newsletter. We also flag our exclusive site discounts on events featured by our global conference partners in this newsletter (some of which are first come first served), so it’s a great way to avoid missing great deals.
But we also want to hear from you. I know it’s a cliché but this site really is for you, our audience, and we want to make sure that our content is living up to your personal interests. If you have any suggestions for articles, new series or fancy writing something yourself then do get in touch. Whatever your suggestions, we promise to read them and respond.
As a final request, if you find the site useful then please let your colleagues know about it too – the more the merrier. Thanks again for all your support and we look forward to seeing you again soon.
The next part of this series can be viewed here.
About the author:
Rebecca Aris is Managing Editor of pharmaphorum, the dynamic online information and discussion portal for the pharmaceutical industry. For queries she can be reached through the site contact form.
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