As an analyst, I am interested in how people access information.

My focus is social media. And my geographical location is Europe. But I can’t limit my study of how information is accessed to either of these facts. I’d miss too much.

I’d lose insights into what makes buzz valuable. As discussed in earlier blogs, offline events impact online buzz.  For example, word-of-mouth in English is limited to neither a national nor a linguistic audience.

My most recent research into buzz and its origins has been in the realm of TV medical dramas.

Why? A European Union proposed directive may open up the European market for medical goods and services. According to the Directive, an EU citizen will soon be able to mail order or even travel to another EU state to purchase a medical good or service. European health care consumers are encouraged to do this when in need of a medical good or service that they feel is not available or not adequately provided in their own state. The EU citizen’s home health policy must then reimburse the citizen for the cost of the procedure and the price of related medications. This at the same time that marketing regulations are changing

Citizens in the EU will have more choices when it comes to individual health care. But how will they know about all the different options available to them in medical care? In reading more and more forums and blogs, I noticed that the ideas and information accessed by potential cross-border European health care consumers came from (largely United States produced) medical dramas.

House is a particular cross-border favorite. The drama features the British actor Hugh Laurie as a sarcastic curmudgeon who also happens to be a brilliant doctor. Laurie plays the infamous Dr. House of the drama’s title. Each episode follows House and his team of diagnosticians as they pursue the cause and then the cure of an obscure disease. Viewers are attracted to the show by the drama’s colorful characters, but viewers leave each episode, buzz suggests, with more than just a sense of having been entertained.

Viewers leave with information. Viewers leave with information about possible medical conditions, medical procedures, and medical knowledge. Viewers leave, ultimately, with modified expectations about what kind of health care they can and should expect for their family, friends, and themselves.

I enjoy the idea of an American medical drama starring a British theater actor influencing Spanish and Dutch ideas of modern medicine. As an analyst, I also enjoy following the medications and procedures introduced, and watching the online buzz coalesce around specific ideas and procedures. I am interested to see how this is going to interact with the new options available to the European health care consumers and producers.

You have just been invited to a dinner party and you know someone you like will be there. He/she has just taken a job with Adidas in their social media outreach division and to impress you want to get up to speed with all that is going on in blogs and social networks in the fastest time possible. Let the checklist below get you up to speed in a matter of hours.

Great sites for free blog and social media search -

1. http://www.trendpedia.com (Attentio)
2. http://www.Quintura.com
3. http://www.Grokker.com
4. http://www.Silobreaker.com
5. http://www.Trendrr.com
6. http://www.BoardReader.com 

Great site for social media presentations:

http://www.Slideshare.com, just search for WOM, social media, buzz or viral marketing

Amazingly buzzed sites:

1. http://www.Digg.com – vote for stories
2. http://www.Delicious.com – social bookmarking
3. http://www.Twitter.com – micro blogging
4. http://www.Jaiku.com – micro blogging
5. http://www.FriendFeed.com – aggregator of most social media sites – blogging, twitter etc

Essential reading:

1. http://www.micropersuasion.com (Steve Rubel) (PR/Social media)
2. http://www.jaffejuice.com/ (Joseph Jaffe) (PR/Social media)
3. http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/ (Danah Boyd) (Sociology/Social Networks/Social media)
4. http://redcouch.typepad.com/ (Shel Israel) (PR/Social Media)
5. http://www.charleneli.com/blog/blog_index.html (Charlene Li) (WOMM/Analyst/Social media)
6. http://loiclemeur.com/ (Loic LeMeur) (Entrepreneur/Event Organiser/Social media)
7. http://uk.techcrunch.com/ (Mike Butcher) (Journalist/Start Up spotter/Social media)
8. http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/ (Jeremiah Omyiwang) (Analyst/Social media)
9. http://datamining.typepad.com/ (Matthew Hurst) (Social media analysis/Natural language/social media monitoring)

My colleagues and I are social media analysts.

I think that the purpose of this position should be explained so that our clients can take better advantage of our skills.

Social media monitoring is not Google. It is not search.

Social media is conversation.

The way in which people, online or offline, discuss ideas is not the similar to the way in which people search for information. Search is personal. Social is, well, social.

Searchers look for official reports regarding the “efficacy” of a drug. Patients and people talk about how our pain medication “works”. The concept, efficacy, is implied in the conversation.  The word, “efficacy”, itself is never mentioned in a social exchange.  A searcher, a Googler, would use “efficacy” and “aspirin”, in a search. A social media analyst would investigate online conversation using a series of terms like “aspirin”, “pain medication”, “headache”, “works”, “useful”, “relief”, “relieves”, etc. Social media analysts specialise in the investigation of discussion and conversation, not in search.

This can get complicated, especially in the European sphere of social media. Consider, as our Italian analyst notes, the gender of an Italian adjective. If something is good, then good can be buono or buona, dependent upon if the good thing is a feminine or masculine noun. Then, if the noun is plural, an “s” can be added to either adjective form.

German, our Austrian analyst observes, complicates conversation through demanding that words change their format dependent upon their position in the sentence.  Our French-speaking analyst adds that there’s also the issue of blogger/forum slang. She points to a USA MTV show now broadcast in France and Belgium that uses what might be “verlan” or Arabic French slang in its title. Slang in France has caused even the purist French authorities to reconsider the encroachment English and Arabic are having on the French language.

All this conversational nuance must be considered in creating a successful social media project to monitor and measure topics of interest to you or your client. The position of the analyst is also helpful in determining things like

• the location of certain types of buzz (the British “Bobbies” are located in London, the “Garda” in Dublin, and the NYPD in New York…or the movies),
• the level of education embedded in the buzz demographic (kids discuss a “runny nose” and doctors blog about “excessive mucus”), and
• the popularity of the blogger (how many people are quoting Perez Hilton in the social media gossip sphere?).

So before buying into the social media software with the complete confidence a semi-pro Googler, think about the information that you are looking to capture out of the online conversation.

Then consider a conversation with a social media analyst.

With best-selling pharmaceuticals like Lipitor set to lose their patent in the next five years, are new generics are poised to replace more expensive brand names?

A Guardian article notes that the industry predicts that yes, generics are a large part of the future of pharma.

We’re doing a lot of pharmaceutical study here at Attentio, too. And we have a slightly different understanding of the future of generics in pharma.

Buzz about pharmaceuticals makes up one of the most consistent areas of online WOM (word of mouth) growth. Patients and health care consumers are increasingly aware of their choices in both pharma brands and generic products. They go online to discover pharma products and services that are old and new, local and foreign, and—more importantly—good and bad.

When a brand beats out the generics in WOM, it’s because the brand has a relationship with its consumers, the patients that have tried and come to trust the brand. Tried and true brands have proven their efficacy.

Trusted brands have beat fears about side effects or potential complications. People rely on certain brand name pharmaceuticals more than they trust their local hospitals or even their national public health systems. They trust these brands because these brands have worked, are working, and will, patients prophesize, continue to work.

Patients reveal their bias towards beloved brands in the buzz. In forums, blogs, and message boards dedicated to conditions, illnesses, and general health, certain brands trample their competitors in patient reviews, in online WOM, in buzz.

And in sales.

Buzz can make or breaks a brand’s reputation in pharmaceuticals. P2P communication (patient to patient) divides the good, the bad, and the ugly in available medications. Patients dissect the side effects and the relief that a pharmaceutical brings when added to a patient’s health regimen. This kind of word of mouth reputation will hopefully encourage pharmaceutical companies to build better medications, filling the global health market with quality products and services, rather than just quantity.