Should you company have a head of social media? ...Well maybe yes, but not for long.

I am afraid I have a confession to make. I often google myself.


Now this is can be seen as a form of egotism, self importance and possibly even a bit delusional. No, I do not think I am very important. However for anyone who works regularly with the media and especially with a specific focus on social media, this is an important thing to do.

For any other regular ‘self searchers’ out there I am sure most of you will be haunted. Either by another more successful individual (for me a Dallas stockbroker, a photographer and even somebody who works for the ‘government’), or by something you said or were reported to have said.

These comments always defy the laws of natural search to linger towards the top of your page while the feature interview you gave to the New York Times languishes on google page 4.

The thing that most haunts me on my virtual shelf is a comment I made while on a panel discussion in Berlin in March 2010. I made the pronouncement that we should not aspire to ‘Social Media Managers’ within pharmaceuticals. The point was supposed to be challenging. It is a philosophical position I still stand by.

If we separate digital from marketing, social media from communications we make a step backwards. In principle both broad digital strategy and social media need to be intertwined and embedded in the organisation. Only then can we develop fully integrated functional plans. Only then can pharma fully embrace the fantastic opportunities that the new conversation presents.

There is a small problem with my argument however; I have just become a Digital Strategy & Social Media Manager. Right. Well I have three obvious choices.

One, try and get the offending comment removed from google and then continue as normal. Nothing to see here, move along.

Two, admit to a road to Damascus conversion (around the time I was offered the job) and spend the next 12 months chastising organisations who do not give enough importance to the difficult and essential role of developing and managing social media engagement.

Three, admit that in the perfect world I was right but that in very complex and conservative corporate environments, we sometimes need someone to enable multiple functions to develop aligned strategy. Someone to empower people to engage on their own terms.

I am going with option three.

The truth is that being the first company to launch this platform, the first brand to do disease awareness through this channel or allowing negative comments on this website are all interesting distractions from something far more important. All of us who work in pharma understand that the challenge is more about corporate behaviour.

If as an organisation you believe in really listening to people, understand that criticism can often be more valuable than praise and understand that listening is not enough. You need to be seen to listen, it needs to be public. If you really believe this then twitter, Facebook, Youtube are easy.

If you believe that we do have tremendous value to add to patient support and education, although not as a single source, asset sharing will not be a problem.

I could go on. The important thing is that the company *gets* it.

So do people need a Social Media Manager? Probably, but they need to work themselves out of a job in 12-18 months.

Come back in a year and a half and I will be trying to remove another comment from my google search...