In the News…

A couple of very noteworthy announcements, debacles and funnies this week in the world of marketing and social media…

First, the funny…Twitter, changes its status…According to today’s Cynopsis, “Roger, Rerun and Dwayne would be proud. Twitter is officially changing the update question it poses to its users from “What Are You Doing?” to “What’s Happening?” The idea is to represent the platform’s evolution from a simple status update mechanism to also encompass “accidents, organizing events, sharing links, breaking news and reporting stuff their dad says,” says founder Biz Stone.”

And, if you don’t want anything leaked then don’t tell my Aunt Claire (may she rest in peace) OR, don’t say anything at all on Twitter! Twitter was abuzz Thursday with news that Oprah Winfrey would announce the end of her longtime talk show this morning. Winfrey is calling it quits in September 2011 to spend more time developing her cable channel. With 8,000 tweets about the news every hour, Oprah trended on Twitter even as the much-anticipated “New Moon” film is released. Read more from Mashable.

So, how did you learn about Prilosec, or Lipitor, or Nexium? On TV? Got an ailment, well, Pharma wants to be able to talk all about it using Social Media. The big hoo ha over the past week has been the FDA hearings surrounding social media. I think this has by far been the biggest industry buzz of late, far surpassing Ashton Kutcher. Reason being…well, Pharma is serious about using the medium, and the FDA is listening. It was mind blowing how these hearings took place so fast, and what a buzz it is. With all of the regulation in the past, the Pharma Cos don’t want to be kept from having a “conversation” with their consumers, and, the shocking thing is, the FDA is willing to listen. Look below for some articles about the goings on.

Lastly, ROI, yes, that dreadful acronym we Marketers and Agencies are held to…What does it all mean, especially as it relates to Social Media? We have that challenge all the time of defining success metrics a/k/a KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), benchmarks and the like. This is a great and compelling article from Social Media Today, with a few opposing arguments taking place as to how to approach ROI. We’d love to hear your comments. Read on…

We’ll be back next week with an exciting announcement. Stay tuned!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Shelly Palmer: Oprah Will End the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2011: MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer November 20, 2009 (huffingtonpost.com)
• Gov 2.0,The FDA, and Social Media (directmarketingobservations.com)
• What Enterprise Can Learn From the FDA Social Media Hearings (socialmediatoday.com)
• Google Unveils New Pharma Ads (pharmexec.com)
• Twitter now asks, ‘What’s happening?’ (news.cnet.com)