Can pharmaceutical/healthcare companies leverage social media to better understand their end consumers - the patients? Anyone outside the pharma world might quickly say sure, it seems like a slam-dunk. But inside the pharma world, there are real challenges to taking advantage of the resource that social media represents. Pharma/healthcare companies are very highly regulated in how they communicate with patients, and it’s natural that for many companies, this would translate into a feeling of being limited in how they listen to patients as well.

One area of concern relates to Adverse Events (AEs) with prescription medications. Social media is a different type of communication than what pharma companies are used to getting from patients - it’s informal, and it isn’t necessarily written with pharma companies as the intended audience. Before diving into these waters, many companies want an answer to a key question: How often are AEs mentioned within social media discussion, and do these mentions meet the FDA’s four criteria for AE reporting?

We decided to find out. Earlier this year, Nielsen Online conducted an analysis of 500 healthcare messages across multiple disease categories to understand the extent of AE mentions within social media discussion. While almost all of the messages would meet at least one of the FDA’s AE reporting criteria, we found just 4 (less than 1%) that mention a specific adverse experience, and only 1 that includes all four of the criteria needed to file an AE report with the FDA; that message described a chemotherapy patient who experienced a side effect not listed with the treatment, and asked whether this side effect might mean the treatment is working. The analysis is described in full in a newly published whitepaper available here.

So back to my original question: Can pharma/healthcare companies leverage social media to better understand their patients? Of course, we think the answer is yes - and we’re not alone, judging from the work that many of our clients are doing.

Recently the Nielsen Online Automotive Team developed and released to clients the premiere edition of our “Monthly Automotive Industry Overview.” In the wake of the surprising announcement that Chrysler will no longer offer vehicle leases, it seemed appropriate to focus our hot topic analysis on consumer discussions about leases.

We discovered that consumers rely on one another when researching vehicle leases online by asking questions, sharing lease experiences and directing others to Edmunds.com for more information. Our Association Map revealed that luxury brands and vehicles have the strongest association to lease discussion, while Chrysler and Cerberus emerge in late July as a main topic of lease conversation. Additionally, GMAC and Honda Finance are the only two financial institutions that are closely correlated to lease discussion.

In the coming months, each edition of the “Monthly Automotive Industry Overview” will include staple features such as top blog posts, most-cited online news articles, “buzz” trends of the top six automotive manufacturers, as well as the key topics that are influencing online discussion about the automotive industry. It will also showcase Web traffic metrics and a “hot topic” section designed to highlight the biggest news or emerging issues in the automotive industry for that month.

If you are interested in a copy of this first “Monthly Automotive Industry Overview,” we would love to share it with you. Please contact Larry Black at 562.947.2360 or larry.black@nielsen.com for a copy. Please remember to check back here each month as we continue to update the blog with news about our latest automotive hot topics.

Since becoming part of the larger Nielsen family, we at Nielsen Online have been able to pursue cross-media research more than ever before  with exciting results. Ken Cassar has blogged about his findings regarding the merits of multi-channel retail. Results of a recent Nielsen Online survey show that most consumer-electronics shoppers turn to the Web to conduct product research, but are more likely to make their final purchase in-store. Moreover, multi-channel shoppers tend to spend more in store than offline-only shoppers by as much as 61 percent. These two channels can compliment rather than compete with each other, if retailers build on their unique strengths.

Perhaps to an even greater extent, media brands also find themselves appealing to this free-ranging consumer. ESPN, a true cross-media brand, has been working with Nielsen to determine how ESPN fans navigate across platforms. It might surprise you to learn that users of both ESPN TV and ESPN.com actually spent 27 percent more time watching ESPN TV than TV-only users and 50 percent more time at ESPN.com than Internet-only users. In this case, the more sports, the better!

You can find more details about each of these studies in this month’s Nielsen Consumer Insights newsletter. I encourage you to check it out - it’s another valuable resource based on Nielsen’s wide range of research services and analyst insights.

With the first “online Olympics” in the record books - the records broken are notable. More than 10,500 athletes representing 205 countries participated, with 87 nations taking home medals from at least one of the 302 medal events. One-hundred and thirty-two Olympics records were broken and the athletes set 43 new world records. And, of course, Michael Phelps set a few bars of his own.

But enough about those records…what did we mere mortals do online over the course of the games? The interest in China, continued improvements in technology and the prevalence of content on a 24/7 basis drove high online “participation” among U.S. fans during these Olympic games as measured in online media usage.

For details on Olympics-related Web traffic, online advertising and “buzz,” please see my complete wrap-up of the online games in the Information Center on our home page.