Healthcare Social Media: Post 2

WebMD is the key online health destination, and for good reason. Their site is enormous, accurate, and authoritative, and their seeming lock on the ad community has helped them attract more ad money and invest more in their site's voluminous content.

There are new challengers, among them health care ad networks, but so far WebMD is weathering the storm rather successfully.

One of the interesting challenges of online health care information is that certain key sectors of advertising are reticent to support UGC communities. It used to be that pharma, for example, wouldn't touch UGC with an 11 foot pole. In the last two or so years it appears the rules have relaxed somewhat -- especially since drug and other companies simply need more ad venues now that a significantly larger proportion of their ad spend is going to online.

Nevertheless, UGC is generally rather undersupported advertiser-wise, especially in health care.

To address this, WebMD has found a way to use moderated discussions, featuring MDs and other experts, to provide ad-safer environments while also ensuring greater accuracy than in UGC-centric forums. On WebMD there are loads of them, carefully moderated. And naturally the drug ads are there as well.

Let me pause for a moment to ask HOW ON EARTH MebMD gets doctors to do this? Doctors are busy busy busy, and while some are comfy in the celebrity spotlight, most are far more focused on their patients than on millions of faceless viewers. It is a testament to the strength and reputation of the site that they can get so many doctors and other health professionals to participate.

But back to the site. Other "member to member" forums also appear, but based upon my relentless 5 minutes or so of clicking, these tend not to bear drug ads but rather general advertising.

But whatever the monetization model, the communities are moderated well, and are very informative. The actual moderation, it appears, is not performed by the MDs or other experts but by dedicated community members, which is a great way to leverage the passion of interested people.

Strong community moderation would seem highly beneficial if one is trying to create a place where people can get information and comfort from their peers.

UGC forums will never be as authoritative as the other editorial sections of WebMD, but that's really not what they are for. WebMDs forums give people a chance to connect with one another, which can be very positive as people take an ever greater role in their own health and wellbeing.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.