I had to laugh.
It appears GlaxoSmithKline have been the subject of a social media presentation carried out by Gary Monk, a Healthcare Innovation Consultant.
The slideshow features the GlaxoSmithKline Facebook page and Monk praises the efforts of Glaxo.
The presentation was shown to an audience at the SMI Social Media Conference in London back in January. I sincerely hope they enjoyed it as much of it contains some of my posts on the Glaxo Facebook page.
Monk writes:
"GSK was used as an example of best practice. I have no professional affiliation to the GSK Facebook page and have not interviewed GSK on this interesting subject.All observations and opinions are my own."
Monk refers to me as a "persistent detractor" at the same time praising Glaxo for allowing my posts but not responding to them. [Fig 1] (Click on all images to enlarge)
 |
| Fig 1 |
Well, Mr Monk, if you think not answering serious questions about a company whose drugs have been implicated in young children carrying out suicide is worthy of praise then I have to question your ethics.
Monk's presentation continues with another screen shot of one of my replies to Glaxo, again he refers to me as a "detractor" [Fig 2]
 |
| Fig 2 |
Monk also points out that Glaxo receive many positive replies on their Facebook page. He acknowledges that the positive replies are actually ex or current GlaxoSmithKline employees. [Fig 3]
 |
| Fig 3 |
The presentation points out how Glaxo are able to post about their successes, something I covered on this blog in a post entitled, "The New York Times and GlaxoSmithKline". It was basically something I wrote about how Glaxo love to cover themselves in garlands.
Monk then continues his presentation with another screenshot, he adds, "Again, the same individuals attack these achievements and accuse GSK of hypocrisy" [Fig 4]
 |
| Fig 4 |
Slide 21 of the 30 in the presentation sees Monk highlighting a response from Elaine Billings, although Monk has chose to redact her surname [Fig 5]. You'll note that Monk claims that "GSK have been very brave to allow these types of posts to be shared."
 |
| Fig 5 |
Elaine wrote a guest post for my blog a few weeks ago. "Antidepressants Killed My Son" can be read here.
In slide 24 Monk concludes the following:
"What GSK do brilliantly is post regular news items,particularly on positive news items, not directly related to GSK. This helps fill the FaceBook wall with positive commentary and quickly ‘bury’negative comments further down the news feed."
Yup, Glaxo are the past masters at burying negative news Mr Monk, thanks for confirming the tactics.
Glaxo executive Bonnie Rossello wrote in a 1997 memo on what the company would do if forced to conduct animal studies on Paxil, "If neg, results can bury," she wrote. This memo was read at the opening of the Lyam Kilker trial. Lyam had been born with heart defects after his mother ingested Paxil [known as Seroxat in the UK] during her pregnancy. The jury in the Kilker trial found Glaxo's Paxil did indeed cause the child to be born with heart defects. Another example of GSK's bravery, huh?
The presentation by Monk concludes with his findings that the positive comments significantly outweigh the negative comments. May be a good idea to change that then.
I hope tea and cakes were provided to the audience of this presentation.
Glaxo's Facebook page can be found here.
Bob Fiddaman... the persistent detractor.
JOIN THE FIDDAMAN BLOG ON FACEBOOK
No comments: