As mentioned not too long ago, I wrote about J&J leading the pharma world in launching a YouTube channel — JNJ Health. Well, I recently discovered (thanks to EyeOnFDA blog) that since then, some other pharma (and related) organizations have followed the lead and have launched their own YouTube channels as well, including:

1. Johnson & Johnson (JNJhealth) – Just launched an ADHD series
2. Abbott Labs (Abbott1888)
3. GSK (GSKvision)
4. PhRMA (SharingMiracles) – Industry trade organization
5. Eye On FDA (EyeOnFDA) – Aggregating all the above pharma channels

Apparently Liliy also started a “LillyDiabetes” YouTube Channel, but that mysteriously dissapeared a short while after it launched. In fact, here’s what Mark Senak (EyeOnFDA) had to say about the LillyDiabetes channel before it dissapered:

I didn’t expect Lilly to enter this space so early, given the fact that they still send out their press release updates by email and not RSS Feed like most large pharmaceutical companies. (That is like using the U.S. Postal Service snail mail instead of email.) But, what they have done is brilliant in
notion, if not execution.

Lilly has started a disease-specific channel to appeal on diabetes called LillyDiabetes. This is frankly a great idea and exactly the kind of thing I’ve been preaching here. If you want to see them, go to LillyDiabetes, or join me on the Eye on FDA channel, where I’ve placed them into a special Diabetes Playlist.

It’s too bad that I didn’t get a chance to see it before it went away, but it sounds like there wasn’t much of a real effort put behind it’s promotion anyway… “The Lilly channel only has 3 subscribers, I became the 4th this morning, even though it has been open for 8 weeks“.

So, for any other (Pharma) organizations that wish to launch their own YouTube channel, Mark goes on to offer some really good suggestions on how to succeed in this space:

• Issue an Web News Release (WNR) about the launch of the channel. If you don’t know what a WNR is, call me.
• Do some online editorial outreach (OEO) to key bloggers in this space to let them know of the launch and offer interviews with those behind it in print or podcast form regarding the launch, the objectives and the makeup of the channel. If you don’t know how to do OEO, call me.
• Get a linkage strategy going. Consider creating a widget with a link to your channel for putting up on key sites – like Lilly should have a Diabetes Channel Widget made up that could go onto the sites of large diabetes organizations and places where people with diabetes or at risk go for information, that would link them to the vids. If you don’t know how to do a linkage strategy or make a widget, call me.
• Consider allowing partners to post their vids on your channel. Are you going to be a C-Span, where you just show your own vids – or a Bravo – a channel that buys programming and puts it on their channel? By combining partners, you combine appeal and following of others to your own cache. Of Lilly’s 28 vids, most of them are vids produced by other sites. Perhaps you lose control over message, but you allow consumers/patients choice and variety.
• Put together an editorial calendar to let us know what’s coming, kind of like a TV Guide, so we can look forward to it and promote it ahead of time.
• Mention the channel on your blog, if you have one, like Johnson & Johnson’s blog – JNJBTW.
• Put it on your Web site (duh) prominently.
• Open a Twitter account (see my paper on New Media and Public Affairs). Twitter about your YouTube channel. (My twitter account is followed by several media outlets and even some government outlets).
• And oh, if you don’t know how to set up an RSS Feed for your press releases – yes, call me!
• And oh yeah, send out a press release.

And for your additional reading pleasure…here are some of the related links (from Eye on FDA) to various pharma YouTube Channel posts:
- http://www.eyeonfda.com/eye_on_fda/2008/09/johnson-johns-1.html
- http://www.eyeonfda.com/eye_on_fda/2008/08/another-pharma.html
- http://www.eyeonfda.com/eye_on_fda/2008/08/abbott-has-yout.html
- http://www.eyeonfda.com/eye_on_fda/2008/08/eye-on-fda-open.html
- http://www.eyeonfda.com/eye_on_fda/2008/08/gsk-opens-up-ne.html
- http://www.eyeonfda.com/eye_on_fda/2008/07/johnson-johnson.html