Drug Ratings, we’re told, is the first and only global peer-to-peer prescription drug review system sourced exclusively from verified licensed physicians.

With hundreds of thousands of ratings and comments from doctors worldwide, the platform is the largest global database of physician feedback on drugs.

Integrated into the SERMO social network, Drug Ratings gives physicians a clinical decision support tool where they can research, rate, and share their direct experience on the efficacy, safety, tolerability, accessibility, and adherence of specific drugs in real time.

“This is revolutionary for doctors – we trust our peers’ experiences most and often refer to each other when deciding what to prescribe. Drug Ratings lets us hear from more of our colleagues, from all around the world in real time,” said Dr. Linda Girgis, a family practitioner in New Jersey.

“To date, there have not been networks for physicians to share important information about experiences with the medications prescribed for patients. This new tool offers a large community of physicians access to see the subtle issues involved with medications. Ratings will be an invaluable part of physicians’ daily routines. This level of transparency will enhance patient care, ” said Dr. Heidi Moawad, a neurologist who participated in the beta testing of the Drug Ratings tool.

To learn more, check out SERMO here.

The post Social Network for Physicians Launches Something New appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The data, we’re told, shows that social networks are growing like wildfire around the globe.

What’s graying, speaks several different languages and checks its Facebook and WhatsApp page about 30 times a day?  The world’s fastest-growing segment of social networking.  This the key finding in a new monthly report from Informate Mobile Intelligence that tracks and measures consumer use of smartphones in 14 countries.

“While social networking may have started as a viral craze for U.S. teenagers,” says Informate CEO Will Hodgman. “It’s steadily matured into an everyday lifestyle for many adults around the world who are now eclipsing teens and young adults as most-frequent users.”

In addition to users skewing older in age, frequent, everyday usage is on the rise.

Smartphone users in six countries including Thailand, Argentina, Malaysia, Qatar, Mexico and South Africa launched social apps a staggering 40 or more times per day (compared to American counterparts who were launching social apps an average of 17 times a day).

In every country with the exception of the US, usage of Social apps represents a third to over one half of the total time consumers spend on their mobile phones. This behavior was lead by Thailand where consumers spent 114 minutes a day (or 51 percent of total time) on Social Apps, and trailed by the US at 48 minutes (or 17 percent of total time).

Want to know more? Check out MAW’s coverage here.

The post Mobile Social Networks Growing Rapidly, Says New Report appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Who’s on top? Facebook, of course, which accounted for 68 percent of them.

“Ad spend on social networks grew a robust 41 percent globally in 2014 totaling over $15.3 billion, accounting for 11 percent of global digital ad spend,” according to Strategy Analytics. “Facebook accounted for three-quarters of global social network ad spend in 2014, while Twitter accounted for 8 percent. In 2015, ad spend on social networks is expected to grow by 29 percent, totaling $19.8 billion.”

Expect social networks to be at the forefront for now — for engagement strength as well as revenue growth.

“Overall, the social network market continues to show strong growth across all regions as the major social network platforms drive usage and engagement via improved integration of digital media content,” said Leika Kawasaki, the author of the report. “While Facebook currently dominates the global social network market, its absence in China allows local social networks such as QZone and Tencent Weibo to gain traction in the rapidly expanding Chinese digital advertising market.”

What region has the highest ratio of social network users to population? That would be North America coming in with 64 percent, followed by Western Europe with 55 percent.

The U.S. accounts for the largest share of global social network ad spending with 41 percent ($6.2 billion in 2014, up 35 percent YoY). And the UK is the second largest market for social network ad spend, accounting for 8.2 percent of global social network ad spend in 2014, just slightly edging out the growing market in China which has 8 percent.

The post When it Comes to Social Network Ad Spend, The Clear Winner Is… appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

We’re not clairvoyant. We’ve got the research to back it up, no soothsaying required.

That’s because eMarketer estimates that 40.1 million US consumers will use Pinterest via any device at least monthly this year.

“Based on recent data, it’s likely that most of this activity will take place on mobile,” according to research by eMarketer.

According to Q2 2014 research by ShareThis, U.S. internet users logging on to Pinterest via mobile were three times more likely to pin than desktop users.

Pinterest does indeed nab the mobile device championship ring. Three-quarters of the sharing on Pinterest comes via a mobile device. On the other hand, Facebook — still the “social share leader” — booked just over half of its shares via smartphone or tablet.

“That the majority of pins happen on mobile makes sense when one looks at how much time Pinterest users spend with the social site on different devices,” say eMarketer analysts. “In February, 2014 research by comScore, mobile dominated desktop when it came to share of Pinterest time, claiming 93 percent of all time U.S. Pinterest users spent on the social platform, compared with just 7 percent for PCs.”

Research by Luth Research for ExactTarget has discovered that smartphones lured the overwhelming share of mobile visits to Pinterest in the US, at 83 percent, vs. 17 percent from tablets. In fact, according to the stats, no other online property studied saw a bigger gap between the two devices.

The post Pinterest Pinning Goes Mobile: Most Are ‘Phoning It In’ appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

This year in Canada, 68% of internet users will visit social networking sites at least monthly, neck and neck with 68.6% in the US. These penetration rates will continue to vary by less than one percentage point throughout the rest of eMarketer’s forecast period.

The slightly lower rate of internet penetration in Canada means slightly fewer consumers in Canada overall will use social networks – at 53% of the population this year versus 54.1% of the US population. But these figures will similarly remain in a tight range through 2018.

Across the region, 88.4% of social network users will visit Facebook monthly this year. Penetration is nearly 5 points higher among social networks in Canada – a small but persistent difference in Facebook’s popularity across the border throughout eMarketer’s forecast period.

The post Canada, U.S. Social Network Penetration Nearly Identical appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The following is a guest contributed post from Marsha Friedman, CEO of EMSI Public Relations.

If you want to be visible in today’s marketplace, you absolutely must have a presence on social media.

But there are so many from which to choose nowadays! In addition to the biggies like Facebook and Twitter, we have lots of newcomers, including Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr. Additionally, some of the older platforms have undergone major changes in recent months, which affect how effective they are for different functions. 

How to know which platforms will best meet your needs?

I asked Alex Hinojosa, our vice president for media operations at EMSI Public Relations, to share some tips for helping you decide.

First, he says, if you plan to handle your social media marketing yourself, try different platforms and use ones with features you enjoy. That will help ensure you stick with it, and may lead you to create inspired content that’s more likely to be shared.

Be on at least two platforms, he says. (If one’s mostly personal stuff for family and friends, it doesn’t count!)

Here’s Alex’s rundown on the advantages and disadvantages of the four most popular platforms:

• Facebook: This works best if you’re an individual interacting on a personal level, as opposed to a business. Artists, authors, public speakers and certain other professionals may benefit from having potential customers get to know them on a more personal basis.

A downside to Facebook is that, in an effort to make money for shareholders, it has begun requiring users to pay for the potentially unlimited visibility that used to be free.

• Twitter: Posts are limited to 140 characters – about the length of a headline – and can include a photo or link to a website. This is a great network for getting to know people without sharing a lot of personal information. Plus, you can follow whomever you want, and anyone can follow you.

“It allows you to easily connect with prospects and potential associates, so it’s great for businesses,” Alex says. “People use it primarily as a source of news, which makes it easy to interact with people you don’t know – you have something to talk about.”

Twitter is now aggressively cleaning house of “robot” followers – dummy accounts sold for cheap that make it look like the buyer has a huge following. Even if you don’t buy robots, you may end up with some as followers.

“Don’t buy followers and delete any of your followers that don’t appear real. Twitter limits how many followers you can have, so you don’t want to waste them on ‘bots,” Alex says.

• LinkedIn: The social network for professionals is a good place to find and meet people within and outside your industry. People can easily see your credentials and endorse your skills. The background information on your profile page – where you went to school, other companies you’ve been associated with – provides great fodder for finding common ground with strangers and building relationships.

• Google+: The Google search engine favors anything posted on Google+, which is great for SEO. It also combines the best features of Facebook and Twitter, including photo sharing and categorizing content using hashtags (#).

“Right now, Google+ can be anything you want it to be,” Alex says. “It’s still new, just more than 2 years old, so it’s still defining itself. I think it will be the next social networking giant.”

As Alex suggests, if you plan to handle your social media marketing yourself, take into consideration the modes of networking that you enjoy along with the best platforms to meet your needs.

If you have limited experience in social media, jump into the platforms that seem to best align with your goals. You’ll have a learning curve, but a little practice goes a long way. And you’ll soon wonder why you didn’t get more involved a long time ago!

The post MMW Op-Ed: Which Social Media Platforms are Right for You? appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Collectively, all of the tweets issued throughout the social network’s existence amount to a vast array of data.

Now, at the behest of the microblogging giant, Twitter is making it possible for researchers to access these enormous reserves of information. Contained within this data, TechCrunch reports, are insights – “from flu trends to New Years celebrations” – that could be used for the edification or betterment of humankind.

Researchers can apply to get free access to Twitter’s public tweets and historical data through one of its official data resellers Gnip.

“What if the next generation of data scientists could have access to social data for their research? And what if we could help increase the quantity and quality of published research using social data?” asks Chris Moody, CEO of Gnip. “Exploring what might be possible has led to an exciting new collaboration between Twitter and Gnip.”

Moody says Twitter is now accepting Data Grant proposals for non-commercial, academic research. It should be noted, however, that the submission period will run through March 15th.

“Twitter will select a small number of recipients on April 15th,” Moody says. “Gnip will provide grantees with the data they need for their research projects, and Twitter engineers will be available for research support.”

What potential do you believe historical tweets hold for the future?

The post Your Tweets Are Now 'History' appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Statistics show that SEO only accounts for 13% of organic search results on mobile devices, illustrating that SEO does not play the same role in mobile marketing as it does from a desktop or laptop. As a result of these findings, many advertisers are turning to emerging channels to gain the coveted space they desire on mobile devices.

Social Networks And Mobile Marketing

Currently the most successful new channels for marketers are social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Vine, just to name a few. The combination of their built-in design for easy sharing, as well as being a primary source of information for mobile users make these platforms the ideal places to purchase ad space.

Mobile marketing is growing at a rate of 61% per year and it’s expected to be an $18 billion industry by 2015. Pair this with the massive growth that social media networks are experiencing from their native ad formats and it is clear that these emerging channels are the next big thing.

Even small businesses with lesser-known products are achieving extreme success by purchasing mobile native add space, or sharing captivating infographics that spread like wildfire within a matter of hours—or just a number of days. Some businesses who understand how to capture their audience’s attention via mobile marketing across new outlets can gain success with nominal marketing budgets, and without any effort other than social media marketing.

What This Means For SEO

The great success of emerging channels is not only creating more engaging marketing campaigns, but it’s also capturing marketing dollars that would traditionally be spent on SEO or SEM campaigns.

While it may not be the end of SEO as a whole, its role in online marketing is clearly being redefined. For business owners and advertisers who have not yet considered emerging channels, it is definitely time to take a good hard look at the advantages they afford when it comes to mobile marketing.

The post Does Mobile Marketing Mean The End Of SEO Driven Campaigns? appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

A new infographic shared this week by JeffBullas reveals a dozen creative (and month-by month) social media contests that will help marketers and businesses on social media boost their email marketing’s reach and general effectiveness.

To learn more, check out the visual below.

The post Using Facebook to Expand Your Email Marketing List appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

And they’re doing so aggressively.

All told, the latest industry data reveals that 93% of marketers have now used some form of video. And that usage is growing more prevalent in social media marketing.

“Digital video viewing is mainstream, and eMarketer estimates that 182.5 million people in the US, or 75% of all internet users, will view digital videos this year, and video advertising spending will increase by more than 40% in 2013 as well,” eMarketer reported Wednesday.

Video viewership and social sharing are “closely intertwined,” the report explains, citing an insightful example.

An April 2013 Blinkx survey conducted by Harris Interactive found that more than 40% of social network users watch TV or online video and simultaneously discuss content with their friends and the percentage was even higher among respondents ages 18 to 34, 14% of whom said they “always/often” do so.

Not surprisingly, the latest marketing industry surveys show that approximately 60% of marketers are seeking to ramp up their video content launched on social networks as soon as possible.

The post Why Video Has Become a Must for Social Media Marketers appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.