Social Media at the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research - First Year Review

Background: In July 2009, FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) ventured into the social media world with its FDA_Drug_Info Twitter account. Due to FDA’s regulatory constraints, including safe guarding trade secret and commercial confidential information, implementing social media channels posed unique challenges to CDER staff.

Program background: CDER’s Office of Communications is the focal point for public communications and inquiries regarding human drug products. The office is dedicated to providing useful, accurate information about human drug products in a timely manner. Prior to 2009, the Office engaged in more traditional forms of communication including phone, email, and website postings to disseminate information. In 2009, the Office entered the social media world when it created its FDA_Drug_Info Twitter. In addition to its Twitter account, CDER has implemented drug safety podcasts and vodcasts for healthcare professionals, a drug safety blog, consumer podcasts, RSS feeds, and several widgets.

Evaluation Methods and Results: Metrics and “conversations” around CDER messages were captured for each of our social media channels. Through evaluation of these metrics and conversations, CDER was able to adjust messages in real-time and more appropriately disseminate information that our audiences were interested in.

Conclusions: Although there were significant regulatory and senior management challenges to implementing social media at CDER, our program has been a great success. We were able to win over senior management by presenting a thoughtful, strategic, and planned approach to implementing our social media channels. Through the use of social media, we were able to engage the public and reach audiences who previously were not exposed to CDER’s messages. In addition, the public has embraced each of our social media channels with enthusiasm and great interest. As we move in to our second year of using social media, we plan to add additional social media tools that will help CDER meet its mission of making sure that safe and effective drugs are available to improve the health of people in the United States.

Implications for research and/or practice: We were able to demonstrate that government agencies that are constrained by regulatory requirements can successfully implement social media channels while staying within those regulatory constraints. We also found that a thought-out, strategic, step-wise approach to implementing social media was the best way to introduce social media to a regulatory agency accustomed to traditional communications methods.