Whether a social-networking site is direct or co-branded, user registration offers the most manageable solution to concerns about standards and control. Having users sign in with a secure name and password (without sharing information that would be deemed private) gives sponsors a chance to enforce a user agreement regarding the site's rules. Technology enables the site to be continuously moderated and swept every 24 hours to enforce standards, remove inappropriate content, and respond to other issues. Given the regulatory requirements, these protocols are essential to every virtual-patient network—starting with the provision that a site can spur or enhance, but never replace, a conversation with their doctor.

Taking Care of Business, E-Style

Consumer-generated content is the fastest-growing segment of the Web—and blogs, message boards, discussion forums, and social networks are sending the conversation off the charts (see "Our Big Fat Blogosphere," above).

This era of engagement marketing is inevitable. Accepting different, even critical, opinions is a necessary method to build trust and create positive bonds with patients. Moreover, the best way to prevent disgruntled people from harming your brand is to engage them. Users may be quick to disappear from sponsored sites and reorganize on others if they feel that the supporting brands are not being trustworthy.

Consider these compelling benefits of social networks for patients, physicians, and employees:

• Increased diagnosis, treatment, and compliance
While many health-info-hungry Web surfers are early adopters, mainstream consumers are also actively looking for online medical education. http://WebMD.com/ and other sites that offer consumer-health content and community play a key role in stimulating patient–doctor and patient–patient conversations. In this way, social networks promise to increase early diagnosis and treatment.

The process of launching and maintaining an online community can help drug companies identify critical insights about barriers to treatment. Driving, moderating, measuring, and augmenting conversations about managing disease can shape perceptions of products and treatment options.

The low rate of adherence to meds is a chronic problem, and healthcare communities offer a unique reservoir of advice, support, and other resources to address it. Through blogs, message boards, and other social-networking tools, members can help one another meet this daily responsibility, while sponsors can analyze issues surrounding adherence and initiate interventions to support it.

Social networks provide an ongoing context for knowledge exchange that is more effective than static information. By creating a safe place for a critical mass of people in similar situations to solve problems together, sponsors position themselves as caring partners actively engaged in consumer well-being. As a result, online communities can have a direct effect not only on improving patient care but on building the public trust.

• Enhanced communication, trust, and influence
One of the chief benefits of sponsored social networks is improving the doctor–patient relationship. Companies can use consumer data to help physicians become more adept at responding to patient questions and motivating patients to lead healthier lives.

In case you slept through the past year or two, http://YouTube.com/, the free video-sharing Web site, has taken the digital world by storm. In fact, there are already thousands of recorded surgeries posted, and professional organizations are exploring the potential of a branded YouTube-type site for surgeons. As with consumer communities, these would be monitored and moderated, and users must agree that it in no way subs for hands-on training.