@astrazeneca is currently asking its Twitter followers (of which it has over 5,000) to fill out an online survey hosted on SurveyMonkey. AZ tweeted this a few minutes ago: “Last chance 2 complete our Twitter survey, closing fri…we’d like your ideas: http://ow.ly/4bzf0” In case the survey is closed by the time you read this, you can find a PDF version I created for archival purposes here: http://bit.ly/AZTsurvey
I also use SurveyMonkey to survey my Twitter followers and have received over 1,600 responses to date. You can take my survey (here) and/or see the de-identified results (here).
What is AZ interested in learning from its followers? There’s the standard demographic-type questions, including “How would you best describe yourself?” The choices listed tell us something about who AZ expects should or could be following them:
- Media/journalist
- Academic/researcher
- Pharmaceutical employee
- AZ employee
- Healthcare provider
- Government agency/regulator
- Communications specialist/agency
- NGO/civil society employee
- AZ business partner
- Patient/patient advocate
- Service provider/consultant
- AZ shareholder
It’s interesting that AZ allows respondents to check off all that apply. Obviously, practically everyone should click “Patient/patient advocate” — we are all patients at one time or another. AZ should have clarified that and put “Patient advocate” as a separate category considering how interested this group of people are in forging relationships with the pharmaceutical industry (see “Social Media’s OK Corral: Docs vs. Patients” and “Some Social Media Patient Opinion Leaders Want to be Paid Pharma Professionals” and “PHARMA Co Patient Opinion Leader Programs“).
AZ wants to know if @astrazenca (ie, its Twitter account) is the “main source of information about AZ.” I’d like to know the answer to THAT question! (I hope AZ shares some results of the survey; I DM’d AZ this inquiry: “I responded to your Twitter Follower survey. Will you share some of the results?”).
AZ asks followers what they want to see more/less of from @astrazenca, including (my responses are in parentheses):
- News from AZ (RIGHT AMOUNT)
- Views/opinion from AZ leaders (MORE)
- Coverage of AZ in the media (LESS)
- Retweets of things we find interesting (MORE)
- Financial information from AZ (LESS)
- Twitter events such as interviews and debates (MORE)
The last question in the survey asks “How could we make better use of social media to meet your needs?” to which I responded: “More Twitter chats! Invite guest moderators such as key opinion leaders, patient advocates, etc.”
I haven’t yet heard back from AZ whether or not they will reveal some results of their survey. If and when I do, I will let you know what they say (SEE BELOW).
P.S. Note to Astrazeneca. I love the simplicity of your online survey; single white page, small unassuming logo at the top, etc. For future reference: When users finish taking the survey, you should direct them to perhaps the AZ corporate website. Right now, they are brought to the SurveyMonkey sign-up page. Why give SurveyMonkey free promotion? I assume you are paying SurveyMonkey a few hundred dollars per year to use their surveying software, in which case they allow you to redirect to whatever URL you wish. Just a thought.
P.P.S. Just got this from @astrazeneca: “thanks for the feedback – yes we’ll share some of the survey results via this feed”
