Medical Experts Enhance the Online Identity of Your Product

Your customers are talking about you online. You want to be fluent in the conversation.

Academic Network, a Stericycle company, has developed an outsourcing online management service targeted to the pharmaceutical, food and beverage industries.  The service includes both an online audit and ongoing reputation monitoring by health professionals trained in medicine, nutrition and identifying adverse events. The service is designed to offer companies an outsourcing solution at a fraction of the cost of building and maintaining an online reputation management system in-house.

Clients use Academic Network’s professional social media staff to monitor and engage with others online, thereby enhancing their brand. Academic Network has created an outsourcing model to manage the risk and provide the expertise to help companies not only launch a social media campaign but maintain their reputation online at a fraction of the cost. A successful social media campaign involves dedicated resources to effectively monitor and manage online conversations about a company’s products.  Academic Network’s health professionals provide the expertise to assure that any adverse conversations online are brought to the attention of their clients to protect the safety of their products and customers.

Many companies have started to use social media tools but have not considered the overall costs to build and maintain a successful online program. Academic Network offers an outsourcing solution that will add expertise, while reducing overall costs in equipment, software and staff. The savings incurred mirrors that of traditional call center outsourcing, and takes advantage of the shared resources that Academic Network offers.

Ranks on BusinessWeek’s Inner City Top 100 List

Congratulations to our Portland team at Academic Network! We are honored to be named one of the fastest growing inner city companies in the nation for the second consecutive year! Academic Network placed 49th on 11th Annual Top Inner City 100 list sponsored by BusinessWeek and the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC). The ICIC was established to recognize the fastest growing companies in America that are based in the “inner city” and provide new business growth potential to their communities. Innovative practices and sustained growth are the predominant traits of the 2009 Inner City 100 award winners. Through an annual national competition, ICIC ranks the 100 fastest-growing businesses in inner city settings. The 2009 award ceremony was held May 20^th in Boston.

Academic Network’s staff of healthcare professionals include physicians, nurses and dieticians. We believe our growth is based on our ability to quickly staff our contact centers with healthcare professionals, our enhanced adverse events monitoring and the use of social media in patient recruitment. We continue to grow our consumer affairs and patient recruitment business, while providing adverse event reporting during product recalls for the protection of the consumer.

Academic Network Leads Social Media Panel Today at SOCAP International Symposium: Social Media is Here to Stay so Companies Need to Prepare to Engage Consumers Online

April 21, 2009 (Chicago) —What if the US peanut industry - and the hordes of products and companies impacted by the recent recall — had used the power of the social media to both monitor online activity and engage consumers in discussions and build relationships? Academic Network, a Stericycle company, today led food, beverage and pharmaceutical companies in a panel discussion at SOCAP International Symposium about preparing companies and employees to engage in social media, a phenomenon that’s here to stay according to panelists.

As consumers flood online to research recent food industry recall issues, conversations are springing up all over the web. Consumers are sharing information - ideas, stories, and experiences - about food and drug recalls, diet, and healthy lifestyles. Forward-thinking companies are beginning to look not only at how their brands are reflected, but how their products are being talked about within online communities.

“Companies need to build online relationships with consumers and customers long before a recall or crisis hits,” says Janet Lee Johnson, senior online strategist, Academic Network, a Stericycle company and SOCAP panelist. “There will be more recalls in the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries. Companies need to anticipate by building online consumer relationships now so when the inevitable happens they can engage another channel of communications and branding — social media.”

Academic Network advises companies getting into social media for the first time to “walk don’t run” when readying for a social media initiative:

♦ Have an established social media policy for your organization - if you do nothing else

♦ Approach social media strategically - have a plan; develop with your media, marketing, pr, consumer affairs, web and online teams

♦ Be sure you have an online listening strategy and don’t be afraid of it - listen in on relevant blogs, websites, Twitter (www.twitter.com) Facebook (www.facebook.com) and more

♦ Bring bloggers and tweeters into corporate media relations outreach - more and more consumers are listening and reading online

♦ Actively engage in discussions online as part of consumer relations, communications and branding strategy

Academic Network, a Stericycle company, and award-winning medical and health communications firm, is now offering services to help clients practice safe, protected consumer engagement in the growing world of Health 2.0 — the use of social media for collaboration between patients, caregivers, medical professionals and other stakeholders. Because the trend toward Health 2.0 is growing so rapidly, Academic Network has started utilizing social media platforms to gather consumer information on new products, recruit patients for clinical trials and help clients successfully build, monitor, manage and track their online reputation as they engage with consumers online.

Follow Academic Network via Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Academic Network has been awarded the 2008 “Top Outsourcer Award” by ContactCenterWorld.com, a leading global support organization for the contact center industry. Academic Network was named top blended contact center outsourcer in the small-size category. Criteria for the award includes handling inbound and outbound calls and percentage of growth in seats and sales revenue.