Shaking Off Prior Criticism, FDA Forges Ahead with Additional Social Media Monitoring Plans

Posted: 3 January 2014
By Alexander Gaffney, RAC

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued a notice indicating that it is seeking the services of a company to help it monitor online sentiment, keep abreast of social media conversations and even determine "influencers" to better target its outreach.
The FDA "Sources Sought" notice was posted on 23 December 2013 to the government's Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) website.

Existing Plans

It is similar in many respects to an earlier contract awarded to help the agency monitor social media traffic. That contract was subject to a considerable amount of scrutiny by some legislators, including Republican Tom Coburn (R-OK), who included the project in his influential yearly "Wastebook" (#87) of allegedly superfluous taxpayer-funded projects.
"Being liked is important, but maybe federal agencies should take some time away from figuring out what people think about them and spend more time just doing their job," Coburn's report quipped.
That contract called for awardee IB5k to assist FDA's office of External Affairs in three areas:

• helping it to refine its future social media strategies by gauging the success and impact of current ones
• monitoring "overall conversations to see what the public is discussing about our work," as well as answering questions and developing content to serve consumer needs
• formulating an "at-a-glance" presentation of what FDA is working on for public audiences
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