Roche launches Facebook and Twitter accounts to promote diabetes education

Roche Diabetes Care, makers of ACCU-CHEK® products and services, has launched dedicated Facebook and Twitter accounts to promote diabetes education, awareness and advocacy. The company has also expanded its current Diabetes Link blog from Canada to North America.

Roche Diabetes Care's Facebook (www.facebook.com/AccuChekUS) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/accuchek_us) accounts have been created with one goal in mind: help people with diabetes, as well as the friends and families who support them, learn more about how to live healthy lives while successfully managing their diabetes. Roche chose the ACCU-CHEK name for its Facebook and Twitter accounts to help its diabetes customers – most of whom know the company's products only by their brand names – more easily find these new social media tools.

The company also reworked its highly successful blog, Diabetes Link (www.accu-chekdiabeteslink.com), to benefit audiences in both Canada and the United States. Diabetes Link was launched in October 2009.

"Living with diabetes is hard, and the many misconceptions, assumptions and half-truths out there don't make it any easier," said Todd Siesky, public relations and social media manager for Roche Diabetes Care in the United States. "There are a great number of diabetes advocates online who are already doing an outstanding job of education and advocacy work on behalf of people living with diabetes. We hope to amplify their voices as well as highlight issues important to everyone in the diabetes online community."

A partial list of some of the most influential diabetes online writers can be found at Diabetes Link (www.accu-chekdiabeteslink.com) under the headline "What We're Reading." Roche has been working with many of these writers for the past two years to better understand how it can support online education, advocacy and awareness issues important to them.