The FDA could spend up to $182,000 over the next four years on its social media plans. The money goes to IB5k, which helped President Obama with his first campaign for the White House, as well as doing some work for leading Republicans, according to Politico.
Overall, according to the RFQ, the job involves:
- By monitoring the success and failure of our messages via measurement and sentiment, we can plan more useful strategies to serve our audiences. The metric should be, but is not limited to: engagement, sentiment, likes, follows, and mentions.
- FDA seeks to monitor overall conversations to see what the public is discussing about our work, answer questions for them, and develop consumer content for FDA.GOV and our social media channels.
- To achieve an at-a-glance public representation of FDA initiatives.
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Less than $50,000 promised dollars still has some Republicans very worked up. (It’s a high-stress, high-volatility week on Capitol Hill. But, eh, when isn’t it?)
From Politico:
“It’s outrageous for the FDA to spend nearly $200,000 to promote itself on social media when it is claiming sequestration may hurt its ability to approve life-saving drugs and medical devices,” Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said in a statement to POLITICO. “Lives are more important than ‘likes.’ FDA should cancel this contract immediately and refocus itself on its core mission. The fact that FDA is even contemplating such contracts suggests the agency has plenty of room to tighten its belt.”
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, also ripped the contract.
“On its face, it cannot be contended this is a necessary contract—especially at a time when federal workers and agencies are facing real cuts. Worse, it seems to raise privacy concerns and to have a political purpose rather than furthering the core goals of the FDA,” he said.
