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Three Questions Pharma Companies Have About Social Media
By: Marijean Jaggers | 07/27/2010
At Standing Partnership, we have worked in the health care space for many years. Our team members have varied and rich experiences providing communications counsel to the health care industry. One constant in this has been a continuing relationship with clients in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. Pharma is an interesting industry -- regulated and often restricted in the way it must do business. Pharma, as with every industry these days, is trying to get a handle on how to approach and use social media tools in its marketing and outreach efforts. Here are some of the questions pharma has about social media, and our answers.
1.There are too many social media tools out there for us to master; what should we do first?
It's true; there are far too many platforms to use and we know that using all the tools at once is not an effective way to grow your brand. So be strategic and develop a plan of engagement. We do recommend that a blog come first because we know that websites with a blog have 55 percent more traffic.
Before a blog, however, the very first step that pharma should take is to LISTEN and continuously monitor the social web. Pharma needs to know when people are mentioning it or its products so it may be responsive. Being responsive often means creating and maintaining accounts in the online spaces where the conversation is taking place. If pharma wants to be where its customers are, it needs to be there fast.
2. Should we engage as ourselves (e.g. the company logo) or as people, particularly on Twitter?
It depends, and there is a lot of discussion about this. There is a purpose for a company account on Twitter; one, so that you grab and own your company name and brand on Twitter and keep it active so that people recognize it as the "official" account. The account can be used to link to news releases or share other "official" information and, in essence, function as a feed for news and information from the company. The preferred method and the most effective for community engagement is to create ambassadors for the company within its ranks. These people, by virtue of their roles in the company and from being real human beings representing your company online, will have a much more effective engagement style and effectiveness as they interact with those interested in the company and its products. They can also serve as customer service representatives, connecting those online with the right contacts to resolve any issues.People, it turns out, would rather interact with other people than robots or machines. Make an effort to create a human pharmaceutical company and watch the relationships grow.
3.How should we respond to negativity?
The biggest threat in the pharmaceutical world is called the "adverse event;" and in the social media space, that could look like a patient using a pharmaceutical product, having a bad or serious side effect or unintended effect, and blogging, tweeting or otherwise sharing his or her experience with the online world. If this should happen with an influencer or a large number of patients, the results could be devastating for a product or a brand. On the positive side, if something bad happens, the company can find out about it -- fast -- and if needed, issue a recall, a warning or other communication, which results in fewer incidents. Monitoring for any mention is critical, but developing a plan and a whole team for the responsiveness needed for negativity is essential. Establishing a Standard Operating Procedure is recommended so that the members of the pharmaceutical communications team have a clear understanding of who is responsible for what. From there, training and planning for response is required to allow employees in a communication role understand the culture of the social web, the rules of engagement and how to judge whether a mention is legitimate and/or necessitates a response. It's a complicated process but it's so important that pharmaceutical companies realize from the start that there's no way to control the social web, and that responding is expected as customer service in today's multimedia culture.
Posted in Digital Communications
comments
Angela Dunn says:
Wed, July 28, 2010 at 8:45:am
Very nice post, Marijean! This is a great outline of advice and nicely presented in three questions!
No. 1 Agree with Eva, too! A blog is a great way to start the conversation!
Regarding No. 2: It is also important to have both, your own digital presence and a corporate presence. It is still important to maintain branded accounts that are maintained by real and internal individuals. However, when people leave the company, they don’t take the social equity they have built for the brand. The reverse is also true, if you have built up a reputation as a thought leader, you want to own it as well. I will be discussing this in more detail for a webinar with Phil Baumann of “Health is Social” on August 26th.
Looking forward to reading more of your posts!
Thank you,
Angela Dunn
Odom Lewis
Susan says:
Wed, July 28, 2010 at 2:45:pm
It is great to fuel the conversation on the opportunties and challenges for pharma in social marketing. The major obstacle to truly embracing the space is the regulatory framework not keeping up with the technology. So let’s all hope that FDA meets it promise to issue more guidance so that companies can begin to truly participate in dialogue with the public, patients and the communities that these great companies serve. Until then, the risks are far to great, and the legal controls are so stifling that any contributions of meaningful engagement are few and far between.
Marijean says:
Fri, July 30, 2010 at 9:26:am
Susan, I agree with you but don’t think that any guidelines FDA hands down will help much. There’s so much that pharma companies CAN do in heath education outreach and customer service that it’s a shame that they are not engaging at that level now. (Some are, but it’s not nearly enough.) The first step is a frighteningly ignored one and that is for the pharma companies to be listening to the social web. There’s nothing that regulates that and no excuse to be overlooking this simple first step.
Eva Velasco says:
Fri, July 30, 2010 at 12:52:pm
Actually I work with numerous pharma companies and in my opinion they are trying to catch up and learn as quickly as possible. Most marketers know there might be opportunities for them in the online space and they make an effort to understand them.
However, the regulatory environment is not easy and the return on many of the initiatives is not clear…Also, I am not sure if FDA guidelines can catch up with technology so working with legal and regulatory from the get go can help marketers do more.
As far as listening to the social web, yes, that is the first step we take with a client and more often than not listening brings lots of new information as well as opportunities.
Eva Velasco says:
Wed, July 28, 2010 at 7:50:am
Fully agree on your point number 1. Monitoring/listening is the first thing we recommend our clients to do, and that helps us put together an action plan. For clients just starting in the digital space my recommendation is always a blog, and clients appreciate it as they do not lose complete control of their messages and content. Once they feel comfortable with a blog, and understand the amount of work they have to put into it, they are ready for other, more open platforms.