PRforPharma

Discussions about social media, PR and marketing for pharmaceutical companies

Archive for September, 2010

Download Free Pharmaceutical Social Media eBook

September 23rd, 2010

Click Here to download a pharmaceutical social media eBook

The list of reasons why you can’t or shouldn’t engage in pharmaceutical social media is long. Regulatory concerns. Fair balance. Adverse event reporting. The FDA. Off-label usage. HIPAA. Lack of adequate resources. All of these are legitimate issues when considering a social media program.

The list of reasons why you should use social media is not only longer, but also more compelling. Humanizing the brand. Creating brand advocates. Enabling better patient outcomes. Increasing Return on Health (ROH). Establishing a relationship with the patient. Better insights into the patient community. Greater access to information for the patients. A quick response platform during crisis communications.

There’s no doubt, social media in the pharmaceutical industry is a difficult and complex task. It takes careful planning, spot-on strategic guidance and flawless execution. Sounds simple right?

To help navigate the murky waters of pharmaceutical social media, SHIFT Communications (my agency) today released an eBook aimed at offering practical advice on social media programs in the healthcare space. The book outlines many of the issues that are unique to social media in the pharmaceutical space and offers tips on how to best mitigate those challenges.

To download the book, all we ask is that you do one of the following:

Head on over to our site, leave us your email, and the eBook will be automatically sent.
Follow @shiftcomm on Twitter and tweet something along the lines of, “Looking forward to reading @shiftcomm’s Pharma Social Media eBook, via @prforpharma” and we’ll get in touch with the link
Join SHIFT’s Facebook Page and send us a message there

When you stack up the reasons for not being engaged on social media with the benefits of creating sustained engagement the question becomes: what’s the price of being absent altogether? When done effectively, social media has the ability to create a relationship with the patient that was never before possible with traditional marketing platforms.

With this eBook, we hope to provide a healthy dose of both strategic and tactical advice to help move social media programs in the right direction. And of course, as always, I would love to hear any and all feedback you may have.

59 comments »

Posted in FDA and Pharma Social Media, Pharmacetuical Public Relations, Pharmaceutical Crisis Communications, Pharmaceutical Online Marketing, Pharmaceutical Social Media, Return on Health, Uncategorized

Patient Advocates for Pharmaceutical Social Media

September 10th, 2010

One of the initial steps of formulating a pharmaceutical social media strategy is considering what resources will be required and forming an internal social media team. My original thinking on this topic (which you can find by following the above link) is that an internal social media team should originally start in a “command and control” model and evolve to the more sophisticated hub and spoke model.

When you arrive at the hub and spoke, the ideal scenario is to have all departments involved that have customer touchpoints. That means the patient call center, the sales reps, the marketing team, etc…In social media, it’s important to operate under the assumption that any employee with access to the company ultimately serves as an ambassador to your brand. I think this still holds true. However, there is an important piece missing from the social media team—the patient.

This isn’t a concept that should be foreign to a pharmaceutical company. They routinely work with patient advocates, form support groups and interact with the patient during the clinical trial period. Even in other parts of the business, pharmaceutical companies are accustomed to representing interests other than their own. For example, in alliance management, it is important that a member of the organization is continually looking out for the interest of the alliance partner. That person always has a seat at the table.

Following the same logic, shouldn’t the patient always have a seat at the social media table?

If we buy into the concept that a healthcare company involved in social media should do so with the objective of improving health outcomes and informing better health decisions, than a patient should be involved in the planning process. Sure, we can get some of this information ourselves by conducting our due diligence, listening to social media chatter and evaluating the current needs of patients. But there is no substitute for actually speaking with the patient.

Are there some legal barriers to this approach? Of course. But it’s nothing a legal team couldn’t figure out. The FDA is concerned with how pharmaceutical companies push messages to patients, what better way to improve that process than by bringing them into the fold.

Consider it a focus group for social media.

23 comments »

Posted in Pharmacetuical Public Relations, Pharmaceutical Online Marketing, Pharmaceutical Social Media, Return on Health

Impact of Pew Report on Pharmaceutical Social Media

September 2nd, 2010

A common question asked by healthcare marketers before engaging in social media is whether or not their patients are online. Past research from the Pew Research Center indicates that people dealing with chronic illnesses are more likely to be active participants in social media. That was one leg of the stool, now comes a second leg. A report released on August 27^th by the Pew Research Center further strengthens the case that social media platforms are a growing and active place for patient congregation.

The report, titled “Older Adults and Social Media,” found that social networking use among those ages 50 and older nearly doubled over the past year. Among the primary drivers that Pew indentifies for this surge is the fact that older adults are more likely to be living with a chronic disease, and are therefore more likely to reach out for support online. Put the two pieces of research together and pharmaceutical marketers have a compelling case for engaging in social media. It should no loner be a question of “if” patients are seeking resources online, but a question of “where.”

While none of this qualifies as an earth-shattering revelation, it does lend a bit of credibility to what we’ve intuitively known all along. For those of us grinding away at each social media barrier it’s always been evident that there is ample opportunity to engage with patients online. We knew it because we see the voracious appetite for content among patient communities. We knew it because patients have long craved a more interactive and empowered relationship with doctors and pharmaceutical companies. We knew it because pharmaceutical companies have unique access to information and data that can provide patients with an unprecedented role in health decisions. We knew it—but much of the data was scarce.

Part of our job as social media advocates is to provide the best indicators possible that point to success. We tend to rely on anecdotal evidence or our instincts. But executives don’t exactly trust our guts and aren’t keen on anecdotes. They want hard numbers that provide a reason to be active in social media. Certainly, a single Pew Research report is not the silver bullet some have been searching for. That silver bullet will never come but the more relevant reports that are released the lesser the barriers to entry for pharmaceutical social media.

17 comments »

Posted in Pharmacetuical Public Relations, Pharmaceutical Online Marketing, Pharmaceutical Social Media

Tags: Pharmaceutical marketing Pharmaceutical PR Pharmaceutical Social Media