It’s no secret that I believe a strong pharmaceutical social media program centers on the patient.  Whether it is clinical operations, selling to physicians or dealing with insurance providers, a pharmaceutical company should be focused on better serving the needs of the patient.  This doesn’t imply physicians or other core audiences lack a place in social media (more on this in the coming days)—it simply means that the best pharmaceutical marketing efforts keep the core tenant of patient health front and center.

I’ve put forward the idea of Return on Health and highlighted the need to empower the empowered patient.  But this might fall on deaf ears without practical advice.  How can you ensure that the patient is at the center of your social media efforts?  What does this look like in practice as opposed to theory?

As a starting point, begin by asking how you made the determination that social media is a route worth considering.  If your motivation is that you are getting your lunch handed to you by a competitor, you are probably heading down the wrong path.  On the flip side, if you feel that treatment options for a specific disease state are being under or misrepresented by a competitor you are in a better position to engage in social media.  The point is this: the question you must consider is “how will this help better serve the needs of the patient?”

Now that you have committed to starting with the patient, how about involving the patient in the planning process?  Many companies talk about the need for patient engagement yet few involve them in the social media planning process.  A “patient advisory panel” can help direct the tactics of a social media engagement for pharmaceutical companies.  Rather than making educated guesses on what they want—make informed decisions.

With a better gauge of what patients actually want, you can start to direct your efforts to the appropriate platform.  Perhaps through patient communication and your own research you uncover the fact there is a glaring lack of information around a particular disease state.  This would indicate that the pharmaceutical company may need to create the hub for interaction.  However, you may also uncover that there are vibrant and active communities already existing that are only in need of a little direction or additional information.  If your focus is on the patient, it will be clear where the area of need is—as opposed to the area to exploit (which often guides marketing strategy).

These are just a few simple examples of what it looks like to put patients first in a social media engagement.  Of course, this only scratches the surface but serves to illustrate the need for patient involvement starts from the very outset of a social media program.