If you’ve done any amount of pharmaceutical social media work, you are accustomed to the phrase: “we’ll have to put that through RC” (or some variation of that).  Usually, that phrase is followed by one of the following:

1.)    The thwack of several notebooks hitting the conference table in united frustration,

2.)    A collective grumble from the people around the table, or;

3.)    Nervous laughter.

Rarely is the idea of working with the regulatory and compliance group greeted with a round of applause and viewed as an easy task.   This has always baffled me.  The goal of your RC team is not to put up insurmountable roadblocks to getting a social media program off the ground.  Dealing with RC should not be akin to a root canal.  Their goal is to help you.  More importantly, their goal is to protect you.

Here is the thing about social media people—they are creative types that like to push the boundaries.  That’s all well and good, but a little dose of reality is always welcome (remember the yin and yang of social media?).  Left to their own devices, many social media marketers will run afoul of regulatory boundaries—either from recklessness or ignorance.  Neither excuse is acceptable.

The good social media marketers among us understand that a reckless approach to social media is not a successful one.   The best social media marketers realize that RC is not trying to block social media engagement—they are the only avenue to making it happen.  Think of the RC team as a catalyst to social media engagement.  Next time you are sitting around the table discussing an idea, make sure RC is present from the outset for early input.  This will make for an easier approval process, ensure RC is part of the idea-generation phase and allow for a more cohesive team.

RC is not your biggest roadblock to social media engagement—in fact, they might be your biggest ally.

My wife is a worry wart.  She’s the type of person that will read a study about the effects of metal touching metal and immediately decide that silverware should no longer be used when cooking.  She’s constantly making sure I locked the door, buckled my seat belt and arrived safely at work.  She’s a great balance to my overly laissez faire attitude.  Unlike my wife, when I hear the latest study, I always quip: “you can prove just about anything if you set out to do it.”  Why sweat all the things that can go wrong?

Just like my wife is the yin to my yang, pharmaceutical social media programs need to find a balance (you knew there had to be a segue right?).

Like a scientist trying to prove an established hypothesis, a pharmaceutical marketer can make the case for just about any social media strategy if they look long enough.  Before conducting any type of online listening or social media research, a marketer could have already decided that Facebook is the perfect platform.  With this decision already made, the process of finding supporting research is a selective exercise.  The research that supports the conclusion is pulled to the front and the rest is simply glossed over.

It’s reasonable to walk into pharmaceutical social media planning with a hypothesis.  The danger arises when you are unwilling to change your conclusion based on the research at hand.  Social media demands an open mind.  The way people interact, the functions of community and the social currency are all unique.  A social media marketer needs to research, listen and observe and allow that to shape strategy—not the other way around.

On the flip side, there can be a tendency to get so lost in the research and data that you never emerge with a conclusion.  You can spend months rehashing the same information without forming a cohesive strategy.  While a willingness to follow research is important, decisiveness is equally important.  It’s that whole yin and yang thing again—you need balance.

Online listening is a critical step to developing a social media strategy.  It helps to inform the strategies and tactics that will best serve your audience.  Use the information gleaned from social media listening to build a social media strategy that ties directly to the patient need.  But don’t use the mountains of information as a crutch.  Don’t use it as an excuse to continue stalling engagement.

Be thoughtful.  Be flexible.  But be decisive.

In the next few sentences I’m going to (attempt) compare pharmaceutical social media and Rage Against the Machine.  Bear with me on this; I swear I’m going somewhere.  Rage Against the Machine was a band that rose to success largely on its ability to passionately vocalize tenuous political issues.  The band prided itself on voicing the things that nobody wanted to say and putting songs out there that didn’t conform to the “best practices” outlined by record labels.  Just like any industry, there is a clear recipe for success in the music industry and Rage Against the Machine wasn’t it.

See where I am going with this?  In their infancy, pharma social media marketers needed a bit of a “Rage Against the Machine” mentality.  Marketing best practices said nothing about direct engagement with the patient, letting go of brand control and moving away from mass audiences to more targeted engagement.  The very premise of social media marketing ran counter to many established marketing norms—it bucked “the establishment.”

Here’s the catch though: You know what happened to Rage Against the Machine?  They broke up despite their overwhelming success.  The band broke up because the decision-making process had fallen apart and they felt like they were straying too far from their original intention (this is where the comparison falls apart a bit, but you get the point!).

How does social media marketing as a discipline avoid the same fate as Rage Against the Machine?  Stop working against the machine.  Social media marketers have always proudly displayed a cavalier attitude—believing they were changing the way companies marketed and interacted.  But cavalier attitudes are not always the best way to enact change.

At a pharmaceutical company, there is a very methodical process that needs to occur long before social media engagement is ever reached.  Want to engage with patients on forums?  Better check the FDA guidelines on that one and write a new company policy for engagement?  Think you might see a few adverse events?  You need to write a new policy on how to handle adverse events reported through social media channels.  Have aspirations of responding to comments on Facebook and through Twitter?  You better devise a response plan for each medium and consider who has the approval power to maintain a consistent flow of communication.

Authentic engagement is always a laudable goal in social media.  But you can’t focus on just engagement when working with pharmaceutical companies.  You should be adept at writing social media policy, running training sessions, understanding AE reporting protocols and running robust listening programs.  These are the building blocks of social media success and they fall right in line with what pharma companies have always done.  Will you swim with or against the current?

When social media first entered the lexicon of pharmaceutical marketers a primary concern was the burden of adverse event reporting.  The thought was that increased conversation and engagement would result in an unmanageable volume of reportable adverse events.

Many, including myself, did our best to quell those fears.  There are essentially two lines of reasoning when calming the nerves of the safety department at a pharmaceutical company:

1.)    People don’t want to report AEs using social media channels. There is a line of reasoning that says most people would prefer to follow traditional channels to report an AE and not take to the public forums of social media.  The idea is that there won’t be an influx in AE reporting because that’s not the intent or spirit of social media.

2.)    The other and more commonly used line of reasoning is that the data shows that the 4 criteria that constitute a reportable adverse event are rarely met online.

Folks like BuzzMetrics and Jonathan Richman have done phenomenal work to illustrate the validity of this point.  The fact is; reportable AEs are rare in social media channels.  It’s a compelling storyline: increased conversation does not have a direct correlation to increased adverse events.

Again, the data bears this out.  However, it doesn’t fully reflect the reality of the pharma landscape.  Recent conversations I’ve had have hammered home a point that has long been apparent.  For the safety departments at pharmaceutical companies, the fears of adverse event reporting were never about “reportable” AEs, they were about acknowledging the realities of their job function.  That reality means the safety department has to handle all possible AEs that come in through social media channels, not just the ones that are reportable.  This is where the overwhelming burden starts to become tough to manage.  As the engagement goes up, so does the frequencies of “possible” AEs.

Any social media engagement for a pharmaceutical company necessitates a policy change on handling adverse events and almost certainly increases the burden on the safety department.   This doesn’t mean you should shy away from social media entirely, but it does mean you need to acknowledge the task at hand for the folks in your safety department and work with them to enact effective policy change that mitigates the burden on any one department.  Chances are a good number of the current operating procedures for adverse event reporting can be replicated for social media channels.  Start by evaluating the current protocol and then fill in the gaps on the missing pieces for social media.

The good news is that more conversations (and even “possible” AEs) means more data.  Contrary to popular opinion, most healthcare companies want to know when their product does not work as intended.  Instead of trying to convince companies that the AE reporting burden doesn’t exist, let’s shift our attention to figuring out how to mitigate that burden most effectively.

What happens when social media policy changes on a dime?

One of the unspoken occupational hazards of social media is the fact that many of our strategies are contingent upon the whims of the platforms and communities we operate within. What happens when one of the social media platforms changes the game?

For a pharmaceutical company engaging in social media, a slight shift could require drastic changes in social media strategy. It’s no secret that Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms have demonstrated a propensity to change policies on a dime. Decisions that Facebook makes on privacy settings or changes Twitter makes to who has access to the firehouse can cause panic amongst the pharmaceutical companies operating within those communities.

People seem to forget that companies such as Facebook and Twitter are businesses too.  If a policy change is going to provide more data for advertisers or attract more page views, they are going to do it without blinking an eye.  It’s all in the name of profit.

So where does that leave the pharmaceutical industry that has sought to exact some measure of control in social media? Where does it leave a cautious industry that has designed a whole strategy aimed at staying compliant with current regulations?  If a social network can change its tune at any moment—how does a tepid industry stay prepared?

Plan better.

At a recent conference I attended I listened to a session on global implementation of a pharmaceutical social media marketing program. The session addressed the challenges of dealing with different regulations across country boundaries. The point of view shared was that you should find the most restrictive regulations and use that as your benchmark—ensuring you are in compliance in less rigid regulatory environments. In the case of the social media platform that can change its guidelines at any moment, the opposite is true. Plan for the current environment, but have a contingency plan for what you will do if the game changes. Don’t be forced into reacting to changes, address them before they even arise. Plan for the moment when social media becomes entirely community and conversation driven with no pre-moderation options.

What is your contingency plan if a conservative approach to social media is no longer an option?  There will certainly be naysayers inside the organization that will want to peel back social media engagement as a result of looser restrictions on social media platforms.  Be prepared to convince them that pulling out of these communities is the wrong decision.  Demonstrate that you have planned for this scenario and have a plan in place to step up your monitoring capabilities, fit an AE-reporting framework into the existing escalation procedures of the company and prove the benefit to continued involvement.

Changes on social media platforms will continue to occur—whether to existing sites or emerging.  Don’t be caught off guard.

As you’ve probably heard by now, The FDA has once again delayed its draft guidance on how pharmaceutical companies can use social media tools.  The groans can be heard echoing throughout the healthcare social media world.

After one delay at the end of 2010, the hope was that the FDA would be in position to at least tackle one of the many issues facing pharmaceutical companies engaging in social media.  However, when word spread yesterday that social media guidance was not quite ready, the general consensus was a feeling of dismay.  It shouldn’t be.

While FDA guidance is an important step to nudge the most hesitant pharmaceutical marketers off the sidelines, it is not an insurmountable hurdle.  Those that are expressing dismay over the latest setback probably had unreasonable expectations of what the FDA guidance will provide.  No draft guidance issued by the FDA is going to suddenly unleash a swarm of new companies into the social media community.  In fact, it’s not unreasonable to think that a pharmaceutical company’s ability to operate in a social media environment will get more restrictive—not less.  In addition, the guidance that does eventually come out from the FDA almost certainly won’t address specific channels as some hoped.  That’s a good thing.  We want this guidance to be flexible enough that it grows over time, allows for transparent engagement and ultimately leads to better patient outcomes.  Focusing on specific channels will not get us closer to that goal.

Even without social media guidance, there are plenty of strategies and tactics that are possible right now—with or without guidance.  Ultimately, when FDA guidance comes it will provide a clearer picture of where the boundaries are.  But the goal isn’t to push those boundaries—and if it is, you are doomed for social media failure.  As a company, if you are waiting for the FDA guidance as the spark to get your social media engagement started, you probably have some work to do first.  You need to commit to the conversation, understand the content gap that might exist and outline a clear strategy for your social media endeavor.

The FDA guidance will undoubtedly be an important step for the industry—but you needn’t wait to start your social media engagement.  The conversation is already happening—join in!

Healthcare marketers are accustomed to dealing with segmented target markets. A target market can be defined as a region, disease state, patient, physician, hospital, insurance provider, etc. … There are no shortage of audiences for healthcare marketers. In that sense, pharmaceutical companies are used to taking a broadly defined target market and slicing and dicing it a number of different ways. But are they prepared for the next wave of strategy required in today’s communications environment—microstrategy?

Typically, marketers evaluate their target market and then develop a strategy based on the demographics of that market. Makes sense right? It does, but developing a microstrategy requires a deeper level of analysis and planning to understand beyond the broadly defined target market. Microstrategy is making a concerted effort to understand what types of information individuals are seeking, how they prefer to receive it and from what sources.

The need for microstrategy comes on the heels of the emergence of social media. In most cases, even when a market is divided by segment, there is still a broadcast-style approach to communicating with that audience. Problem is: consumers no longer find that acceptable as a sole source of communication with a company. Consumers demand interaction. Consumers expect more from a brand and are more-than-willing to open their wallets for those that have developed that connection.

Not surprisingly, developing a microstrategy is both time consuming and difficult. Surely a marketer can’t develop a strategy for each individual in a target market. All the analytical tools and manpower in the world can’t keep up with the pace at which new information becomes available. So where does this leave marketers? On the one hand, consumers demand individual attention and on the other, companies are ill-equipped to provide that level of attention. Ultimately, a healthcare marketer needs to put together a microstrategy focused on understanding the consumption of information in each of their target markets and a plan of action to become an active participant in facilitating that consumption.

There is no denying that microstrategy is a significant undertaking that goes well beyond the current level of analysis needed to form a marketing plan. Many marketers are scared off by the thought of having to develop this level of understanding in order to execute a successful marketing plan. The response is to forego microstrategy planning entirely. Bad move. Think of microstrategy like influencer relations. By understanding a target market’s consumption of information and the key influencers in that process, a brand or company can become an integral cog in that process.

Daunting? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely. If companies fail to incorporate microstrategy into their planning process, people will gladly turn their attention to those that do.

Recently I was working on a social media research project for a large healthcare company.  The task was simple: take a look across a variety of social media platforms and identify the most active blogs, Twitter personalities, Facebook groups, etc…and then determine why people were flocking to these sites and what information they were seeking.

Easy enough.

This wasn’t a unique assignment; I’ve seen dozens of similar requests.  These types of reports tend to focus on platforms—what is the most prominent group on Facebook?  But as I worked through my research it became abundantly clear that focusing on platforms is the wrong approach.  Instead of focusing on Facebook and Twitter, we should be focusing our efforts on identifying influencers.

This is a better approach for a few reasons.  For starters, social media is about 1:1 interactions.  Focusing on influencers rather than platforms puts the attention on building relationships and not on the social network of the day.  In addition, most of the key influencers in a given space have a significant presence across platforms.  It’s rare that you will find a well-respected, vocal presence on Twitter that doesn’t have a blog.  Influencers are highly regarded because of what they have to say, not where they say it.

Beyond focusing on building relationships, focusing on influencers rather than platforms shifts the focus away from the mentality that social media is about the tools.  Instead, social media is about the individuals, how they communicate and what they have to share.  Once you identify an influencer, you can then begin to understand how they reached that position and what content you can offer that would be valuable to that person.

Focusing on influencer relations demands an integrated approach to social media.  Rather than formulating a strategy for Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, you are forced to develop an umbrella strategy to form relationships with influencers.  Of course, this demands mircrostrategies on how to engage with each influencer (and you wonder why social media takes so much time and effort?).  By taking the focus off platforms, you remove some of the temptation to blindly chase after tools simply because it’s the hot social network of the day—maybe Facebook is not the right place for your business.

Social media platforms are important.  They are where the masses congregate and share information.  But as a company in the early stages of drafting a social media strategy, start off by thinking about influencers and you will find your way to the right platform.

This is the time of year when lists abound.  There is a top ten list for just about everything and pharmaceutical social media is no different.  So rather than offer up my obligatory “eleven things to watch for 2011” or a slew of predictions on what to expect, I thought I would offer up my one hope for 2011.

My one hope for 2011 is that it’s not the year of pharmaceutical social media.

With some form of social media guidance likely to come in the first quarter of 2011, surely this will be the year of social media for healthcare companies.  Not so fast—and that’s a good thing.

2011 will not be the year of social media—it will be the year that the idea of social media as a stand-alone strategy vanishes.  General acceptance of social media as a tool has already occurred.  Better still, many companies are realizing that social media takes careful planning and a well-thought out strategy.  However, for the most part, the social media strategy is  currently dreamt up in a vacuum.  In 2011, companies will begin to realize that not only is it necessary to put a social media strategy in place, it is critical to ensure that strategy is part of the larger brand and corporate initiatives.

Moving forward, rather than one internal champion, we will begin to see a far more integrated approach to social media.  Brand managers will join corporate communications managers, compliance officers and executives at the same table.  Social media planning will start with questions like: “what is our corporate strategy in 2011 and how can social media support that?”  This is in stark contrast to today’s favored approach: “we need social media, what’s our strategy?”

In order for social media to succeed in the pharmaceutical space (or any space for that matter) it has to be bigger than a strategy cooked up in isolation.  This is one of the primary ills plaguing social media currently.  It is a fringe tool marginalized to the outskirts of company/budget/team.

2011 will be the year that changes—or so I hope.

Yesterday I wrote a post about the social media resource problem.  The idea is that many companies naively believe that it takes little to no resources to engage in social media.  In a similar vein, there is a misconception that social media is easy and is the work of junior staff.

This is likely the misconception that leads many to believe that when engaging an agency to help with social media efforts it should come cheap.  And before I go any further, I will acknowledge the obvious elephant in the room—I’m an agency guy that has a significant stake in the game.   Fair enough.  That said, as someone that works at an agency, I can also pull back the curtain a bit and provide a glimpse at how a social media program actually operates on the agency side.

So let me dispel this myth—when you hire an agency (maybe even mine, SHIFT Communications) the work is not farmed out to a team of junior staffers and college interns.  No, we don’t have a team of young guns just waiting for their next project.  Quite the contrary.  Unlike traditional PR where a lot of the heavy lifting such as database development, coverage tracking and reporting are done by the junior staff, social media is a bit more top heavy.  This means that you are not getting an allotment of billable hours on the cheap.  Instead, you are getting a mixture of the full team’s attention with a heavy dose of the higher-billed team members.

Why?  Because in order for social media to be a success, there is a level of strategy, analysis of information and real-time decision making that should not be left to the junior staff.  Putting the demands of social media on those that are still learning the ropes is not only risky, it’s unfair.  Junior staff members of course have a huge role to play in any social media engagement.  They can serve as the eyes and ears for monitoring purposes, help to identify new key influencers and spot possible trouble spots before they bubble to the surface.

When you hire an agency for your social media engagement, don’t expect to only get the time of entry-level employees.  Social media is no longer a tool marginalized on the outskirts of a marketing program.  Because of its strategic nature, the constant attention required and the high expectations of the customer—social media is very much in the hands of the senior team at an agency.  So yea, that VP you met at your pitch will be playing a significant role on the account—would you want it any other way?