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.

In a recent conversation I had at a pharmaceutical social media conference, an attendee was relaying a discussion they had with a social media zealot.  The social media zealot asserted that as social media grew in importance, it would diminish the need for pharmaceutical sales reps.  That’s right, social media is so powerful it will wipe out the need for pharmaceutical sales reps entirely (insert sarcastic tone here).

Folks, it’s these kinds of false promises that prevent social media from being taken seriously.  And you wonder why seasoned executives scoff at job titles like “social media lead.”  If claims like the above continue to make the rounds, then the skeptics will undoubtedly be proven right—social media will be just a fad.  Unfortunately, this is just one example of many that exemplifies the over-promising that takes place in the world of social media.

So let me lay it out for you plain and simple.  No, social media alone will not boost revenues 20%.  Social media will not cover up the misdeeds of a company.  Social media will not replace advertising, traditional public relations or other forms of marketing entirely.  And for goodness sakes, social media surely will not sweep brand problems under the rug.  Will it change the role of each of these disciplines, along with other business units across a company (including sales)?  Yes.  But to think a wholesale extinction of certain jobs is on the horizon because of social media adoption borders on the absurd.

In an excitement to pad their pockets, many social media advocates are selling promises they simply can’t keep.  The good news is, most social media buyers now understand that there are risks involved in social media and it’s not some magic elixir.  The bad news is; these types of statements paint all of us in a negative light.  To earn a seat at the strategy table with branding, advertising and traditional PR, we have to get out of this stage of outsized promises.

Social media is a lot of things—a silver bullet it is not.  And if anyone tells you otherwise, put the phone down and give me a call.

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.

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?

A few common phrases you might hear when talking about how to budget, strategize and allocate resources for a healthcare social media effort.

• “We can just hire an intern, they know all about Facebook.”
• “How much time could it possibly take to get a 140 character message out there?  These two sentences alone are more than 140 characters—piece of cake.”
• “YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are all free, why should I pay anyone to manage that?”
• “We see this as a corporate communications function so let’s just assign it to our corporate communications director.  What?  Added compensation?  This is part of the new job description, she certainly has the time.”

Of course, these are all a bit tongue-in-cheek but you get the gist.  There is a common misunderstanding about the amount of resources required to effectively engage in social media.  Rich Meyer wrote a post today that points to an eMarketer report that says this perception might be shifting.  The report indicates that 41.6% of marketers list time and resources as the biggest barrier to entry for social media.  Not surprisingly then, 37.8% of marketers list “not allocating proper time and resources” as the biggest mistake they made in social media.

At this point, it seems like beating a dead horse, but social media is not easy.  Before you ever get involved, you need to properly plan, set a strategy and align your internal social media team.  These are just the building blocks of starting a social media engagement and don’t even scratch the surface of the planning required for success.

I’ve made this analogy several times before, but it bears repeating in the context of the resource question.  Social media can be boiled down to the simple dynamics of a relationship.  In its simplest form, social media is starting new relationships, building on existing ones and fostering long-lasting bonds.  It sounds a lot like relationships in our real lives doesn’t it?  Like any relationship, social media takes commitment, honesty and above all else—hard work.

And like any relationship, social media is not easy, but the payoff is rewarding.

Oil.

Tobacco.

Pharmaceutical.

According to Harris Interactive, those are among the least trusted industries in America.  Think about that for a minute.

It’s easy to see why tobacco companies are distrusted amongst Americans, and the same can be said for oil companies. But the pharmaceutical industry is in place (theoretically) to treat illness.  The general purpose they serve is to make people healthier.  Despite that noble goal, they’ve found themselves crammed into the bottom of the bucket with oil and tobacco companies.

This begs the question: is it even prudent for pharmaceutical companies to jump into social media?  Trust is a key component of a successful social media engagement and if the general public is already skeptical of pharmaceutical companies the reception could be less than friendly.

True enough.  But isn’t this more of a reason to engage than to stay away from social media channels?  To be certain, social media is not a silver bullet and will not suddenly flip public perception on its head.  However, there is little question that part of this distrust is due to the “Wizard of Oz Syndrome.”  In other words: nobody is quite sure who is behind the curtain and what their intentions are.  Because of this perceived veil of secrecy public distrust lingers.

Pharmaceutical companies are no different than any other business—they hope to make a hefty profit.  By and large, pharmaceutical companies profit over other people’s problems.  Perhaps this is the sentiment that drives distrust?  There is more to the story though.  Most people that work in the pharmaceutical industry don’t see it that way.  They truly believe that they provide a vital service, one that is about helping to cure illness and alleviate the burden of disease.

Rather than hide from social media because of distrust—pharmaceutical companies should embrace it for that very reason.  By shunning social media channels, pharmaceutical companies merely perpetuate the distrust.  Social media will not cure all ills—but it will help on the road to establishing a different type of pharmaceutical company focused not on illness, but on cures.

This is not what I did on my break from my blogging.

As you’ve probably noticed, I took a bit of breather from this blogging thing.  I’d be lying if I said it was intentional. Between a flurry of end of year new business activity, keeping current clients happy, selling my house in Massachusetts and buying a house in New Jersey—things have been a bit nutty to say the least.

There was some benefit to my small sabbatical.  It provided me with better perspective.  One of the best pieces of career advice I ever received was to make sure you pick your head up from the day-to-day work and take in what’s going on at this very moment.  This break from blogging was an opportunity to do just that and enhance my view of the world of pharmaceutical social media.

Here are five valuable lessons that were reinforced during my break from blogging:

1.)    The Dangers of the Echo chamber: I’ve written before about the danger of allowing the pharmaceutical social media conversation to become an echo chamber.  It’s kind of like a whole bunch of conservatives tuning into Fox News every day—you are only reinforcing what you already believe.  Staying within the confines of the echo chamber is a great way to stroke your ego—but it’s a terrible way to win business and move the industry forward.

2.)    Questions of Internal Resources Prevail: The common belief is that a lack of guidance from the FDA (tick tock) is the primary roadblock to most pharmaceutical social media efforts.  While it certainly is an issue, more programs get tripped up at an even earlier juncture—who the heck is going to run this stuff?  Before social media programs get started, it’s critical that an internal social media team is aligned.

3.) Ownership is Still an Issue…But not the Way you Think: The problem of who owns social media is still a major question.  However, it’s not a question between PR, social media, digital or advertising agency that dominates the conversation.  The real question is should pharmaceutical social media live in marketing?  Or is it better suited for another piece of the business?

4.) Perception that Pharmaceutical Social Media is Overkill: In today’s economic environment, many the public at large would rather see pharmaceutical companies develop better research pipelines, flawless manufacturing facilities and improved patient assistance programs.  Many find it difficult to see the direct correlation between better health outcomes and pharmaceutical social media.

5.) Beg, Borrow and Steal: Numerous reports have indicated that spending on social media is on the rise.  This only tells part of the story.  True, companies are looking to ramp up social media efforts, but the overall budget isn’t expanding, it’s just being swiped from other areas.  This feeds into the problems of internal resources and who owns the program. Nobody wants their budget to suffer at the expense of social media—so budget wars continue.

Some of the issues raised above are a bit myopic in their approach to social media.  But that’s the thing about stepping outside the echo chamber to gain perspective.  It’s not about validating your own opinions, it’s not even about figuring out reality.  Perspective is understanding the reality of others.  The question is: how do we adjust?    

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.

In many recent conversations, I often find myself delineating between traditional PR and non-traditional PR/social media.  This is particularly true in conversations with pharmaceutical marketing departments looking to engage in social media.  This is due in part to make a clear distinction between media relations and social media.  But I’ve started to wonder, what is traditional PR anyway? What do I mean when I say that and what am I implying?  Does the term hold any value?

What I am essentially implying when I say that is that they are somehow different—that social media and PR do not go hand and hand.  This couldn’t be further from the case.

I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest that we stop using the term all together.  There are far too many audiences out there that do not fully understand the strategies and tactics involved in a more refined communications program.  But when you get down to it, the idea that there is a “traditional PR” is somewhat limiting.

When people talk about traditional PR, they are talking about media relations, writing press releases, etc…But writing a press release is not public relations.  Writing a press release is one of the tactics involved in PR.  The real bread and butter of a public relations program is—you guessed it, communicating with the public.  How you do that is immaterial.

On the other side, I have always maintained that the most important part of a social media program is the simple fact that it is social.  Likewise, the most important part of a public relations program is that you are effectively communicating with the public.  Ultimately, you are splitting hairs at this point.

My point is this: the idea that there is a “traditional PR” and a “non-traditional PR” is dated.  Social media has changed how we communicate, how we engage with our audience and how we involve the customer in the process.  There is no doubt that we are in a new age of public relations that is being pushed forward by social media.  But PR is PR.  Social media is part of PR.

Do I think tomorrow the term traditional PR should be banned from our lexicon?  Of course not.  Do I think we should work to encourage a more sophisticated view of both public relations and social media?  You bet.

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.