A couple of weeks back I had the opportunity to have dinner with a bevy of social media powerhouses including: Marc Monseau of Johnson and Johnson, Laurie Edwards, Jack Barrette from WEGO Health, Shwen Gwee from Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Paul Levy from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, e-Patient Dave deBronkart and Alicia Staley.  As you can see, this was the type of conversation that does not happen frequently enough—a melting pot of patients, pharma people, hospital executives and agency wonks.  The conversation ranged from new babies, to babies on the way, to social media strategy, to the challenges of searching for information on rare diseases.  But what stood out to me the most during the course of the conversation resulted in both satisfaction and frustration.  The Holy Grail for pharma social media remains empowering the patient.

That was a satisfying piece of information in the sense that I’ve long trumpeted the need for social media strategies focused on the Return on Health of the patient.  It’s always nice to affirm that you are not crazy.  It was frustrating because what I heard from the table was it was a need mostly going unmet. What became apparent to me during our dinner was that this is not a problem that can be solved by pharmaceutical companies in isolation.  Just like pharmaceutical social media engagement should not take place in a vacuum, creating a healthcare system where the patient is empowered to play a larger role in the decision-making process requires systems thinking.

Pharmaceutical companies can lead the charge in part because of their unique access to information but also because of their substantial sphere of influence.  Pharmaceutical companies have access to the best information available on treatment options, dealing with side effects and current research.  Like it or not, they also have pull on capital hill, with insurance providers, in the doctor’s office and with the patient.  Pharmaceutical companies must serve as the catalyst to empowering the patient.

But the process can’t stop there.  As agency people, we tend to focus our energies on swaying the folks that write the checks.  In order to truly empower the patient, we need to broaden our field of vision.  How can we expect the empowered patient to achieve a good outcome when doctors are incentivized to see more patients and not spend more time with patients?  What good is an empowered patient if she can’t find information on the latest clinical trials on her rare disease because search algorithms do not lend themselves to uncovering that information?  What’s the use of an empowered patient if doctors are not trained to take input?

I admit I am raising a problem far too complex for me to solve—something that requires brains far smarter than mine.  But I am smart enough to realize that pharmaceutical companies engaging in social media alone will not empower the patient—we need the collaboration of lawmakers, insurance providers, hospitals, doctors and patients.

Even with this complexity, it all centers on the patient.

There is an old adage that necessity is the mother of invention.  Recently amidst the endless stream of Tweets I see, I saw a different take on this saying: “Crisis is the mother of invention.”

(I wish I could remember who Tweeted that so I could give proper recognition, but alas, I can’t.  So to my stranger-Tweeting friend, thank you!)

It struck me as a particularly relevant comment for the world of pharmaceutical social media.  I’ve touched on the fact that pharmaceutical stumbles in social media are a good thing and that it is indeed possible to use social media for pharma crisis communications.  My contention has always been that each challenge along the way illuminates the fact that social media is not some fly-by-night marketing technique.  There are always stumbles in a marketing program, and there will always be challenges, the belief that social media would somehow circumvent that has always hurts its credibility.

As pharmaceutical companies have encountered struggles in social media it has sharpened all of our thinking on the best approach to engagement.  In the early phases of pharma social media—a company was praised simply for showing up.  As well they should have been at the time.  A pharmaceutical company showing its face online was a novel idea three years ago.  During this period, our thinking was never stretched and our approach was never challenged.  It was kind of like elementary school—everyone got a gold star just for trying their best.

No longer.

The recent string of pharmaceutical mishaps has been the crisis that will spur invention.  It will force social media pundits to take a closer look at the thought process behind an engagement and reevaluate the best approach.  More importantly, it will force pharmaceutical companies to ask the right questions before embarking on a social media journey, pinpoint the right goals and insist on outlining a strategy and crisis communications plan.

Back in December, I wrote a post centered on the social media land grab.  This is what it boiled down to: agencies have recognized that social media presents an opportunity to add a revenue stream.  Of course, agencies always follow the money and suddenly everyone was looking to grab a piece of the proverbial pie.  It didn’t matter if you were a branding shop, a digital agency, an ad agency or a PR agency—everyone had a story as to why they were best suited for social media.

Unfortunately, that conversation has continued unabated seven months later.  Debate is running rampant on who owns social media.  But my question is: who cares?

The constant debate about who owns pharmaceutical social media is not only useless chatter; it’s detrimental to the industry.  While an ad guy is selling a campaign concept and a PR guy is selling the idea of building a reputation—the pharma marketer is left scratching their head.  We often counsel our clients on clarity and consistency of message yet we muddy the process for the very people we are trying to convince.  I may not have learned much in school but one thing I do know is that confusing the buyer is not a recommended selling tactic.

So to all my cohorts out there on the agency side, who are we trying to convince—ourselves or the prospect?

Instead of making a decision based on the type of agency you are considering, I would encourage pharma marketers to focus on a different set of criteria.  Ask questions that cover:

• What is your process for setting strategy?
• What is the most compelling reason for us to be involved in social media?
• How will you handle a crisis communications situation online?
• What is the goal of our engagement on social media?
• How will you help me identify, create and extend the value of my content?
• How will you identify the appropriate audiences for me to engage with?
• How will you measure success during an engagement?
• What departments do you plan on getting involved internally (i.e. legal, IT, etc.)?

These types of questions and many more will provide you with better insight on the right social media partner.  It might be a digital agency, or it might be an agency like mine.  But if the debate continually focuses on who owns social media—they are not right for the job.

The pharmaceutical social media credo: “add more value than you extract.”  Do you buy that?  If so, then the primary value a healthcare company can add to social media is providing access to information for all key stakeholders.  The fact is: life sciences companies have access to some of the best doctors, research and medical treatments in the world.  By acting as a clearinghouse of sorts for information, pharma companies can provide a unique level of access to information that would otherwise be difficult to find.

At least that’s the theory.  But what happens when that theory is flipped on its head?  If patients no longer need pharma companies for access to quality information their role in social media becomes a bit murky.  This is exactly what’s starting to happen with the advent of Google Health and Bing Health.  As Jon Richman details on Dose of Digital, Google Health and Bing Health not only point patients to credible information, they provide access to it without ever having to leave the search engine.

Check it out:

A search for Melanoma returns the screen on the left, with links to Google Health, Mayo Clinic, Medline Plus and WebMD.  If you click on the Google Health Link, there is hordes of information gathered from highly credible sources.  The result is much the same with Bing, except Bing takes it one step further by providing treatment options and access to patient ratings of those treatment facilities.  With so much information available after one simple search, there is little reason for a patient to click further.  This is a very real threat to pharmaceutical companies hoping to provide patients with access to pertinent information.  Jon outlines steps pharmaceutical companies can take to help themselves from an SEO standpoint.  His suggestions are spot on and I suggest you click through and take a read.  For my lazy readers, I’ll summarize here: find out where the information is coming from and ensure its accuracy, improve the performance and content of your own Website and don’t neglect paid search to boost the prominence of your own performance with relevant search terms.  Since Jon has that part covered, I’ll focus on how this impacts pharma social media and what pharma companies can do to respond.

First off, remember the central question of pharma social media of what’s the Return on Health (ROH) for the patient?  In other words, keep your patient front and center when considering how to engage in social media within a framework where Google and Microsoft are attempting to limit the reason for your customer to ever leave their respective sites.  As a pharmaceutical company focused on ROH, you know your patient better than that.  You know very few patients dealing with a serious illness are content to visit just one site—no matter how credible it may be.  So don’t panic.  Continue with your listening programs and evaluating where your patients are congregating.  Those are still worthwhile destinations for transparent interaction and patient participation will not diminish as a result of Google Health.

There is also an aspect of “influencing the influencer” here.  By understanding how Google and Bing Health are populated, as a pharmaceutical company you can engage directly with those sources both in a traditional PR capacity and at the social media level.  In doing so, pharmaceutical companies can play a role in shaping the content the patient will see when searching on health conditions.

Finally, pharmaceutical and biotech companies need to commit to creating better content.  Google will inevitably win at its own game.  But that doesn’t mean that pharma companies should simply throw in the towel and call it a day.  As we stated earlier, healthcare companies are the gate keepers to a wealth of knowledge.  Use this as an opportunity to break the gates wide open.  Social media provides the platform for the democratization of knowledge.  Quite a noble goal huh?

So there you have it: Return on Health, influence the influencer and create better content.  If you couple this social media strategy with the SEO pointers provided by Jon, pharmaceutical companies can play nice in the Google sandbox.

It’s no secret that social media is the trend of the day in pharmaceutical marketing.  A combination of constant evangelism on the part of social media wingnuts (I mean advocates), an uptick in real-world examples from pharma companies and the FDA public hearing has vaulted social media into the limelight.  Since attaining such prominence, social media seems to have a stranglehold on the marketing discussion (or maybe it’s that whole echo chamber thing I posted about).  But the limelight can be so bright that it causes you to miss other things right before your eyes.

If you haven’t picked up on my thinly veiled metaphor just yet, social media is the bright light in this case.  In recent months, social media has been relegated to shiny object duty.  It’s the marketing tactic of the day being waived before pharma executives at every strategy session to increase patient engagement, raise brand awareness and break into new markets.  That’s a good thing.  The level of conversations that are occurring regarding social media is encouraging.  It indicates that pharmaceutical companies are slowly but surely buying into its potential.  But there is a fine line to walk between realistic potential and hype—we are getting dangerously close to the edge.

Social media enters into the hype zone when it causes otherwise level-headed marketers to write off alternative, viable marketing tactics.  And if they are not written off, they are certainly placed on the backburner.  As an aforementioned wingnut, I believe in the value of social media as much as the next guy.  But social media CANNOT exist in isolation.  It has to be conducted in the context of a larger marketing strategy that includes a broad range of tactics.  I’m a PR guy.  In fact, while I tout the benefits of social media on a regular basis, a large chunk of my work is dedicated to so-called traditional PR.  That’s right, writing press releases, reaching out to editors and forming relationships with the main-stream media.  Can you imagine?

(Warning, here comes a small commercial, bear with me, I think it is relevant).

At my agency, SHIFT Communications, we describe ourselves as a hybrid agency in the sense that we do both traditional PR and social media.  I think that’s crucial.  We do this not so we can sell both services, but because we firmly believe that social media, and traditional PR should happen in concert, not in isolation.

Social media is important.  It will only grow in importance as companies become better at engaging with relevant communities.  But remember, social media should not happen at the expense of the remaining parts of the marketing mix—even traditional PR.

Maybe it is the fast-approaching conclusion of 2009, but recently I have been doing a lot of retrospective thinking.  In some ways, 2009 was a banner year for pharma social media.  Look no further than last month’s FDA public hearings for proof positive.  For sure, significant progress has been made in paving the road to widespread adoption and acceptance of social media as a marketing tool for pharmaceutical companies.

On the flip side, huge challenges still exist.  Despite the fact that the FDA met to shape its thinking around how to handle new media technologies, guidance still seems like a mere speck on the horizon.  And despite all the great work that is being done to dispel the adverse event myth and quell fears around other regulatory issues, concerns still persist.  As much as we sometimes write off these hurdles as excuses to stay out of social media, I would venture to say they still stand as the greatest hurdle.

The good news is the nature of that challenge has changed.  It used to be that the first conversations you had with a pharmaceutical marketer were focused on selling the value of social media and why various emarketing techniques could provide more bang for the buck than traditional TV ad spend.  Discussion on how social media could help the company was not even on the table until social media itself was proved as a viable marketing vehicle.  A number of recent conversations I’ve had with people inside pharmaceutical companies have convinced me that we are moving beyond that stage.

The stage where marketing people need to be sold has come and gone.  For the most part, the marketing folks inside pharma companies understand the value social media brings to the table.  Instead, the selling aspect of a social media program has shifted from the marketing department to the legal and regulatory department.  Even if the marketing department believes in social media and is ready to move forward with a program, the legal and regulatory group can pull the plug at a moments notice.  In fact, some marketing departments are so close with their social media plans that they are literally ready to flip a switch once they receive clearance.

If pharma social media is ever going to reach its potential, the role of the agency is to arm internal marketers with the ammo to convince regulatory and legal that social media is not a lawsuit waiting to happen.  I firmly believe that the majority of this discomfort is a lack of knowledge and understanding around what these tools are.  The result is they are dismissed off hand.

In tomorrow’s post, I will outline the role of the agency in helping to arm marketers with the information needed to educate internal departments.  In the meantime, I am curious: what role do you think the agency can play in educating legal and regulatory departments inside pharmaceutical companies on social media?

Yesterday, Sean Woodruff of Imapactiviti ripped off a series of tweets around the idea of taking the safe route in social media.  I believe it’s a topic that warrants closer consideration, especially in the world of pharma.

A bleeding-edge social media type might dismiss the safe route off hand.  If you are not going to immerse yourself then why bother?  The driving tenant of social media is engagement.  It’s about becoming part of a community and adding as much value as you extract.  It is not about lurking in an attempt to exploit the community.  Taking this to its logical conclusion, one might presume that social media at a strategic level is an all or nothing proposition.  It’s a reasonable conclusion to reach but it ignores reality.  It fails to take in to account the need for a pragmatic approach.

Sure, it would be great if pharmaceutical companies dove in head first and tackled the whole social media spectrum in one fell swoop.  But here’s the thing: if that were the case, more companies would fail than succeed.  To engage in a community appropriately, it requires resources, time, training and strategy.  It is not something to be taken lightly.  The only way to do it right is to plan, take achievable and measurable steps forward then (and only then) expand.

When I counsel clients on their social media strategy, I often fall back on the old adage: “walk before you run.”  It’s an adage that applies particularly well for the pharmaceutical industry.  With so many regulations to consider and a strong corporate culture to change, it is prudent to take it slow.  Instead of launching a Facebook page, establishing a YouTube channel, creating a Twitter account and launching a blog all at the same time; why not try commenting on a few industry blogs first?  Or, prior to making your blog public, why not get two weeks worth of posts up to get in the swing of producing consistent, quality content.

Safe social media strategies do not equate to cop outs.  In fact, going the safe social media route, especially in the pharmaceutical industry, is often the best path to success.

The discussion around pharma social media has become so predictable that you can write the script prior to a discussion.  If you ask a pharmaceutical marketing person their thoughts on the topic you are likely to get some variation of this response: “Well, it’s difficult.  I would certainly like to do it but there are just far too many challenges to overcome.  Legal will have a fit, and even if we get it through that department, why bother as the message will be so watered down to meet regulatory requirements that it won’t be worth the effort.  On top of that, what are we going to do with adverse events and off-label usage discussion?  It’s too much and there is not enough for me to justify the spend.  Why bother?”

In other words: it’s not me, it’s you.

But does this defeatist attitude merely create a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure?  Are we as marketers as much a part of the problem as the supposed hurdles we face?

It’s always prudent to evaluate the landscape before diving into any type of activity.  You wouldn’t jump on a ski lift one morning and head straight for a black diamond the first time you’ve ever donned a pair of skis.  The same holds true with pharma social media.  You don’t want to blindly approach social media without understanding the risks involved and the potential benefits.  But the key is: you should approach—even if it is cautiously.  The current mindset of some pharmaceutical marketers is akin to sticking your fingers in your ears and running in the other direction.

As an industry, we spend a lot of time evaluating the external factors that prevent successful social media campaigns.  Meanwhile, many of those external factors are trending in a favorable direction.  Conferences such as the ePatient Conference and Digital Pharma 2009 are sparking lively discussions on how social media can enhance pharmaceutical communications and improve patient outcomes.  Even the FDA is holding a public hearing on where social media fits into the new media landscape.

Rather than pointing the finger at all of the reasons we can’t use social media for pharmaceutical companies, maybe we should look at why we can.  More and better feedback from patients.  Real-time communication on key health issues.  A more complete understanding of the patient.  A dialogue on societal health issues, etc…

The challenges facing the pharmaceutical industry when it comes to social media are real and numerous.  I don’t dispute that fact.  But when they create the attitude of “why bother” marketers are predestined for failure.

In my welcome post to this blog, I reposted content I originally published on a few different blogs.  The oldest appeared in 2007.  Yet, here we sit heading in 2010 and many of the same issues remain at the forefront.  Marketers at pharma companies are struggling with how to engage with patients, doctors and care givers simultaneously.  They are still grappling with how to move beyond traditional methods of marketing.  Pharma companies are still weighing the prudence of jumping into social media.  Three years is a long time to weigh your options—isn’t it time to take action?

Are pharmaceutical companies afflicted with myopia when it comes to marketing?  Have they effectively been stuck in neutral for the last three years?

To answer this question, I think it is instructive to consider the arc of marketing outside of the pharmaceutical industry.  Four years ago, the idea that a company would engage in Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter (not yet around) would seem preposterous as a credible marketing technique.  Bleeding-edge types were just beginning to see the value of this form of customer engagement and were starting to convince early adopters to try “wild and crazy” things like blogging.

Those first companies were mostly consumer-focused.  The logic was simple: their customers were easily identifiable online so it made sense to start marketing in the communities where customers were already engaging.  Traditional B2B companies came next.  Name brands like IBM and Microsoft were jumping into the mix realizing that social networks were not only for personal use, but were a valuable professional tool as well.  In the early stages, many of the tactics were what would now be considered rudimentary—mostly engaging on blogs.  Slowly but surely, blogging became Facebook Fan pages, YouTube Channels and Twitter engagement.

The point is: industries with fewer hurdles to clear than pharma have not been at this social media thing for very long.  It was a slow grind in those industries so why should we expect pharmaceutical companies to recklessly dive in head first?

Are pharmaceutical companies myopic?  In recent years, the industry has moved away from the blockbuster drug strategy and focused more heavily on alliance management.  It has started to shift away from treating high-emotion conditions such as baldness to treating diseases with high unmet needs.  The pharmaceutical industry has even started to rethink the traditional model of deploying a sales force, trending toward targeted relationship building rather than blanketing every inch of every territory.  Even in the world of marketing, companies like Johnson and Johnson and Pfizer (among others) are embracing the potential of social media.  All of this indicates one thing: the pharmaceutical industry is not myopic—it just needs time.

In yesterday’s post, I speculated that Google Sidewiki’s arrival on the social media scene may force the hand of Big Pharma into finally developing a social media policy.  As is to be expected, there are concerns around the implications of Sidewiki from a marketing standpoint and how it might tempt some marketers to cheat the system.  Some, such as the World of DTC Marketing, fear that marketers will attempt to post glowing comments about their brand under a pseudonym and have gone so far as to suggest that pharmaceutical companies should issue a policy that employees are forbidden from posting on Sidewiki or other social media sites.

Really?

The issue of transparency is not an issue confined to Sidewiki.  It’s not an issue confined to the pharmaceutical industry for that matter.  One of the basic tenants that underpin social media interaction is transparency. Posing as someone you are not, disguising your intentions and not revealing your employer affiliations are blatant affronts to this principle.  So yes, there is a risk that some ethically-questionable marketers will look to capitalize on tools like Sidewiki by posting false comments, but to issue a carte blanche statement around posting on social media sites is reckless.

As the World of DTC Marketing post points out, consumers have a general distrust of pharmaceutical companies.  To be sure, this makes engaging with pharma consumers online a tricky proposition.  It takes a company that is honest, informative and compassionate to gain any measure of success.  But the key is: engagement that both helps the company and helps the patient is possible—this is not a zero-sum game.  Preventing all posting on social media sites eliminates a prime opportunity to restore some of the trust the industry has unquestionably lost.