There was a period of time in the not-so-distant past that social media for the pharmaceutical industry was considered nothing more than a fad. Skeptics scoffed at the job titles of “social media lead” and “new media director” proclaiming those jobs would be gone in a year. Those same skeptics swore that regulations, monitoring for adverse events and discussion around off-label usage would curtail any useful social media effort for pharma.
“It’s just a fad,” was the common refrain. No more. Social media for pharmaceutical marketing no longer represents a fad—it’s a sea change. Here’s why:
1.) The Pharma Strategy Has Changed
The days when pharmaceutical companies would stubbornly insist on filling their pipelines with blockbuster drugs have come and gone. They still look for that rare blockbuster, but they no longer bet the farm on the one drug that will rake in billions. Part of this is a simple matter of supply and demand. There are just not that many blockbuster drugs left out there. But more than that, medicine has changed from chasing mass-market conditions to disease categories that impact a fewer subset of people. This requires a more personalized approach to treatment. How does this impact marketing? Marketing has been forced to respond to the shifting pharma landscape and match its efforts. In a world of personalized medicine, mass marketing efforts now seem to make less and less sense. Hitting as many eyeballs as possible does little to move the needle on drug sales of an orphan drug targeted at specific disease states. The same can’t be said for social media. Social media marketing programs are designed to engage with the patient at a personal level. By its nature, social media is best suited for a specific audience with simila
r interests. The beauty is this is a two-way street. Patients are far more likely to be engaged in your marketing efforts if it strikes a personal chord. Personalized medicine necessitates personalized marketing.
2.) Shrinking Sales Forces in Favor of Targeted Efforts
Following the move away from blockbuster drugs, pharmaceutical companies no longer have a need for the same massive sales forces of yesteryear. The benefits of a solid relationship at the direct sales level will never be eliminated, but the army of salesmen no longer exists. Pharma companies are now scaling back sales efforts in favor of focused outreach efforts. Glad handing is a thing of the past. Now, it’s about leveraging your relationships to offer a product or service of value. How does this impact marketing? Marketing falls directly in line with the philosophy of the new sales model. In the new marketing mix, pharmaceutical marketers prefer to focus their efforts rather than deploy a wide swath of messages. An effective social media program can help the focused efforts of a sales force by creating demand at the patient level and awareness at the physician level. A targeted sales force should be supported by a targeted marketing effort. Social media allows that to happen.
3.) Patients Have More Information and Play a Larger Role in Health Decisions
Doctors spend a lot of money, time and energy earning the right to practice medicine. They are well-educated, smart people that are accustomed to knowing more then the average patient. But in today’s pharmaceutical world, the patient often has access to as much information as the physician regarding diseases, treatment options and alternatives. This doesn’t mean the physician is no longer the expert, but it does mean that patients now play a much larger role in their health decisions than ever before. A doctor no longer has the luxury of being the only person in the exam room that has access to pertinent information. How does this impact marketing? This dynamic probably plays the largest role in influencing the shift in marketing. With patients at the center of every decision concerning their health, pharmaceutical companies need to adopt a philosophy that not only considers Return on Investment, but also Return on Health (ROH). The job of a marketers has changed from pushing information to engaging in a two-way conversation with the patient. Social media efforts for pharmaceutical companies are now focusing on putting more information at the hands of the patient. As mentioned above, this creates demand in the doctor’s office but also helps to create a more educated patient community.
4.) Regulatory Environment is Showing Signs of Life
It’s no secret that concerns around the regulatory environment pose the greatest obstacle to social media engagement for pharmaceutical companies. Between the great work of debunking those myths and the FDA showing a willingness to consider social media as part of the marketer’s toolkit, the hurdle posed by the regulatory environment looks to be smaller every day. How does this impact marketing? The impact here is obvious. Some pharmaceutical marketers have been content to sit on the sidelines purely out of fear. As the FDA loosens its grip on social media, the pharma industry will surely show a greater sense of urgency to begin the social media engagement process.
There are a probably a dozen more reasons that illustrate the idea that social media for the pharmaceutical industry is more of a sea change than a fad. But here’s the main point to take away from all of this. A fad is something that happens in isolation of external forces. A sea change lines up with, and supports external forces. Social media for pharmaceutical companies is supporting the overall industry change—not fighting it.
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.
Surprised to read that title? Think I’ve finally gone off the deep end (it’s been a long time coming after all)? I’ve been spending so much time discussing how social media depends on personal interactions, why would I advocate for ignoring the consumer during a social media engagement? Common wisdom suggests that you should listen, respond and interact with the consumer to provide a personal brand experience and to cultivate brand loyalists. Surely, ignoring the consumer isn’t the way to go about building brand loyalty—is it?
There is a common belief that even if the pharma industry decided to implement social media programs in droves that patients would automatically rebuff their efforts. There is considerable logic to this line of thinking.
In the world of social media, there are two types of people out there: purists and realists. Social media purists tend to stick rigidly to some unwritten code of social media and believe in the “all or
nothing approach.” A social media purist will say: “if you aren’t going to go full bore, you aren’t really being social.” A social media purist will also dismiss the notion of social media monitoring as a way to extract value from the activity of others on social networks without incurring the dangers of participating.
The FDA public hearings on social media have come and gone. Every phrase uttered from the podium and every word that appeared in a presentation has been examined ad nauseam (for a list of recaps on the event, take a look at 
Yesterday, Sean Woodruff of 
The discussion around pharma social media has 
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