1. 7 Steps to Pharma Social Media
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How should a pharma marketer think when going into
social media?
By @vortexsurfer
2. 7 Steps to Pharma Social
Media
1. What is social media?
2. Reasons for using social media
3. Social media in your brand plan
4. Social media ladder
5. What can go wrong?
6. What can go right?
7. Great examples
3. 1. What is social media?
The social media revolution is over
◦ All media is social & can be shared,
commented on, embedded, syndicated
But, for the sake of argument…
◦ User-generated content
◦ Interactive dialogue between companies,
organizations and individuals
What is not social media?
◦ Old school content websites
4. 1. What is social media?
Types of social media
◦ Patient communities
patientslikeme.com, patient organizations
◦ Healthcare professionals’ communities
Meduniverse, Netdoktor Pro
◦ Facebook , YouTube, Twitter, Instagram,
Flickr, Pinterest, Wikipedia, Blogs
5. 2. Reasons for using social
media
Marketing
◦ Increase sales
Improve treatment success
◦ Influence patient behavior (treatment
adherence, diet, exercise), promote disease
awareness
Business intelligence
◦ Listen to customers and competitors
Product development
◦ Engage customers in product development
Customer support
6. 3. Social media in your brand
plan
Digital KPIs (fit into your business
goals)
◦ Define KPIs
◦ KPIs fulfilled in the SM channel or
elsewhere?
Analytics
◦ Measure performance, adjust for higher
KPI fulfillment
ROI
◦ See actual KPI fulfillment & cost
7. 4. Social media ladder
Listen
Promote and advertise
Publish
Build your own communities
8. 4. Social media ladder
Listen
◦ Google Alerts
◦ search.twitter.com
◦ Google Insights for Search / Google
Trends
◦ Tools you pay for – numerous
10. 4. Social media ladder
Listen
Promote and advertise
◦ Make a fake ad in FB, get an idea of your
target group
◦ Sponsor a therapy area in a Healthcare
Professional’s network
11. 4. Social media ladder
Listen
Promote and advertise
Publish
◦ FB pages
◦ FB apps
◦ Games & gamification
◦ Participate in general forums (use real
name)
15. Communities
Check this for more communities
http://www.doseofdigital.com/healthcare
-pharma-social-media-wiki/
16. 5. What can go wrong?
Breach of regulatory compliance
◦ Sweden is one of the few countries in
Europe that has guidance
17. 5. What can go wrong?
Your internal approval process
Adverse event reporting
◦ Pharmacovigilance process
Badvocates
◦ Negative sentiment in your channel
◦ Involve communications department and
have crisis management plan ready
19. 5. What can go wrong?
No engagement
◦ An empty Facebook page is just sad
Time
◦ Will you keep it up a year from now? You
can’t start a community and then close it
You treating SM like a normal
campaign
◦ Not a one way channel
◦ You must be a part of the dialogue
20. 5. What can go wrong?
Pharma industry risk aversion – rightly
so
◦ “Facebook would never have started if
they had our lawyers”
21. 6. What can go right?
Engage customers in dialogue
Possible high (viral) impact
Low cost
◦ Lower cost than SEO/SEM
Offline and online feed each other with
content and traffic
22. 7. Great examples
Pfizer ”Can you feel my pain?”
◦ Petition site, FB page, Flickr image
uploads
Meda Linicin (medical device) FB
page
Genzyme Rare Disease Day in NL
23. Drive4COPD
Boehringer Ingelheim
in US – multi-channel
24. Last slide
There are no shortcuts to
engagement. Only great content
works.