Social Media & Pharma – Time to get Engaged!

“Conventional marketing wisdom long held that a dissatisfied customer tells ten people. But…in the new age of social media, he or she has the tools to tell ten million.” - Paul Gillin, author of ‘The New Influencers’.

Such is the power of Social Media. But let’s take a step back and understand what social media stands for. Several definitions of social media are available online. However, I believe it is best described as the use of web- or mobile-based technologies to facilitate social interaction and communication, thereby engaging people to collaborate and create valuable content.

According to a report by HBR, ~80% of 2,100 companies surveyed state that they are either currently using social media channels or preparing to launch some initiatives. The main benefits that use of social media has brought to these companies are – increased awareness and favorable perception of the company, their products or services among their target audience and increased traffic to websites. Social networks, blogs, multimedia sharing and microblogs describe the gamut of social media channels used by companies worldwide.

So what have pharma companies been doing about this social media revolution? Not enough I would say. Click here to get a snapshot of pharma’s use of social media. Pharma has much to gain from social media and some of the benefits have been outlined below in order to reinforce the need to include social media in their marketing strategy.

As explained in my previous post, the next generation Patient 2.0 actively seeks healthcare information on the Internet and through social media channels. Patients want information whether related to their disease, symptoms, treatment or to reach out to others with similar issues. They inadvertently provide a rich source of ‘Patient-generated content’ by sharing and collaborating with fellow patients and caregivers. Studies by digital marketing firm comScore^, provide some interesting statistics. Although branded pharmaceutical websites continue to be one of the most impactful in driving conversions among prospects and patients, internet users spend an average of 91% more time on health content sites than on branded pharma sites. 53% of internet users report using social media tools to discuss health topics with Facebook and Wikipedia being the most popular social media websites.

Companies can leverage patient information seeking behavior by redirecting them to their own social media websites and providing the relevant information. Pharma companies would, therefore, need to engage in a two way conversation instead of just providing branded drug content on their product websites. They stand to gain invaluable feedback by just listening in on these conversations and contributing wherever applicable. Customer trust and belief that the company truly cares and is responsible is likely to impact their corporate image in a positive way.

Although difficult to measure in reality, one cannot underestimate the influence of social media on patient behavior. 46.7% of respondents reported that social media sites help them make better decisions. 51% of respondents reported that the information found on social media sites had prompted them to speak with their doctor about a particular drug and 62% planned to speak with their doctor about a disease or condition.

Physicians are also finding value in using social media to connect with their colleagues. Sermo is one of the largest online communities for physicians with over 115,000 members. Physicians collaborate on difficult clinical cases and discuss wide range of issues from drug advice to practice management. Pharma companies would benefit greatly from interacting with these physicians – create awareness on several topics through multiple promotional channels and gain excellent insights through customized market research.

Despite the several benefits of social media, many pharma companies have not been able to harness its full potential with a majority of them avoiding it altogether. Key barriers include adverse event reporting by patients or caregivers on social media websites and lack of well-defined regulatory guidelines on how to promote prescription drugs over the Internet esp. using multiple social media channels.

EU offers very little guidance to pharma companies on social media. The EFPIA (European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations) only provides guidelines on transparency and content of internet websites_. UK’s PMCPA (Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority) alone offers a new Q&A document that covers the use of Twitter, blogs, meta data in search engine optimisation, online meetings and linking to non-company websites. It also addresses important questions of whether pharma companies can use social media to communicate with the public or healthcare professionals and what is likely to be considered as promotion of prescription-only drugs under the ABPI Code of Practice. However, this seems limited and further regulation is required by all EU authorities.

Even in the US, there seems to be very little clarity on what is permissible under drug promotion via the Internet and social media channels. The much anticipated Q1 2011 FDA draft guidance has been further delayed only sending out mixed signals to pharma companies. In addition, their current 2011 guidance agenda states that it intends on addressing ‘Responding to unsolicited requests for prescription drug and medical device information, including those encountered on the Internet’. However, several other pertinent questions remain unaddressed and would require guidance in order to ensure integrity of information provided by both pharma companies and patients on social media sites. This would include but not limited to issues related to space limitations on microblogging sites like Twitter, online communication between various stakeholders, use of links on the Internet and addressing and correcting misinformation.

Therefore, in order to prevent any FDA backlash and control content, companies have been disabling their user ‘comments’ functionalities on their corporate, disease or product specific Facebook pages through the process of ‘whitelisting’. They have also been screening and declining to post any product related comments. However, recent Facebook commenting policies may create certain obstacles for pharma companies. According to sales representatives, ‘Facebook will no longer allow admins of new pharma Pages to disable commenting on the content their Page shares with people on Facebook. Pages that currently have commenting disabled will no longer have this entitlement after August 15^th. Subject to Facebook’s approval, branded Pages solely dedicated to a prescription drug may (continue to) have commenting functionality removed.’

As a consequence, pharma companies will have less control over the content on their pages and will need to become more vigilant. Potential risks include negative comments against the company, adverse even reporting, misinformation and discussions on off-label use of drugs. Nevertheless, to look on the brighter side, this policy change could increase their ability to empower patients, caregivers and physicians to share their experiences, have more meaningful dialogues with them and thereby, diffuse potentially negative situations from occurring.

So in spite of all these issues, would pharma companies gain tremendous value and potential in including social media in their pharma marketing plans? The answer would be a big YES. Being a part of the ‘buzz’ should, however, never be the intention. There is currently much to learn and experiment in order to create a targeted social media campaign, measure its effectiveness and integrate social media into the company marketing strategy. Pharma companies are only slowly getting started but there is no turning back now.