Healthy Skepticism Library item: 18599

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Electronic Source

Rich
Why is there so much talk around social media?
World of DTC Marketing 2010 Aug 17
http://web.archive.org/web/20101226070234/http://worldofdtcmarketing.com/why-is-there-so-much-talk-around-social-media/social-media-and-healthcare/

Full text:

Since I have worked for big pharma and a medical device company I have made a lot of contacts. Last night I received a call from a friend who works for big pharma company on the East coast who asked me “why is there so much talk about social media on pharma BLOGS and Twitter ?”

I hadn’t spoke to my friend for quite awhile although we do communicate quite a bit by eMail. His point was that “we’re not even really looking at social media across the board right now”. When I asked him why he responded “it doesn’t make sense for a lot of our products plus there are enormous legal and regulatory issues that need to be overcome”.

When I told him to go to Twitter and look at a couple of hashtags for Twitter I asked him “what do you see?” I then told him that probably 95% of the people who are calling on pharma to use more social media are from the agency side or consultants.

“Well they are out of touch as to the direction we want to go” he said.
He said that his biggest challenge is not the FDA or DDMAC but coming up with programs that effective in an era of Internet health. “TV is becoming too damn expensive plus it’s not as effective as it used to be” he said. I then gave him some ideas on how they could improve their digital marketing by moving into Web 3.0 such as:

Customized home pages targeted via specific key words
Intuitive navigation based on patient decision tree analysis
Purchasing content from Harvard Medical School & John Hopkins
Deep linking the site including links to competitors sites
That’s when I heard “damn it ! Why don’t I hear this SH&% from MY people ?” I then asked him who his emarketing person was and he said “a person who used to work in IT” and thus he had his answer.

The web is changing. Websites as static destinations are growing less important as people enter into information flows through social networks. These are large and important changes, but they do not make the web obsolete or less relevant. On the contrary, the advantages of the web are only growing. People want the Web to be more personally relevant because there is too much information and anything that can help them get to the information they want in context is going to be a winner.

The bottom line: There maybe some opportunities for pharma to establish a social media page on Facebook but it requires a LOT of time and effort to remain relevant with your audience. In order for that to happen though you also need someone who is fluent in analytics and can clearly show that your social media initiative is having a positive impact on business drivers.

For those who continually talk about social media and pharma ? Well social media is HERE to stay but they need to do some primary research with their target audience to learn just how much consumers mistrust and don’t want to have a relationship with pharma. Like the Rodale DTC marketing study said “consumers felt that a pharma company was “not someone like me” and that is a key barrier to a successful social media program.