Pretty impressed with a Pharmaceutical Social Media eBook I just read by Chris Iafolla of Shift Communications. As I did some work with Pharmaceuticals while working at Porter Novelli (and doing more of it now) it peaked my interest that there was such an ebook for Pharma when there seems to be little easily digestible information for this segment because it is so highly regulated and risk aversive.
But I noticed that Pharmaceutical Social Media are picking up and there are, more and more, where Pharmaceutical companies are considering Social Media beyond listening and they are considering engaging with the patient community. I was going to attempt to summarize the Pharmaceutical Social Media e book but Chris Iafolla has already done a good job of that in his blog post. Also, Chris says some pretty compelling things in his e book such as:
… the list of things a pharma company can say when embroiled in a crisis is small enough to fit in your wallet.
So, all those calling for full transparency using social media are naïve. I certainly would not suggest that a company should withhold pertinent information or intentionally deceive the public—but they simply cannot provide full transparency.
Why? In many instances it’s illegal, pending FDA review. There is also a litany of legal considerations that put the squeeze on communications during a crisis.
For example, no legal team at a pharmaceutical company would ever allow a public apology before all the facts have been sorted out. In a legal sense, a public apology admits fault. Fault implies responsibility and responsibility brings lawsuits. It might seem callous, but that’s the reality.
… The list of reasons why you can’t or shouldn’t engage in pharmaceutical social media is long. Regulatory concerns. Fair balance. Adverse event reporting. The FDA. Off-label usage. HIPAA. Lack of adequate resources. All of these are legitimate issues when considering a social media program.
The list of reasons why you should use social media is not only longer, but also more compelling. Humanizing the brand. Creating brand advocates. Enabling better patient outcomes. Increasing Return on Health (ROH). Establishing a relationship with the patient. Better insights into the patient community. Greater access to information for the patients. A quick response platform during crisis communications.
Given this statement above it’s pretty clear that Social Media for Pharmaceuticals would be different animal somewhat than what Social Media for other kinds of retail, consumer and B2B.
I also like the focus on SEO and content creation with Social Media for Pharmaceuticals referring Facebook Community Pages, Google Health and Yahoo Answers, this shows me there are some additional things to know about when creating social media for Pharmaceuticals that is different than what you would go after for a typical retail or commercial customer.
I liked the Return on Health approach, putting the patient first (since there really is no “customer” in the same way there is for an over the counter drug) though to be fair, I didn’t see in the paper any real attempt to show what the real price would be for a Pharmaceutical Company that decides to be entirely absent in Social Media, even though that is in the blog post claims the paper attempts to answer (I read the entire paper twice)
… When you stack up the reasons for not being engaged on social media with the benefits of creating sustained engagement the question becomes: what’s the price of being absent altogether? When done effectively, social media has the ability to create a relationship with the patient that was never before possible with traditional marketing platforms
As an analyst and blogger I’ll tell you want I like and agree with and tell you want I don’t … let the cards fall where they will. So I like this paper on Pharmaceutical Social Media by Shift Communications (which is saying a lot) but it could be augmented by adding the data audit methodology I developed and which I’ll cover in my Webinar this Tuesday.
In fact, the idea of looking into data logs to see how much social outreach is being tracked is as applicable in Pharmaceutical Social Media as it is anywhere else and readers of this post are the first to be offered the white paper of mine on Social Media ROI and Spectrum Analytics that will be available to everyone else in a few days. Several of my friends and co-workers have already read the paper and feel I can hold it no longer from my readers since the Compete Webinar is in two days, anyway.
Enjoy and let me know what you think.
