Social Media in Pharma

1

Social Media in Pharma Hot TopicReport Extract

Ref Code: DMKC0169224 Author: Laura Harris

Hot Topic : Social Media in Pharma 8

One of the main differences with YouTube compared to other social media is the fact that the company has more control over what isposted, with content only coming from the account holder, and the ability to control whether comments are posted.

Companies tend to use YouTube to post videos to provide news and company updates, but also to provide information on specificconditions and diseases or patient testimonials about particular products or treatments. Pfizer, for example, has posted severalvideos on YouTube around smoking cessation, while Janssen has videos ranging from a corporate overview to a spotlight on theresearch and development team (Pfizer UK YouTube, 2016; Janssen YouTube, 2016).

Table 1: Overview of the top pharmaceutical companies on YouTube, based on number of views

Company Video views Videos Subscribers Joined Comments*

Johnson & Johnson 7,513,519 639 6,451 May 2008 Yes

Pfizer 732,641 66 491 July 2009 No

Novartis 576,924 167 1,674 August 2009 Yes

BoehringerIngelheim

393,608 129 722 January 2008 Yes

GlaxoSmithKline 219,655 68 789 August 2008 No

Sanofi 205,525 81 476 January 2011** Yes

Lilly 179,667 48 502 August 2011 No

Bayer 93,834 76 389 February 2009 Yes

Abbott 46,614 7 229 October 2008 No

Roche 27,873 43 229 October 2005 Yes

AstraZeneca 25,650 37 125 July 2006 Yes (some areallowed)

Merck & Co 21,427 16 199 March 2006 Yes

*Based on videos tested.

**Sanofi TV replaced Sanofi Aventis TV, which was originally launched in 2009.

Source: Majumder, 2016

© Informa UK Ltd. This document is a licensed product and is not to be reproduced or redistributed 1

Datamonitor Healthcare Pharma intelligence | informa


Boehringer Ingelheim – leading the way on TwitterBoehringer Ingelheim has been involved in social media from an early stage, with one of its most notable successes being the way in which the company has utilized Twitter. In 2013, Boehringer Ingelheim launched its TweetChats, which are essentially online Twitter conferences. Boehringer Ingelheim’s TweetChats took place in a number of disease areas, including atrial fibrillation, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), and lung cancer. These activities were seen as very successful, both in terms of delivering value on all sides and for staying compliant. Boehringer Ingelheim developed an industry-standard white paper designed to show other companies how these can be used to build and advance a social media presence (Alves and Fonteyne, 2014).

Bayer – an active Facebook presenceBayer is particularly active on Facebook, with a 2014 survey finding that it publishes almost twice as much content than the industry average via this social media site. Indeed, Bayer reaches an audience of over 1 million people via Facebook, with 120,444 interactions per month (Alianzo, 2014). More recently, Bayer has broken new ground with a pioneering Facebook advert for its multiple sclerosis drug Betaferon (interferon beta-1b) and its Betaconnect injector. It is Bayer’s first Facebook advert and also the first time that Facebook has enabled a scrolling important safety information (ISI) inside a pharma advert. Using this approach provides a key advantage for Bayer, as scrolling safety information allows Bayer to stay inside text and photo limits of a pre-determined ad box but still meet FDA guidelines for necessary risk information (Bulik, 2016). In addition, Bayer has also made use of the “call now” button, which connects the user to a live nursing-staffed line. To facilitate this, the advert is only running on weekdays between 8am and 8pm (Bulik, 2016).

Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) – benefiting from a strong consumer presenceJohnson & Johnson’s success in social media is partially due to the company’s leading presence in consumer care, with the Johnson & Johnson brand name very well known throughout the world. This gave the company a major advantage in its social media strategy –as consumer health advertising is less regulated than pharmaceutical promotion, the company could build its social media presence while its pharmaceutical counterparts waited to see what they were able to do (Staton, 2016b). However, in addition to its consumer Facebook and Twitter accounts, Johnson & Johnson has also established a presence under its pharmaceutical Janssen brand. While the Janssen Facebook pages are relatively inactive, its Twitter accounts are more active and share information on new scientific developments, facts and statistics about different diseases, and company news. Janssen also has an active presence on YouTube, with videos covering corporate news, the company’s research and development approach in different disease areas, and lifestyle advice and support for patients (Janssen YouTube, 201




Social media is a valuable tool for patients to stay up-to-date Many patients will follow various pharmaceutical companies on their Facebook and Twitter pages, as well as subscribe to news feedsand other social media channels to ensure that they stay up to date with current developments and news. For many patients, socialmedia provides a one-stop source for the latest drug news, particularly during active times such as a major conference, and ensuresthat patients have the information they need to remain informed and be able to have empowered conversations with their healthcareproviders. In addition, many healthcare providers and facilities have their own social media presence, and this also provides patientswith the ability to stay informed on what is happening at their local physician’s office or hospital. For example, it is recommended thatpatients with chronic conditions have the flu jab each year, as influenza can be potentially very dangerous for those with underlyinghealth issues. Physicians’ offices and hospitals use social media to make patients aware of when they should be attendingappointments to receive the flu vaccine, and are likely to have a greater reach at much less cost than traditional ways of raisingawareness such as undertaking a postal campaign.

Social media has also become a popular tool for enabling patients to see which hospitals and physicians are considered to be leadersin their field. The internet enabled a number of physician-rating sites to be created, but social media has subsequently given patientsa much more active way to relay opinions on all things healthcare-related – from physicians and hospitals to medications, devices, andinsurance plans (Glaser, 2016).

Direct interaction between patients and pharma companies is facilitated bysocial media The pharmaceutical industry is primarily using social media to engage and interact with patients. Social media enables conversationsthat would ordinarily not take place and provides an instant way of pharma communicating with the patient audience, particularlywhen there is negative information or adverse publicity about a product or company. However, in many cases, patients are notaccessing social media in order to interact with pharmaceutical companies but, instead, pharma is monitoring their activity andinserting itself into the conversation where relevant.

“They [patients] are not always that interested in communicating with pharma companies; they’re interested in communicating with eachother. Pharma wants to insert themselves in that dialogue, but it’s not obvious that is something that patients would want us to do.”

Digital patient engagement manager, European pharmaceutical

As long as this is done in a compliant way, then there are technically no reasons why pharmaceutical companies should not interactwith patients in this manner. However, in order to ensure that patients see some value in this engagement and are encouraged tocontinue to use social media to interact with the pharmaceutical industry, companies must ensure that the conversations beingconducted and information being provided are useful, non-promotional, and build on the content that the patients are alreadyposting. Those pharmaceutical companies that are leading the way in their social media strategy and presence are both aware of thisand are using it to guide how they interact with patients in this fashion.

HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS MAINLY USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO STAYINFORMEDHealthcare providers are increasingly reliant on the internet to do their everyday work-related activities – from looking up differentdrugs to keeping up to date with the latest news. Social media is another important tool that healthcare providers are using to enablethis.




Measuring and tracking activity pose a fundamental challenge All pharmaceutical companies look to measure the effectiveness of their activities, particularly marketing, which absorbs a significantamount of time and resource. Traditional marketing activities have established, proven methods of measurement; however, thefluidity and flexibility of social media makes it hard for the same methods to be widely used with these platforms.

In order to assess effectiveness of social media campaigns and activities, pharmaceutical companies should first establish the keyendpoints they are looking at. Examples of these include:

Once these endpoints have been established, key performance indicators are relatively straightforward to develop. For example, if acompany is looking at customer engagement as being the main objective of its social media strategy, then measuring the number of“likes” on Facebook posts, or retweets and favorites on Twitter can be useful to assess effectiveness. In one example, apharmaceutical company was working on a program to increase brand recognition for a new product. They used social media to helpthis in two key ways – firstly, they created a disease state community to educate the undertreated population and create a communitysupport space for the disease, and secondly, they used Facebook adverts, that were not tied to the page, to put the brand name infront of the audience. The engagement and consumption of the educational content for the first part was measured to help gaugesuccess, and then different data were measured for the advert component. Facebook Ads tools and link tracking were used to findthe amount of traffic that was directed to the brand pages. The overall volume of conversation happening around the brand acrosssocial channels was also measured in order to show how brand recognition had changed (Friedman, 2015).

It is possible to measure the effectiveness of social media; it just requires an alternative view on key performance indicators andmetrics, which requires a shift in pharmaceutical executives’ attitudes in order to be accepted. The easiest metric to measure is thenumber of hits or visits or page views, which provides insight on awareness and reach but falls short of showing engagement. As such,engagement metrics, such as number of friends/followers, the net promoter score, buzz indicators, product/service ratings, and othertypes of text analysis such as sentiment analysis or keyword analysis, are becoming increasingly important to show the effectivenessof social media activity (Moorman, 2015). Work should be undertaken to ensure that these different measures are accepted acrossthe company, for example, through validification, creation of dashboards to communicate the measures and how they are evolvingover time, and showing benchmarks versus other leading pharmaceutical companies and also outside of the industry. As social mediabecomes a standard method of customer communication and interaction, the excuse that it cannot be measured will no longer besufficient to justify limited uptake; indeed, showing the cost of not being involved will be as important as return on investment.

Developing a comprehensive, cohesive social media strategy will be key Currently, many pharmaceutical companies incorporate their social media strategy into the general brand marketing plan.

“Having it integrated into the brand teams makes sure that it is properly integrated in what you do, but then it’s seen just as another channelin your marketing mix. Traditionally most pharma companies have a legacy in terms of who sits in the brand teams and they have beenschooled in the traditional way of going to market, so they don’t always have the competencies to think digitally.”

what is the overall mission and objective for social media engagement?•

is the company seeking brand recognition for a new product?•

is the company looking to increase use of a product in a specific region or target demographic?•

is the education of an audience on a disease state critical to the sales of a product?•



The best coverage.The best forecasts.The best analysts.The best support.The Best of Health.

Introducing The New Datamonitor Healthcare.

We’ve quadrupled our business intelligence which covers more than 90% of prescription medicines in the major markets. Our forecasts are tailored to your needs as events occur and are powered by a new forecasting tool built in collaboration with a leading analytics technology provider. We’ve increased our global analyst resources by 300%, and Live Support replies to your queries in real time, not hours, for the fastest support in the market.

We’ve just made strategic investments in Datamonitor Healthcare to give you the best of health.

Discover the best of health.Visit https://pharmaintelligence.informa.com/products-and-services/data-and-analysis/datamonitor-healthcare to tour the new Datamonitor Healthcare with one of our representatives. Request a live demo and see how The Best of Health supports smarter, faster decision-making.

https://pharmaintelligence.informa.com/products-and-services/data-and-analysis/datamonitor-healthcare