FreshNetworks Blog

I just happened upon a few good examples of social media being used in the pharma industry.  being rare beasts, I thought I’d share the examples and ask – how should drug companies take part in social media?

Pharmaceutical firms have been relatively slow to adopt social media marketing. In large part this is because of the onerous legislation on pharma firms when it comes to making marketing claims. The big concern has to be that someone in an online community might give incorrect advice that is then taken as being instruction from the pharmaceutical firm itself.

As a result there are currently fewer examples of healthcare firms using social networks to drive word-of-mouth and fewer examples of them building their own online communities. I suspect the industry is years away from consensus on how best to take part in social media. Do you have any ideas or expectations?

Social media marketing in healthcare examples

Gardasil – “Take A Step Against Cervical Cancer” is a branded Facebook page that visitors can join, thus triggering news feeds and advocating the brand’s messages. Gardasil is a Merck product and they have chosen to focus their social media efforts at Facebook – it fits their target demographics very well. They have created a Facebook group and over 50,000 people have joined.

As discussed before, Facebook is a great tool for accessing a large social media audience all at once. On the downside, you have to work within the confines of the Facebook tool set, which for effective community management is especially constrained. Perhaps that’s why in Phase2 of their social media strategy they seem to have started bringing together other aspects in a more united online community found on their website. Either way, Merck have done a great job at getting their message out.

AlliConnect - Alli is a weight-loss drug. They have built a support community where people can share their success stories and discuss issues with other community members.

Being Girl – This is not the product of a drug company, however it’s related and a great case study. P&G set up BeingGirl to help them engage with young women as they were going through puberty. The online community has created an excellent and engaging space for open conversations about otherwise embarrassing subjects. It has helped P&G research their market, get to know their audience and build brand awareness.

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Some more reading

• Jumping Into Social Media (mediabullseye.com)
• Social Media Transparency and Real Transparency (yoono.com)
• Social Media Marketing – what marketers will do vs. what they should do (thecustomercollective.com)

Those of us who work in online communities or social media are used to telling brands things like “your customers often have better ideas than you do” and “the best way of innovating is to co-create with consumers”. What might be true of the way communities can be used for clients, is also true of the community itself. Your members are often the best source of feedback and of ideas on how to improve the online community itself.

We work with a lot of online research communities at FreshNetworks, and our sister company FreshMinds Research is one of the top research agencies in the UK, and so have a lot of experience of research in house. And for us the need to research and work with community members to improve their experience seems an obvious one, but I fear that across the industry this isn’t yet the norm.

As we come to the end of the year we are working with all of our clients to review 2008 and plan how we are going to help to build and grow their online communities in 2009. It is obviously important to focus on how the brand wants to continue to build its engagement with customers, where they want insight or innovation, or where they want to provide advocates with tools to amplify word of mouth. But it is also important to consider what the community members think themselves. They are the ones who spend time and get benefit from the online community, and the ones who know best what they want.

Online communities are all about engaging customers and consumers in a different way and so as agencies we should do this too. It needn’t be complicated, but getting feedback from community members is a great way to improve any community, and probably find out a few things you didn’t realise you needed to know.

So if you run an online community, then before you pack up for the holidays consider asking your community members the following three open-ended questions:

1. Has the community been as useful and enjoyable for you as you hoped when you joined?
2. What do you enjoy most about the time you spend on the community?
3. What would make you visit the community more often?

These are simple questions, but will give you real insight to help to build your community in 2009.

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Some more reading

• Online communities at 60% of large firms by 2010
• How to build an online research community: a podcast
• PR industry slow to get to grips with online PR, says e-consultancy
• Controlling Word of Mouth Marketing Using Social Media
• The only secret of Web 2.0 marketing you’ll ever need