360DigitalInfluence

This week we’ll be taking an in depth look at social media in the world of pharma and healthcare - a big topic for our team and overall healthcare practice.  Each day we’ll be sharing a different post about everything from tactical advice on using YouTube and Twitter - to discussing trends such as the rising use of gaming in healthcare or importance of esubscribing. Moving forward, we’ll have an archive of all these posts categorized and tagged for each access at http://blog.ogilvypr.com/tag/pharma or http://blog.ogilvypr.com/tag/healthcare.

Summary
Perhaps no other form of social media right now is as universally and simultaneously sought after and misunderstood in the Pharma industry as the corporate Twitter feed. If blogs were the big social media story several years ago, few would argue that Twitter has taken over that mantle today. Yet for all the stories of brands using Twitter for everything from averting a crisis to selling product (not in Pharma, obviously) - the only thing that is clear is that Pharma brands are joining the Twitter bandwagon with a speed and volume that social media has not yet seen in the industry.

While only a handful of the biggest Pharma brands have corporate blogs, 8 OF THE TOP 10 pharma brands (by revenue) have sort sort of corporate Twitter account (see list of links below for full details). As time goes on, more and more corporations are creating their “official” Twitter accounts and starting to uncover potential uses for the now ubiquitous microblogging platform.

Why Does It Matter?
Why is Twitter succeeding in accelerating the adoption curve for social media where blogs and other tools that came before largely failed? Simplicity plays a part, as the 140 character message limit means that conversations seem more manageable to have, and content feels more reasonable to search. The bigger reason, however, stems squarely from the realm of the communications department. The fact is, journalists are using Twitter. In fact, not only are they using Twitter, they are actively turning to it in droves.

New services such as Journotwit allow journalists to more easily navigate the flood of information on Twitter, and many lists have sprung up listing journalists who use Twitter and their usernames for you to follow and connect with directly. Aside from media, healthcare professionals, and patients (the two other big audiences Pharma brands care about) are increasing their use of Twitter rapidly.

Summary & Implications
What all of this points to is the growing necessity for taking a strategic approach to using Twitter for Pharma focused on the audiences where it can have the biggest impact. Here are some tips to help you approach Twitter strategically:

• Don’t play the numbers game. Twitter’s biggest potential for Pharma brands is to connect with influencers. If you only have 25 followers, but they are all top tier journalists or physicians - your Twitter account has huge potential benefits. By contrast, having 3000 followers from the general audience who are “following” you but don’t care about your brand, products or pipeline are all but useless. Focusing on quality above quantity is the first big lesson of Twitter.
• Tweet more than press releases. The best use of Twitter is when you go beyond simply posting your press releases there. Think of your account as a combination of content that helps your brand, and content that offers something useful or interesting for your audience. For example, don’t just post your latest survey on a disease condition, share third party research on the same topic or the latest news article. The more you can be a resource, the more likely you are to build trust and grow your useful and valuable followers.
• Choose the right authors and create a schedule. Twitter is a commitment, but it doesn’t have to require one person to spend all their waking hours managing it. Ideally, you can find someone on your team with some personal passion for using the tool or for content to create content and then create a realistic schedule and process to help them contribute content to the Twitter stream without making it too difficult or time consuming.
• Use tools to make it easier. There are a host of online tools that can allow you to post remotely by sending a text message or email to a private address, or cross post to multiple sources with a single message. You can allow multiple people to contribute to the same account, and fully integrate tracking URLs to measure effectiveness.

Ultimately, there are strong reasons to use Twitter to create a Pharma corporate brand twitter account, and plenty of lessons out there to learn from in the process. With the ability to completely protect your updates from anyone you don’t want to see them, social media is not only becoming an essential part of the toolkit for the social web, if you’re looking for a manageable place to get start, this might be it.

Resources & Links:

• Highly useful social media wiki of Pharma/Healthcare brands - http://www.doseofdigital.com/healthcare-pharma-social-media-wiki/
• Pfizer News - http://twitter.com/pfizer_news
• Johnson & Johnson - http://twitter.com/JNJComm
• GSK - http://twitter.com/gskus
• Bayer - http://twitter.com/bayerhealthcare
• La Roche - http://twitter.com/Roche_com
• Sanofi-Aventis (none found) - http://twitter.com/sanofiaventistv (via Jonathan Richman)
• Novartis - http://twitter.com/novartis
• Astrazeneca - http://twitter.com/astrazenecaus
• Abbott Labs (none found)
• Merck - http://twitter.com/merckcareers1 (career site only)
• Bristol-Meyers Squibb - http://twitter.com/bmsnews
• Eli Lilly (none found)
• Amgen - http://twitter.com/amgen
• Boehringer Ingelheim - http://twitter.com/boehringerus
• Baxter (none found)
• List of Journalists Covering Health On Twitter - http://muckrack.com/health/people
• http://www.journotwit.com/