Social media guidelines=happy campers?
Jinfo Blog

27th October 2010

By Joanna Ptolomey

Item

On the 17th August Roche Pharmaceuticals publicly published their worldwide guidelines on the use of social media. It was such a noteworthy occasion in the pharma and healthcare sector that I wrote specifically about it for LiveWire – ‘OK for employees to tweet’ (http://www.vivavip.com/go/e30230)? Whilst at DigiPharm conference earlier this month I got the chance to hear more about the Roche ‘social media journey’ with Sabine Kostevc, Head of Corporate Internet and Social Media, F.Hoffman-La Roche. It is a story worth re-telling with a sneaky peek at high level strategic decision making at a global business player – we all learn from open case studies. So far the industry at large has considered the Roche adventure to be a success. And in the main it has been done in the public eye and very quickly. The key success factors seem to be related to organisational culture and project sponsorship. Sabine managed the project in a 3-4 month timeframe, getting support from key Roche personnel including comms, legal and human resources and people with a flair for social media. The over-riding theme was ‘why should Roche hide, we should engage outwardly’. Taking a ‘whole organisational’ view of engaging in social media seems to be important and empowering your employees to engage is key. Roche feel that their ‘employees feel better knowing that they can go online’ as a Roche employee. The guidelines themselves are fairly short, but they are not set in stone and should not be confused with operating procedures. Sabine pointed out, to a roar of laughter, that ‘Roche has no social media police squads’ – although funny it does make a serious point of employee trust. What is interesting is that Roche know that many of their employees are not social media savvy, do not currently engage and in some cases would not know how. As they are integrating social media into the business Sabine makes an important point – education and training are also part of the process and will be part of the on-going strategy. What is the return to Roche? Sabine believes that it is individual to every case. But she feels empowering employees to engage does have benefits including better employee retention, return on sales, and better R&D process. So job done at Roche. No this is the opening gambit, the starter for ten. Although a global multinational business Roche know that they must stay flexible and nimble to change in technology and engagement. This last couple of months have been exciting in the STM sector generally for social media tools and web 3.0 – Roche are setting out their stall publicly and they are doing OK by it. What about you?

« Blog