Social media – a voice for the outliers
Jinfo Blog

By Joanna Ptolomey

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I felt a slightly different vibe at DigiPharm this year. It seemed a newer and different audience, specifically wanting to collect evidence to take back to their directors. They were looking to present evidence for integrating social media into organisational strategies.

There was a sense coming out of the two day DigiPharm event that social media should be about integrating digital channels into the overall multichannel strategy. And there was a sense that there is still a long way to go in the pharmaceutical sector in terms of social media understanding and use. In fact audience voting reported that in some cases social media attempts were overrated in the pharmaceutical industry.

So where can we expect the best use?

Andrew Widger, from Pfizer, reminded us all to do social media because it makes a difference, not just because it is there. Perhaps some of the best uses of social media Andrew reported on were with routes into communities, specifically with hard to reach groups of people and audiences.

The Psoriasis 360 campaign presented by Alex Butler has FaceBook and YouTube presence. This is a hard to reach group of people many of whom are often undiagnosed.  The social media strands include content about understanding your condition (empowering the person with appropriate content), leading to talking to your doctor and following into treatment. A good model for successful engagement with all healthcare stakeholders.

Andrew Widger presented some interesting case studies from other rarely reported groups. His first suggestion was clinical trials being an underutilised opportunity for social media, e.g. he successfully used it during an overactive bladder trial. Some other excellent uses were Man MOT, a weekly online confidential surgery, and Can you feel my pain – a chronic pain FaceBook and Flickr site.

There was much discussion around health conditions that very often receive poor exposure and are hard to campaign for. For example, smoking related illnesses such as COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) generally receives very little positive content and distribution. Drive4COPD is a different campaign with unusual sponsors and delivery – its partners include voluntary sector health agencies and health providers. It also includes NASCAR, the professional car racing organisation, as a route into diagnosis and treatment. NASCAR fans are more likely to be smokers and possibly sufferers of COPD, as reported by Boehringer Ingelheim, a founding sponsor.

The main findings of social media use at DigiPharm seemed to suggest that there was good efficacy around hard to reach communities. If people are looking for evidence to take back to their directors then this would be a good place to start.

Use social media to find and engage with difficult to reach communities, working with the most appropriate partners that people are already likely to be familiar with (such as the NASCAR example). Social media are not appropriate for all communication and marketing – hard copy and face-to-face can still be your best bet. Don’t get caught up on the social media machine – be impressed with what the machine can do.

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