The pharmaceutical industry may have been a tad slower than other industries to sign up on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook but seems to be making up for lost time. For instance, 2012 saw social media campaigns from major pharma companies like Roche, Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline, and new blogs from AstraZeneca, Sanofi, Bayer, Lilly, Shire and Boehringer Ingelheim to name just a few of the bigger initiatives.
Manish Gupta, CEO, Indegene Lifesystems traces the pharma industry’s engagement with social media to 2008 when top pharma companies joined social media communities (mainly physician communities) to initiate meaningful dialogues with its stakeholders.
However, it was only after the November 2009 US FDA public hearing on ‘Promotion of FDA-Regulated Medical Products Using the Internet and Social Media Tools’, that pharma companies got some clarity on the regulations of using internet and social media tools. (See Express Pharma, Feb 16- 28, 2010, ‘The social media super market: Pharma still plays safe’, http://bit.ly/VZN63n) Gupta opines that pharma companies have come a long way since, exploring different avenues to leverage social media platforms.
One of the key drivers for use of social media by pharma companies, says B Sriram, Executive Director– Healthcare, Direxions Marketing Solutions, was to generate an opinion or standpoint on a topic and influence change. For example, blogs on the race to eradicate polio from the globe. The pharma industry also used social media to create awareness about a disease; a good example would be Merck’s work on cervical cancer awarenes. A third driver would be to connect with patients suffering from similar ailments, like the way Sanofi has taken to Facebook and Twitter in a big way where over the past two years they have created a community of 4000 patients suffering from diabetes on both these platforms.
Rise of the e-patient
 “For pharma/ medical firms, social media has become a channel that they cannot afford to miss, given that many patients these days look up the Internet to understand their symptoms and the disease they (or their family members) are suffering from before consulting a doctor.”Manish Gupta CEO, Indegene Lifesystems |
As Gupta says, “Social media has become a channel that the pharma/ medical firms cannot afford to miss, given that many patients these days look up the internet to understand their symptoms and the disease they (or their family members) are suffering from before consulting a doctor. Another interesting sign is that consumers are also using social media to validate costs associated with the treatment/ procedure, information on reimbursement and the insurance associated with the treatment.”
India has proven to be one of the fastest growing digital markets in the world, with an Internet population that has surged 38 per cent in the past year. Health is one of the ‘Super Seven’ projected areas of explosive growth, according to an August 2012 comScore webinar on the ‘The Rise of India’s Digital Consumer’
As Dinesh Chindarkar, Co-founder and Vice President – Operations, MediaMedic Communications puts it, “With an increasing number of Internet and smart phone users in the country, and increased searches on health, the e-patient is on the rise.”
Similarly, an increasing number of doctors in India are seen using smart phones to stay connected to the Internet to better understand the landscape of the healthcare industry, Gupta points out.
 “Globally, it is predicted that the emerging markets including India, will have the maximum spend and adaptation on digital and social media platforms.”Dinesh Chindarkar Co-founder & Vice President – Operations, MediaMedic Communications |
In fact, Indian healthcare providers’ (HCP) are at the forefront when it comes to using social networks for getting information as compared to their international peers, according to Chindarkar. There is a day-to-day increase in internet-based health searches and acceptance of new ways of reaching out. For instance, the Indian twitter healthcare hashtag, #hcsmin, which stands for ‘healthcare social media in India’ registered by Chindarkar in August 2011, today clocks around 25 tweets a day.
Chindarkar also points out to the parallel trend of the medical representative (MR)-doctor relationship going through a revolution as communication media get more digitised. Hence, there is an upward trend in terms of digital spend in tune with the changing habits of HCPs. Globally, it is predicted that emerging markets including India will have the maximum spend and adaptation on digital and social media platforms, according to Chindarkar.
Reviewing the pharma-related social media scene in India, Gupta comments that some very successful social media campaigns currently being run are in pregnancy and child care, oncology, and geriatrics. Hospitals too are starting to provide access to authentic, trustworthy and comprehensive health related information to patients.
An emerging influencer
 “A pharma company cannot sell prescription drugs to patients on the net as they are supposed to follow guidelines set by MCI and the IFPMA code of conduct.”B Sriram Executive Director – Healthcare, Direxions Marketing Solutions |
Pharma companies cannot promote or sell prescription products online because as Sriram cautions, they are supposed to follow guidelines set by the Medical Council of India and code of conduct set by The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manuf-acturers & Associations (IFPMA). The IFPMA code sets standards for the ethical promotion of pharma products to healthcare professionals, and for member companies’ interactions with them and pharma companies are very aware that they have to follow these standards in the virtual world as well.
But, even if the net cannot be a sales channel for prescription products, it serve another important purpose. Social media has emerged as a key influencer and medium, says Gupta and therefore pharma majors are looking to understand stakeholder sentiments, and drive appropriate programmes to proactively engage with patients and HCPs.
An active social media presence thus becomes crucial as a branding strategy in an increasingly competitive and over-crowded market. “With the advent of more locally available drugs/devices, companies are under tremendous pressure to reach out to maximum number of consumers with optimum information about their products. This has led to pharma companies latching onto the digital media space to promote brand awareness and mind share,” says Gupta.
In fact, as ‘word of mouth’ marketing plays an important role in the healthcare delivery sector, stakeholders, particularly HCPs, have realised the potential of social media, concludes Gupta.
Chindarkar too refers to this trend when he says, “Closed loop marketing (CLM) in the pharma industry is slowly gathering speed. Engaging the end user with customised information through blogs, live chat rooms, video streaming etc. has made the pharma industry think beyond plain vanilla websites.”
Trends in digital spend
The pharma industry’s share of spend on traditional versus new media seems to be still skewed in favour of the former but this is true across sectors. In an article titled, ‘Demystifying social media’ in the April 2012 edition of Mckinsey Quarterly, the authors make the point that social media still accounts for less than one per cent of an average marketing budget and while many chief marketing officers want to increase that share to five per cent, one problem is that a lot of senior executives know little about social media. But the main obstacle is the perception that the return on investment (ROI) from such initiatives is uncertain.
Its still early days in India. Chindarkar says that social media campaigns in the Indian pharma industry are still in the nascent stage because the industry still believes in and follows the traditional methods of promotions through the MR. This traditional marketing strategy accounts for almost 17-20 per cent of sales revenue while he estimates that social media campaigns would not be more than two to three per cent as of now, even including digital media like websites for both doctors and patients, healthcare mobile applications, online information tools etc. Lifestyle brands, nutraceuticals and health foods are taking the lead here.
Convincing managements to increase digital spend would require a clear picture of the exact ROI from such spend. Chindarkar concedes that though ROI is difficult to measure in the short term, some indicators like number of likes, number of page hits etc are generally taken into consideration.
| Metrics for analysing social media campaigns |
| Indegene Lifesystems has metrics and key perfomance indicators (KPIs) defined at various stages of its clients’ campaigns, based on the objectives of the campaign and while these are confidential, these are some examples to indicate the scope of insights and learnings that can be gleaned from such social media campaigns Example 1) Expert social networking web-platform enabled to capture analytics Indegene developed a social networking website as a virtual community involving patients with Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia (CML) and related stakeholders i.e. HCPs, patient groups, etc. using Indegene proprietary physician engagement tool. Pre-and-post analytics and reporting of outcomes was part of the campaign deliverables. The platform was programmed with all the necessarily regulatory restrictions and audit mechanisms to meet all regulatory requirements Social analytics
Example 2) Product X in breast cancer – social media sentiment analysis A global pharma company with key stakes in the oncology space requested public sentiment analysis pertaining to regulatory and payer decisions regarding product X in breast cancer. Social Analytics
Example 3) Social media based conference tracking A global pharma with products in oncology requested a social media buzz analysis of two key studies presented at ASCO 2011. The objectives were two-fold: a comparative analysis as well as real world implications. Social analytics
Example 4) Competitor activity analysis in social media A Top 10 pharma company requested identification and analysis of social media engagement of its competitors. The insights informed the development of the client’s social media engagement strategy. Social analytics
Example 5: Industry engagement with social media platform A leading pharma company requested an analysis of the level of engagement of premier pharma companies with Twitter and the relative effectiveness of such engagements. Social analytics
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Going from numbers to insights
If the current trend keeps up, social media evangelists should have no problem convincing pharma managements to up their digital spend. Sharing some interesting statistics from Indegene’s digital initiatives in India, Gupta reveals that the average time spent by doctors on digital activities has gone up by 40 per cent in the last two years while the average numbers of doctor registrations has doubled in the last two years. A majority of doctors enrolled in Indegene’s programmes are from Tier-2 cities and this too shows up some important insights.
But the numbers are just the tip of the iceberg. “The biggest challenge for pharma companies,” feels Chindarkar, “is not just promoting their brands, but how to build goodwill among consumers and customers alike. How can they engage with doctors, how can they influence them? The first movers within pharma will have a definite advantage.”
Thus, Chindarkar stresses that laying out clear objectives while planning a social media campaign is very critical. Pharma companies looking at social media options should be very clear on these points: Why are they engaging? Whom are they engaging? And how are they going to track, analyse and optimise?
Taming the data demon
Launching a social media campaign is just the beginning of the company’s engagement with its stakeholders. “The social media universe creates tremendous amount of data which can help decision sciences,” says Gupta as “social media creates two unique platforms; the first creates a channel to engage stakeholders, most popularly through websites, and the second, via real-time market feedback.”
Transforming this data into insights will be crucial, because mere monitoring of social media campaigns is not going to be reason enough to continue to pump resources into the campaign.
Chindarkar points out that while companies use various social media monitoring tools like Radian6, Sysomos, etc for measuring campaigns, one has to manage and filter (the data) carefully, as these tools generate only numbers. So it is important to further analyse the results manually.
Taking the analysis one step further, Chindarkar points out that while Radian6 or Sysomos give clarity in terms of campaign numbers, it is very important for companies to develop their own tools and measures. “With the above tools, companies can get the analytics of a campaign, but making the campaign more effective is by getting insights (useful data) which can be further used in product development and designing marketing strategies. All this will lead to the BIG Data that everyone is talking about,” reasons Chindarkar.
Thus, it is equally important to monitor the right metrics and parameters and to tailor while measuring the impact of social media campaigns. (See Box: Metrics for analysing social media campaigns)
Future trends
Currently, digital consumers in India are predominantly accessing information oriented websites (content based). However, with the ever increasing Internet and mobile penetration and pharma companies’ focus on social media, Gupta expects this trend to change towards more interaction and interactive websites rather than information oriented ones.
But the promise of social media comes with its own problems, which highlight the shortcomings of the medium as well as the fact that the pharma industry is very different from other industries that use social media. As Gupta notes, the social universe provided by a Facebook or Twitter are not configured to provide the required regulated environment for social outreach in the pharma context.
For example, Gupta says, “The reliability of healthcare information is troublesome due to the easy access to ‘post’ content online, leading to patients finding incorrect and irrelevant information. The need for reliable and regulated information is paramount as this sector continues to grow. Content risks becoming anecdotal in nature.” Gupta recalls a few cases in which some pharma companies were served notices to refrain from keeping certain web pages and blog posts as people had posted sensitive information.
Countries like the US which took to social media much earlier have evolved mechanisms to cope with these issues. The quality, authenticity, and outreach mechanisms are highly regulated in the US, observes Gupta, and this is an important area to consider as this sector continues to grow in India.
Another trend Gupta predicts is the development of localised content and country specific platforms in India, with the country’s internet penetration reaching 35 per cent. This mirrors what is already the case with nations like China which has more localised platforms.
On the regulations front, the November 2009 US FDA guidelines are a start but much more clarity is required. Gupta opines, “The US FDA guidelines are more from a guidance perspective; they do not answer any specific dos or don’ts.” This draft guidance addresses some of the questions about the kind of communication pharma companies can adopt, suggests how drug makers could respond to any solicited or unsolicited requests for off-label information, but other specifics are not clear.
Social media is clearly here to stay, medico-legal /ethical issues et al. As the pharma industry cannot wish it away, each stakeholder will have to learn how best they can harness the medium to fit their own needs.
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