by Briana Campbell (@MsMatchGirl)

People like to make out that the issues surrounding pharma’s involvement with social media are extraordinarily complex. I’m not so sure.

It’s over-simplistic – but still true – to say that the main worry with digital media for the pharmaceutical industry is the interactivity of social networks. You see, I don’t think it’s the rapidity of the connection that worries regulators and marketers, or the availability of information – not by themselves. It’s the ability to use that speed and access to share the information.

People are scared of the ability to share.

On one level, it makes sense. Disgruntled employees can raise embittered grievances. Dissatisfied customers can complain. Discontented partners can spread untruths. None of this is fact-checked or vetted or permitted – it simply happens. And, human nature being what it is, the old adage that the unhappy ones are twice as motivated to tell people can be true. That’s frightening.

Marketers and regulators fear unhappy people sharing.

This is natural, but it is, I think, the mistake. We shouldn’t fear bad news. We should welcome it, because hearing about it first, and fast, allows us to address it.

To this end, some regulators are considering recruiting social media as a channel for collecting adverse-event reports. The UK’s Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) joined the European Medicines Agency, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry and the U.S. FDA in starting a Twitter feed in December, and pondered its utility as a reporting channel in September.

Pharma is used to assuming that social media is a flood of bad news that we’re holding back. To continue the metaphor, what if we started to see social media as a spout that would alert us to the leak?

Regulators and companies would know about adverse events sooner, and their relationship with each other would be more transparent. Patients and healthcare providers could report more easily. Marketers could address potential problems faster.

All of this information is already being collected. And it’s already being made public. And it has been for almost 50 years. Is this really such a groundbreaking step, as we’re so conditioned to think? Or in adding social media reporting, would we simply be updating the type of form that a patient fills out, just as we added them to websites a decade or two ago?

Perhaps social media is not really the problem we think it is, opening us up to people saying goodness-knows-what. Perhaps it’s a solution, in a wider and busier world, to gather patient data more efficiently than we could otherwise.

by DJ Edgerton (@wiltonbound)

How much of a role does social media play in influencing policymakers? And how much of a role can – or should – marketing play in crafting those messages for pharmaceutical companies?

It’s a tough question, but before we get to it, take a moment to listen carefully. Hear that high-pitched, faint screaming in the background? That’s someone in your government relations or public affairs office horrified that you’re even asking the question.

He or she is likely twitchy because, historically, pharma’s messaging to political leaders and regulators has traditionally been a careful blend of extraordinarily carefully crafted facts, figures and key points, combined with periodic episodes of running around – typically during the final days of a legislative session – like everyone’s hair is on fire.

The fact is messaging to policymakers – whether it’s a white paper or a tweet – is fundamentally different, with its own set of rules and concerns. And those responsible for government relations in a large pharmaceutical operation are rightly concerned that such messaging should be tightly controlled. So against that backdrop, does the sometimes wild-west world of social media have a role?

Increasingly, the answer is yes – because it works.

Elected officials are turning to social networks both as a channel to communicate with voters and as a way to stay informed about constituent concerns. Fleishman-Hillard reports that, in Europe, there’s a rapid uptake of social technology by members of the European Parliament.

Findings included:

• 69% of members of the European Parliament (MEPs) use social networks such as Facebook to communicate with voters;
• 34% are now on Twitter, compared to 21% in the first report;
• 44% are using YouTube as a means to reach their constituents
• Slightly over one-quarter of MEPs are using blogs as a means to express their opinions directly

In the U.S., the Congressional Management Foundation released a survey of members of Congress (MOCs) and their senior staff on how MOCs communicate and what matters to them.  When it comes to social media, they were asked the question “In your opinion, how important are the following for understanding constituents’ views and opinions?” Findings included:

• Of the 14 choices, traditional means such as events and town hall meetings took top spots, but Facebook landed in 7th place (with 64% saying that Facebook was either Very or Somewhat Important), above Twitter and YouTube which were 11th and 12th, respectively.
• Conversely when asked to rank the importance of various vehicles for conveying the opinion of the MOC to constituents, 74% of MOCs ranked Facebook as either Very or Somewhat Important.

What do these findings mean? It’s easier to say what they don’t mean: They don’t mean that social media, owned by the marketing department, will abruptly take on most government-relations messaging anytime soon – it’s an entirely different world, requiring different expertise, and the most crucial conversations and relationships are still at the personal, one-to-one level. However, the research is also pretty clear: Politicians are embracing social media, albeit slowly, and they are using it to take the pulse of their constituents’ concerns.

While pharma’s marketing-based social media communicators may never be in the driver’s seat for this messaging, we shouldn’t be surprised if, increasingly, they’re asked for directions along the way.

The Defining Moments series looks back at the biggest events of 2010 to see what we can learn from them here at P&P, to work better in our calling, in 2011 and beyond.

It Gets Better

The Trevor Project

On September 22, 2010, a skinny, redheaded 18-year-old changed education and laws across the country. That would be a wonderful achievement, except that Tyler Clementi did it by killing himself. It happened in a string of four days out of his first month of college – facilitated, it’s worth mentioning, by laptops, webcams, cell phones, text messaging, Skype, Twitter, message boards and Facebook.

Sunday, he asked his roommate, Dharun Ravi, for privacy. Dharun went to the room of a third freshman, Molly Wei. Once there, he used her laptop to view the webcam on his own laptop, left in his and Tyler’s room. (One assumes that before he left, he set Skype to automatically answer incoming calls.) Dharun spied Tyler and his guest (another male) kissing and Tweeted about it.

Tuesday morning, Tyler saw Dharun’s Twitter feed, and in considering how to handle the situation, posted his dilemma on a message board. That evening, Tyler texted Dharun with the same request, and he agreed, but arranged the same setup, and tweeted about it. Tyler, moved the laptop and told their resident assistant, who had him report the situation in writing.

Apparently he situation bothered Tyler more than he let on. Apparently he had not yet come out to his family. Apparently, although he was academically and musically gifted, he’d felt “very defeated by [high school] and hated the whole thing”. Apparently he didn’t see a way that the situation could resolve itself positively. Whatever he was thinking and feeling, that Wednesday night, Tyler posted “jumping off the gw bridge sorry” on Facebook from a newly downloaded mobile app and committed suicide before two witnesses.

It was just one of a string of youth suicides, many related to the child being, or being perceived as, gay. But Tyler Clementi’s was the tipping point. Since then, anti-bullying resolutions, proposals, public vigils and laws have taken place at the district, state and federal level. There are, clearly, many important lessons that can be learned from this tragic situation. Let’s just touch on two.

We have to educate kids about the implications of digital information. While a trial has not yet happened (and Ravi’s lawyers are asking for a dismissal), Dharun Ravi does not seem to have premeditated a complex campaign to drive Tyler Clementi to kill himself. He seems to have been possibly homophobic, but mostly just simply, stupidly, cruelly thoughtless. Making a secret public was just a joke. Tweeting was just fast and funny. He was just goofing around in his friend’s room, bored on a school night. It wasn’t anything that could have serious implications. Except, of course, it could, and it did. Tyler Clementi is dead, and Dharun Ravi could spend five years in prison.

This is the most extreme example of the blasé attitude many youth have toward sharing information online. Not all digital natives fully understand that it is permanent and public, and something teenagers through the ages have had problems understanding: a moment’s whim can have lifelong consequences.

All of us who work with these media have a responsibility to make sure they’re understood: not just by our bosses, colleagues and clients, but to the kids in our houses and our communities. We’re shepherding these technologies into the mainstream, and there’s an obligation that goes with that.

We have the ability to make something good out of something bad. The Trevor Project and The It Gets Better Project are two organizations who have stepped up to provide positive messages and encouragement for kids floundering, dealing with adolescence and bullying.

This is a lesson that should not be new to us in pharma: that digital media can assist us in taking something awful to make a positive movement to save lives. Support groups like Planet Cancer and Psoriasis Cure Now are given worldwide reach and power; and harness abilities like shared video for awareness-raising efforts like contests. Let’s never forget that these media can reach the patients who are most self-conscious, most afraid, most ashamed: the patients, in short, who need information, empathy and advice most of all .

by Briana Campbell (@MsMatchGirl)

Just the other day Richard Meyer posted an article entitled, “STOP! Social Media Is Not the Answer” in which he makes a strong case against pharma marketers turning to social media for their campaigns. He points out that people don’t want to connect with their drugs on social networks. He points out that it doesn’t work for drug companies because they have a long history of not responding to consumers’ feedback.

Great points, but not ones with which we necessarily agree.

Let’s take a step back from whether pharma brands should or should not be on social networks. The fact is that they are.

Because an industry has historically ignored their customers’ needs does not mean that they should stay on that road. What has worked, or been the status quo, in the past, is not going to fly going forward. And even if patients may be hesitant right this second to interact with a drug manufacturer on Twitter or Facebook, that doesn’t mean they will feel the same in the future. The very near future. Social media platforms and their usage is growing exponentially and marketers who don’t take advantage of them are going to lose out in the long run.

So. Now that we’ve stated our position, which social network to use? Where to begin?

The big players in the social media space right now – Facebook, Twitter, Google+,  LinkedIn – all have their high points and their low. And, while they all offer a space to connect, those spaces are very different.

So, where does pharma fit? And is there a right answer? Where should they be?

Facebook: Everyone is on Facebook. And their mother. It’s where companies should be to reach the most people. While recent changes in their policies have some companies running scared, there are tools available (like Zemoga’s patented Semantic Filter for Social Media Moderation) that can help companies jump this hurdle, and reply to consumers in a timely manner. Facebook is where companies should be to spread their message to the most people – and where other people can very easily assist in spreading that message. Looking to market to your consumer, then Facebook is where it’s at.

Twitter: While a lot less people are active on Twitter than are on Facebook, Twitter is a great platform for customer service. With listening tools, a company can see who is talking about them and what they are saying. And, with proper community management (yes, that probably means a dedicated person or group of people), the company can reach out to those people who are talking about them – they can address their questions, concerns and even quell a bad situation, all in 140 characters.

Google+: This is the new kid on the block, and where it will go… That’s really hard to say. But the community is growing. People are sharing more there than they are on Twitter and it has had the fastest growth of all the networks. Google+ is the the unknown “x” right now. But if I were a pharma marketer, I think I’d hop on those brand/business pages the moment they opened. In a year, it is where their target market is going to be living.

LinkedIn: Not necessarily the place to go to connect with customers, but certainly a great social site for business. There are several groups dedicated to pharma marketing where marketers can not only post and share ideas, position themselves as thought leaders in the space, but drum up a little new business. A smart pharma marketer will be on LinkedIn, answering questions about the space or their product in the many forums that are on the site.

There are no easy answers when it comes to pharma marketing in the social sphere. There is only the fact that social media platforms are the direction in which marketing, overall, is moving. And if pharma doesn’t change their mindset and get on board, they are going to be left behind.

by Briana Campbell (@MsMatchGirl)

Wrath. Sloth. Greed. Gluttony. Lust. Envy. Pride.

The seven deadly sins.

In June of this year, PM360 laid out the Seven Deadly Sins of Pharma Marketing (you can take a peek at the digital edition here). And Dave Sonderman laid out his accompanying thoughts on the unintentional sins in a post on the GSW Worldwide blog. In light of Facebook’s latest position on walls for pharma companies, we thought it would be interesting to re-visit those old no-nos with a fresh, and more social, spin.

Because, while those articles may only be from 2 months ago, a lot can change, and has, in the world of social media in that time.

Here are seven ways you can really mess up your company’s social media outreach:

Don’t listen. There are a lot of tools available for nearly every social media channel you can imagine. And you need to utilize them. Just because your brand does not have a presence on Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn (or any number of other social platforms) does not mean that people are not talking about it there. Use the right tools and find out what people are saying about you.

Don’t respond. Especially with the changes to the Facebook wall for pharma, it’s crucial to have a response for every inquiry. Taking down someone’s comment of your wall? Make sure to respond to the person when you do. No response or explanation might just put you on a path to bigger problems or more unsavory comments.

Don’t react. It’s possible that you have only one person managing your social channels. It’s also possible that you have a couple of people monitoring them, in addition to whatever their full time position may be. But your brand needs to react. Pharma companies are bogged down in legal, making sure not to make any misstep in the eyes of the FDA, but this should not be an excuse for not offering a timely reaction.

Don’t reach out. Are people talking about your brand? Are their influencers blogging about you or Tweeting your praises or negative reactions to your brand? Are there people talking about your space but not your product – and you want in? You need to be proactive and reach out to them. Reach out and say hello and engage those who are actively engaging those around them.

Don’t be timely. Having an editorial calendar is important in any social media campaign or engagement. But pharma, as we all know, is a space where the conversation is constantly changing. Make sure to have enough flexibility in your editorial calendar that you can make changes that will keep your blog, Tweets and Facebook page current with the conversation that’s happening around you right now.

Don’t follow up. This might sound similar to some of the don’ts we mentioned earlier, but it’s just enough different that it deserves its own point. Are you organizing or attending conferences? Hosting events? Bringing people together for a moment and not sustaining that engagement is a surefire way to lose their interest in the future.

View it as advertising. Social media can be an important and integral part of your brand’s marketing plan. But it’s not the same tool as traditional advertising and cannot/should not be viewed or measured in the same way. The ROI uses an entirely separate set of (constantly evolving) measurement tools. No matter your business.

Social media platforms are still relatively new in the grand media landscape. It’s important to remember that as they evolve, we, as marketers, need to be flexible enough to evolve with them.

by Briana Campbell (@MsMatchGirl)

Just over a year ago, we interviewed Marc Monseau at BDI’s Social Communications and Healthcare conference. The three topics that he brought up then were so important then – and now – that we thought it was important to revisit them.

Being Personal

Marc talked about the importance of being personal on social media, and how that was just as important – although tricky – for a large corporate entity as for a person. He noted that it was particularly important to enable experts in a corporation to speak up in their own individual voice in social media.  “To be able to connect with people on a personal level, you have to behave in a personal way,” he said.

Being Relevant

He also discussed the balance between being personal and being relevant to your audience. It wasn’t an impossible balance, he noted. You just had to understand who your audience was, and then you could discover what would be relevant information for you to provide to them.

Being Trusted – and Trusting

Mutual respect engenders mutual trust, Marc said, giving a social-media ambassador the power to “move with alacrity” on behalf of a corporation. The corporation must trust its ambassador to understand the issues and the necessary limits, and the ambassador must deserve that trust.

It’s no surprise that Marc – who in mid-May announced that he would be opening his own shop after managing one of the industry’s most groundbreaking social-media presences – should have focused us on hot topics that remain just as interesting a year later. He kept J&J’s blog, Twitter feed and Facebook focused on hot topics for the four years he managed them – and he did so by following the rules he outlined above:

1. Being personal – While all of the company’s social-media properties were obviously owned by the corporation, he was very well known personally and his posts and tweets were very much his own.
2. Being relevant – After 14 years with J&J, and 18 working in and around the healthcare industry, nobody better understands the concerns of the industry, its supporting vendors and its clients.
3. Being trusted – To take one of the largest and most highly regulated companies on the planet into a new communications channel, you have to be pretty trusted. To do it well, you have to really deserve that trust. Marc’s experience is a veritable case study.

Sometimes the social-media world turns so rapidly that topics are old news in the blink of an eye. But the real issues – deserving respect, providing value, being transparent – are just as important every day as they always have been. We think that’s worth remembering.

By Sven Larsen (@zemoga)

You probably know that you should be telling stories in your work. But do you know how?

The concept of storytelling as an art form gained prominence in recent years in the business world – but I’d argue that it’s a back-to-basics survival mechanism more than a trend. We all work long hours, busy days, and get absolutely pummeled with information. We can’t handle any more presentations of factual information anymore.

What we fall back on is what has always worked best: storytelling. Tell me something I want to pay attention to – something that draws me in – something that makes me hold my breath to listen. That’s what I want, not another lecture.

Which leaves us with stories. But we also have to remember that we’re slap in the middle of the 21st century now, and we’re drowning in glorious storytelling options that would leave our narrative predecessors open-mouthed. Even the least technical among us can use freely available tools to create videos, soundtracks, typography, cartoons – any sort of story that we choose.

So why, why do so many of us still just pop a piece of clip art on a PowerPoint slide, stand in front of it and drone away?

Because we haven’t fully embraced the idea of trans-media storytelling.

As that link to an article by psychologist Pamela Rutlege notes, trans-media storytelling isn’t just choosing one medium. It’s remembering all of the variety available, considering the story that you need to tell, and figuring out how best to tell each part in each most appropriate medium.

Some brands have figured this out brilliantly – particularly, I think, in television. This is why some shows function perfectly on their own, but also have webisodes and websites with written narrative. Lost certainly did this (and needed to, because its mythology was way too unwieldy for one show), but even comedies like The Office do as well. You don’t have to be incredibly erudite or complex – you just have to give different parts of your story in different ways.

A lot of celebrities manage this quite well with their personal brands. On the red carpet they’re glamorous. On chat shows they’re funny. On their Twitter pages they’re endearingly everyday.

Why isn’t this adept shifting of gears moving into healthcare yet? Now, we don’t have to be Twitpic-ing pictures of ourselves shoe shopping with Nicole Richie or anything like that. We just need to realize two facts:

One, we must tell a story. It doesn’t have to be Dickens, but it has to be more than dry facts.

Two, we must spread that story generously throughout the media available to us. It’s time to move beyond “we’ll post our commercial on YouTube.” It’s time to figure out which chapters of the story play best in which form. Videos are for personal talk, conversational moments. Facebook is for quick sharing. Blogs are for longer-form riffs and small but fascinating data dumps. Commercials and print ads have their own parts to play.

It’s easier to give facts, but it’s a whole lot more effective to tell a story – and living in a trans-media world, there’s no other way to do it anymore.

By DJ Edgerton (@wiltonbound)

The crossroads of pharmaceuticals and digital technology: It’s a fast-paced, fascinating intersection of complexity and creation, regulation and ideas, strategy and innovation. This juncture is exactly where we’ve planted Pixels and Pills, here in our online home as well as physically here on the East Coast. And we’re looking forward to the last week of June, when this crossroads will move for a week to beautiful San Diego for the second annual Digital Pharma West conference. We’ll be there livetweeting and providing you with video coverage from speakers from Amylin, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celgene, Cephalon, Daiichi Sankyo, Gilead, Jazz, MedImmune, Shire, Takeda and Watson, alongside many leading technology and digital innovation firms.

One of the sessions that has especially piqued my interest is a pre-conference workshop called “The Importance of a Mobile Strategy’s Integration Into Your Overall Strategic Marketing Plan, Not as a Standalone Strategy.”

This is part of the basic conversation we have with all of our clients on mobile products, so I’m very much looking forward to more people being educated on that point. It’s become a bit of a cliche, “we need a mobile strategy.” It’s become the 2011 version of “we need a social media strategy.”

The problem is, you can’t just order up a mobile strategy like a take-out pizza. It’s a good deal more like pairing a wine with a great dinner: you have to take into account everything else that’s making up the experience to find the right one that will properly compliment everything else. Certainly, it might take a little more thought, but the result will be so much more worthwhile.

I especially like that that workshop precedes the conference, and then an entire day on mobile pharma follows on June 30. That’s excellent planning by the conference organizers, to begin by putting such an important issue into perspective, and then to give people a full day focused on it at the end, allowing the attendees enough time to really consider the elements that were brought up in the first session.

I do believe that 2011 will prove itself to be the year of mobile, but we’ve got to make sure that it’s a new door opening in digital opportunities, and not just a trendy-tech fad. Educational opportunities like this are exactly what we need to make sure that happens.

Jennifer Dyer talks e-mailing with patients, instant health reporting through Facebook, and using Twitter and YouTube to unify advocacy messages. She also shares exciting information about a new mobile app being tested.