Digital Pharma: This is how pharma is using digital
pharmafile | February 10, 2011 | Feature | Manufacturing and Production, Medical Communications, Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | Android, Digital Pharma blog, Facebook, Twitter, disease awareness campaigns, ipad, iphone, social media
Pharma’s use of digital tools, from mobile apps to online campaigns to social media channels, is increasing all the time despite continued uncertainty over the rules of engagement.
A new section added to InPharm’s Digital Pharma blog offers readers unique insight into today’s digital environment and the way it’s evolving.
The Digital Pharma links directory lists every online campaign, Twitter account, pharma blog, YouTube channel and mobile app featured in the blog since its debut in August 2009.
The picture it presents is then rounded out by a large number of additional digital initiatives that didn’t make into a blog post.
The concept was inspired by The Dose of Digital Pharma and Healthcare Social Media wiki, but the directory will have a European spin and wider digital marketing focus reflecting Digital Pharma’s own coverage.
At launch the directory covers, blogs, Twitter, YouTube, digital campaigns, mobile apps, social media policies and more. There are also further sections planned.
This is how pharma uses digital channels
• Mobile apps: Smartphones have been riding high in popularity for some time, thanks in no small part to Apple’s iPhone marketing. Unsurprisingly pharma’s 68 mobile apps are to date almost entirely for the iPhone, but as revealed by Digital Pharma in January the first pharma Android apps were recently released, providing the signs that a wider view is starting to be taken.
• Campaigns: The 69 online pharma campaigns in the directory show the way pharma is pushing boundaries, whether in information provision (such as GSK’s Europeanpatient information site), use of technology (Genzyme’s use of augmented reality) or healthcare services (Pfizer’s Dutch consumer healthcare portal).
• Social media policies: Roche led the way in publicly setting out their social media policy, as first reported by Digital Pharma, but gradually a few other examples are emerging including guidance on Twitter from the likes of Baxter and Vertex. Links to these are collected in the miscellaneous section of the directory, where you can also find out about pharma’s use of Flickr, Slideshare, Tumblr, Issuu and Second Life. It also has examples of the way pharma responded to Google Sidewiki comments.
• Twitter: This is one area of social media that pharma has definitely not suffered from its usual time lag to adoption for new technologies. Boehringer and Novartis were using Twitter even before it was catapulted into public consciousness, in the UK at least, when the actor, author and comedian Stephen Fry hit the headlines in February 2009 after tweeting while stuck in a lift. In pharmaland use of Twitter keeps rising, with companies running accounts on a corporate, local, function or campaign basis. The directory includes 115 pharma and biotech Twitter accounts and more are being launched all the time.
• Facebook: The world’s largest social network is an attractive, though problematic, area for pharma with just one company (Janssen) allowing comments to be freely posted before being moderated. On a more restricted basis other firms have corporate and disease awareness pages and a few are behind games for the social network, adding up to the directory’s 26 examples.
• Blogs: The first pharma company blogs were launched in 2007 and numbers have slowly risen to the 11 featured in the directory. 2009 was the busiest year for pharma blog launches, with new corporate blogs from GSK and AstraZeneca, as well as themed ones from Abbott (chronic diseases), Novo Nordisk (graduates) and Pfizer(science). But the commitment they require, and the rise in popularity of the comparatively easy to run alternative that is Twitter, have so far kept numbers low.
• YouTube: 2008 was the year pharma discovered YouTube, and use of the video sharing site has steadily increased ever since, reaching its current level of around 50 channels. Pharma’s approach varies, encompassing very ‘corporate’ videos and ‘this is what it’s like to work here’ films. There are also single video channels that tie into particular campaigns (Pfizer UK’s Real Danger anti-counterfeiting video being a case in point). Special mention should go to Novartis, whose use of playlists nicely segments their various videos.
And that’s the Digital Pharma links directory. It’s fated to be a perpetual work-in-progress project and I’ve already got an ever-growing list of things to add at its next update.
If there’s something you think should be included please share the link with me (there’s attribution on offer for those used!).
This can be done via this form, or through email (dtyer@wiley.com), Twitter (@dominic_tyer) or LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/dominictyer).
Dominic Tyer is web editor for Pharmafocus and InPharm.com and the author of the Digital Pharma blog He can be contacted via email, Twitter or LinkedIn.
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