Digital Pharma: Boehringer UK tweets politicians with afib message
pharmafile | April 21, 2011 | News story | Medical Communications | Boehringer Ingelheim, Digital Pharma blog, Twitter, medical communications
Boehringer Ingelheim UK is using Twitter to reach politicians with local disease awareness messages.
About a third of MPs have Twitter accounts in their name and Boehringer’s innovative, targeted campaign involves tweeting each of them with constituency level information on atrial fibrillation and stroke risks.
The campaign uses the company’s @rhythm4yourlife account and was devised and set up by Duncan Cantor, head of government affairs for Boehringer in the UK and Ireland.
He said the initiative, though a small trial of Twitter’s potential, was an important part of a broader communications plan for the company and had proved a success.
“We’ve had a number of interactions from politicians that we’ve never had before, where they’ve asked for further information, meetings and said that they’re going to publicise the information on their own website.
“As we move forward throughout the year the amount and type of information that we deliver on atrial fibrillation will change and get very much more specific and relevant to that MP based on what information they ask for from us,” Duncan said.
Boehringer, which has a well respected corporate presence on Twitter, began sending tailored messages in February. These focused on the number of MPs’ constituents who had atrial fibrillation and were consequently at an increased risk of having a stroke.
A month later the company followed this with a series of similar tweets highlighting the number of people not being treated according NICE guidelines.
The UK has 650 MPs in total and, according to Tweetminster, 247 of them – 38% – are currently on Twitter, representing a significant proportion of Boehringer’s target audience.
“Interestingly, the MPs we’ve been communicating with through Twitter I didn’t first contact offline. And to create a benchmark I did a constituency-focused briefing on the subject for each MP I wanted to contact offline and then I did the constituency-focused tweet for the MPs that are online,” Duncan said.
“I’ve had about the same response – so proportionally there’s been a better response through Twitter.”
Crucial to the initiative’s success has been the hands-on approach MPs tend to take with Twitter.
“As best as I could tell, Twitter was the one communications channel politicians used that I could guarantee that they were actually using themselves, rather than having someone else mediate,” Duncan explained.
“Websites were mediated, their researchers answered their email, their constituency case workers answered their constituency letters. It’s very difficult to interact with politicians that you don’t actually know … except through Twitter.”
Duncan said this is part of what makes Twitter an integral part of the communications matrix.
“You’ve got to go where people are having the conversations, and if you can’t talk to someone face-to-face but they are talking online, then you’ve got to go where they go.”
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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