Digital Pharma: Facebook first from Janssen
pharmafile | October 8, 2010 | News story | Medical Communications | Digital Pharma blog, Facebook, Janssen, Twitter, ipad, iphone, youtube
Janssen UK has officially launched its new psoriasis disease awareness campaign, part of which includes the first pharma Facebook page to allow comments before they have been checked and approved.
As previewed two weeks ago on the Digital Pharma blog, the Psoriasis 360 campaign is also using Twitter, an iPhone app, a central website and there will be a YouTube channel and iPad app shortly, but it’s the Facebook page’s commenting policy that breaks pharma boundaries.
This promises: “We will not moderate any comments before they appear on the wall. However, it may be necessary to remove comments if they directly talk about medication or could be offensive to people.”
The campaign is being run by Janssen’s UK office and so has been prepared to comply with the ABPI’s Code of Practice. To date this has provided little specific guidance for digital matters, though those who work with it say digital campaigns just require a thorough understanding of the Code as it stands.
Janssen’s digital strategy and social media manager Alex Butler talked about the Psoriasis 360 campaign and its social media elements during InPharm’s digital marketing webcast last month.
“If you take part in a social media community then you need to be aware of the etiquette of that community,” he said. “Hopefully we will play an open and inclusive part in that community, rather than just trying to push out information.”
“We will welcome comments and we will try and respond to them,” he added.
The Facebook page went live yesterday and already the company is responding to comments, which seem so far to be from industry observers or healthcare professionals.
Earlier this year Janssen launched the Living With ADHD YouTube channel, which continues to host a lively debate – but comments are still ‘pre-moderated’, albeit with a very light touch, before they can be publically posted.
For the forthcoming Psoriasis 360 YouTube channel the company’s aims will be slightly different than with the ADHD one.
“This time it’s not so much for us to push out videos ourselves, although we will do that,” Alex said in the webcast. Instead Janssen wants to “encourage people to upload videos themselves of how it is for them living with psoriasis.”
The chronic skin condition, which results in the overproduction of skin cells, is notoriously difficult to treat and affects around 1.5 million people in the UK, up to 20-30% of whom suffer severely.
Janssen’s key product in the area is Stelara, a first-in-class biologic treatment, which was approved in Europe last year as a treatment for psoriasis.
• InPharm’s Making Digital Marketing Work For UK Pharma webcast was broadcast live on Wednesday 22 September and is archived and available to view here
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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