Internal buy-in is greatest barrier to social media
pharmafile | June 6, 2013 | News story | Medical Communications | Weber shandwick, digital, social media
Internal challenges – and not regulatory ones – are the biggest barriers to better use of social media in pharma, according to a new survey of industry executives.
Communications firm Weber Shandwick conducted 12 in-depth telephone interviews with senior in-house pharma executives responsible for social media decisions in Europe, the US, Asia and Latin America.
Its resulting report, produced with Forbes Insights is ‘Digital Health: Building Social Confidence in Pharma’, and has 10 tips for pharma execs using social media to engage key audiences.
The report identifies a number of what it calls ‘paradigm-shifting conclusions’. The most notable finding is that regulatory restrictions are no longer the primary barrier to social media engagement.
While regulations remain very important and are a concern, pharma marketing and comms executives say a number of internal organisational issues are more significant. These include integrating social media into a company’s internal strategies, instilling confidence in teams about using social media, and aligning resources.
Laura Schoen, president Global Healthcare, Weber Shandwick says social media is important because the internet age means patients are more empowered, and now have informed patient-physician conversations.
“In this new age of participatory medicine, pharmaceutical companies must start by understanding what health communities want, and then use digital technologies to reach them with information that meets the demand and takes into account applicable regulations in their markets.”
“As social channels become increasingly important and quite frankly, unavoidable, pharmaceutical companies are no longer waiting for regulatory bodies to clarify what they can do,” says Stacey Bernstein, director of Weber Shandwick’s US Digital Health Practice.
“Today, the biggest barrier for authentic pharma engagement in social media rests in the need for better internal alignment and understanding of the medium. We need to build social confidence within pharma.”
Digital Health: Building Social Confidence in Pharma offers communicators with a guide to becoming more socially engaged by offering 10 rules of engagement for building and maximising social confidence.
Building social confidence in pharma – based on its in-depth interviews with industry professionals, Weber Shandwick recommends the following strategies to help pharma companies maximize their social confidence.
Start small – test the waters with focused projects – perhaps around corporate goals, news and reputation issues – to gain an understanding of what works, how to begin finding audiences and building reach. Interviewees agree that starting small, such as with pilot programmes, is key to gaining the experience and assurance they need to build their digital social strategies.
Prepare but remain flexible – many state that preparation is important, principally to anticipate problems and devise solutions. However, interviewees caution against devoting significant resources to developing a fully ‘buttoned-up’ strategy, as it will change and evolve over time. They describe how they learned, adjusted and needed space to experiment without the pressure of stringent expectations or metrics.
Focus on the content, not the channel – anything you can do offline, you can do online, as long as your content adheres to current regulatory standards. Companies have had difficulties with regulators when they have not followed standards that apply to non-digital rules of communication.
Choose your channels wisely – Some interviewees portray industry colleagues as quick to jump into social media simply for the sake of ‘being there’ and they advise on a more strategic approach, especially in choosing platforms.
Ensure transparency and honesty – interviewees insist on clear rules of engagement and making them plainly visible on all social platforms. Some companies make a digital code of ethics available to both internal and external audiences. Others point to ‘softer’ and ‘more genuine’ tones as more effective with consumer audiences.
Deputise a person or team and give them full support – allocating staff resources for social endeavours and providing appropriate training and support are key for successful social programming.
Bring others into the fold – working to gain the support of internal colleagues, especially from legal, regulatory and medical teams is critical. Additionally, including socially-supportive leaders from business units in strategic planning will ease the process of resolving any issues that arise in social media programming.
Ramp-up internal education efforts – sharing the benefits and best practices around social communications will go a long way towards gaining broad support for the medium. Some interviewees are engaging outside experts to evangelise social platforms to internal company stakeholders.
Staff for social confidence – a large proportion of interviewees find the level of current staff experience to be lacking, while others recognise that they require additional resources to effectively execute social media programmes.
Continue pushing the limits of ROI – while no one has answered the unique ROI (return on investment) challenges faced by the pharma industry, it is imperative to persistently seek better ways to articulate the ROI from social media.
Read Digital Health: Building Social Confidence in Pharma in full
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