Audio: Natalie Bourre on pharmaceutical marketing in the new era of social media (5 minutes)

The OPMA Spring Education Day meeting featured a distinguished panel of speakers, who shared their unique perspectives on social media.  Mathew Ingram (who has 11,000 Twitter posts, 7,600 followers, and ranks among the top 10 Canadian men on Twitter) mapped out the social media landscape; Alon Marcovici provided a non-health perspective on marketing and communications efforts in social media; and Natalie Bourre concluded the panel discussion with an overview of pharma’s place within the Health 2.0 landscape.

What is Social Media?

Social media, or web 2.0, is a digital, community-based environment that can involve videos, photos, blogs, events, social networks, collaborative tools, wikis, audio, email and SMS.  Social media sites are used to share photos (Flickr, Smugmug), videos (YouTube, Vimeo), blogs (WordPress, Blogger), text messages and chat (Twitter, Facebook), comments (Disqus, Backtype), events (zvents, eventful, upcoming) and entertainment (ODEO, BlogTalkRadio), wikis (pbwiki, TWiki), and social networking (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn).

From left: Alon Marcovici, Natalie Bourre, and Mathew Ingram

Overall, social media is about communicating with peers and connecting with people who share similar interests.  The sociological concept of “ambient intimacy” or “ambient awareness” was used to describe social networks as a series of weak links that increase exposure to new ideas and enhance creativity.  

Mathew Ingram cited some impressive statistics on social media, the usage of which increases daily and is rapidly surpassing traditional media. (See Mathew's slide presentation here.)

•    The New York Times has 2 million paper readers, and 650,000 online visitors each day
•    Facebook:  6.5 million visitors a day and growing at 100% year over year
•    Twitter:  250,000 users a day and growing at 1,300% year over year
•    380 million people report reading blogs regularly, with 60-90 million of those in the U.S.

Mathew Ingram, Communities Editor, The Globe and Mail

How is Social Media Used?

In addition to social networking through videos, photos and conversations, social media is being used to voice opinions about topical issues; vote in online petitions (e.g., Facebook young drivers against passenger restrictions); generate ideas, comments and consumer input (e.g., Dell Idea Storm); and deliver news, particularly around emergency situations (California wildfires). Controversial subjects can erupt into blog “storms” or “flash crowds”, driven by sites like Digg and Twitter. As Mathew points out, “You don’t want to find yourself or your organization at the centre of one of these storms”. Two such examples are the mommy-blogger boycott of the Motrin “Wearing your baby” campaign, and online reaction to Dell’s poor customer service and support record.  

What can industry do to embrace social media?

• Pay attention to the conversation through blog searches (Google, Icerocket) and RSS (Really Simply Syndication) feeds of keywords or your company’s name.
• Become part of the conversation by establishing a company blog with comments and an active Twitter account.
• Be proactive rather than reactive:  “After the fire is burning is a poor time to wish you had a fire extinguisher.”
• Respond to negative comments on your corporate blog, other external blogs, and Twitter feeds by correcting information politely and providing context.
• The best way to use social media is to become a part of social media.
  

Using Social Media to Democratize Olympic Coverage

Consumers want to hear from each other and not from companies about their brands.  One of the biggest brands in the world is the Olympics, which will be attended to by 400,000 Canadians.  Alon Marcovici talked about the importance of using multiple sources of social media to inspire the nation and democratize Olympic coverage so that it is accessible to approximately 33 million Canadians who will not be seeing the Games live.

Alon Marcovici, VP Digital and Research, Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium

CTV will not be replicating television.  Instead, it will be promoting additional user-generated content, including photos, text, video, judging, citizen journalism, fan-driven awards, social components (chat and commentaries), scheduling and reminder capabilities, fan voting and contesting, and fantasy gaming.  Key challenges include how to monitor the blogosphere/social conversations, as well as measure audience participation in conjunction with viewership.

The following points were made:

• Multiple platforms promote higher recall of information without cannibalizing television viewership;
• Media consumption is changing with growth at the older ages (boomers), not youth;
• The digital divide in Canada is more pronounced between English- and French-native speakers than between upper and lower classes;
• It is important to participate in dialogue in order to respond to consumers; and
• CTV wants to ensure that they “are everywhere without annoying people that they are everywhere.”
  

Natalie Bourre prefaced her talk by stating that social media is exploding and changing the ways in which companies are talking with their clients.  Pharmaceutical companies have an opportunity to humanize pharmaceutical marketing, listen to our customers, learn from them and incorporate learnings into pharma missions.  Despite the fact that pharma is lagging behind in the social media scene, clients and agencies are aware of Heath 2.0 and have expressed interest in participating in social media initiatives.  However, concerns prevail:  regulatory guidelines, adverse drug event reporting, losing control over content/brand messages, not reaching patient target market, too many unknowns, ongoing maintenance to keep project content current and on track, and selecting the ‘right’ social media tools.  (See Natalie's slide presentation here.)

Natalie Bourre, Founder, Marketing 4 Health Inc.

What is Health 2.0?

Natalie defined Health 2.0 as social media and conversations related to healthcare, where all stakeholders are on the same level of the playing field.  She claimed that patients have a huge influence on one another; they trust other patients like themselves as much as they trust their physicians.  A handful of healthcare-related sites were cited to illustrate that patients are sharing information about their diseases, treatments, side effects, and health care providers (for example:  FacetoFace Health, PatientsLikeMe, iGuard, Health Ranker, Trusera, TimedRight, myHospitalCare.ca, Health 2.0 wiki, Asklepios, and multiple Facebook-branded prescription drug and disease groups.)

How Does Pharma Fit In?

• Healthcare is a personal and emotional experience for patients.  It is imperative that pharma be cautious and respectful of the patient’s market needs and concerns to avoid patients rebelling, as in the Motrin Moms example. 
  

• When using social media as a set of tools to support a marketing strategy, pharma must comply with PAAB and Health Canada advertising regulations

• It is too late to worry about losing control over your brand message. Patients are already on Facebook groups, blogs and discussion forums talking about brands, seeking/giving advice and learning from each other, and rating drug effectiveness (see www.iGuard.org).

• Pharma is in need of guidelines from Health Canada concerning reporting of adverse events.  PAAB suggested that clear “rules” could be provided within pharma-sponsored social networks about what can and cannot be discussed (e.g. discussion about adverse events permitted on personal blogs but not pharma social networking sites).

• The social media target  market includes both patients and physicians.  Canadians (under 30 years and over 60 years of age) are engaged in social media.  Looking for health information is the fourth-most-popular internet information activity in Canada.  Doctors are also engaged in social media (websites, blogs, chat rooms, message boards).  The CMA recognizes the importance of social media and is facilitating its use by Canadian physicians through its Asklepios site.
  

Health 2.0 Plan-of-Action

Natalie concluded her talk with some recommendations about how pharma can get involved in social media: 

• Get involved: familiarize yourself with social media and how to both disseminate and receive information
• Monitor what patients are saying online about the disease, drugs, and the pharma company
• Create partnership between agencies and clients
• Be aware of risks (adverse events) and how to address and mitigate concerns (damage control)
• Work with regulatory bodies
• Provide guidance to employees about your company’s social media policy
• Learn and share findings about Health 2.0
• Be a Health 2.0 champion for your company
  

Audience Discussion

• Concern that “controlling” discussion with “rules” about not permitting patients to talk about adverse events de-democratizes the conversation.  This is counterintuitive to the nature of social media.  At present, there are no Health Canada policies and procedures in place for reporting of adverse effects.  Hence, “the best defense (creating guidelines) is a good offence”, and transparency about the ground rules is key. 
  
• Patient advocacy groups and bloggers can engage in discussion on their own volition through their own social networks.  Is there a role for pharma to engage professional bloggers and patient opinion leaders to de-mystify misinformation and prevent “brandjacking”?  
• Health 2.0 has not surpassed the physician as the main source of health information; rather, it serves as a priming effect insofar as it prompts patients to discuss internet findings with the doctor.  This has the potential to alter the doctor-patient dynamic and medical consult time.
• There is tremendous intrigue yet caution around social media and fear generated by social media (e.g. metaphors of antagonistic patients, brand defense, loss of control, and fear of competition).  Who are the Canadian pharma KOLs?  What will it take for pharma to take the leap from contemplating to monitoring social media to embracing it by engaging patients and/or health providers?
  

Get Involved!
Looking to get more involved with the OPMA? We are always looking for writers for future meetings. If you are interested, please advise the Editor  b.carino@pulsus.com or the Communications Co-Directors opma@sympatico.ca

About the OPMA Meetings Editor: Ben Carino is a former medical editor who now works on the business and advertising side of the medical publishing industry with Pulsus Group Inc. He can be reached at 905-829-4770 ext 139 or b.carino@pulsus.com

About the Writer: Kim Bercovitz, Ph.D. is a medical sociologist and president of The Research Doctor Inc (www.theresearchdoctor.com).  She can be reached at kim@theresearchdoctor.com or (905) 597-4581.