34% of consumers said content on social websites would affect their decision about taking a certain medication
A recent report from the Health Research Institute at PwC confirmed that pharmaceutical companies remain slow to adopt strategic social media practices. While 8 of the 10 healthcare organizations surveyed did have at least some social media presence, consumers actually engage in 24 times more social media activity than any of these companies.
PwC’s report, titled “Social media ‘likes’ healthcare: From marketing to social business,” found that half of the organizations surveyed “worry about how to integrate social media data into their businesses and how to connect social media efforts to a return on investment.” Additionally, a majority of organizations “reported that their social media efforts were decentralized and managed by their marketing and communications departments.” In other words, pharma is just starting to get the ball rolling with social media, but their efforts remain at a tactical level rather than a strategic one.
We are still leading from the foot of the table, not the seats of power
The Woman of the Year event hosted by the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA) always leaves me feeling empowered, and this year was no different.
Mike Kaufmann, 2012 Honorable Mentor, told the packed room that it’s important to get men involved in women’s initiatives in the workplace. He also said that he was given the biggest break in his career from a woman who was willing to take a chance on him. Carolyn Buck Luce was honored as Woman of the Year and gave an inspiring speech. I’ve pulled a few highlights but you can also read the whole speech.
Buck Luce noted that it’s an exciting time in the pharmaceutical industry “as we move from focusing on what we make to whom we serve.” She discussed the progress that women have made in business and the changes still to be made. “Regardless of our numbers in the ranks, the progress of getting women to the top has stalled and we still make up only a minority of leadership in all public and private sectors. We are still leading from the foot of the table, not the seats of power.”
this infographic expresses the key points in a way that's appealing to the target patient audience
In the past year, the use of infographics has exploded. In fact, there are entire websites and search engines devoted to them. If you aren’t sure what I mean by the term “infographic,” I’m referring to graphically interesting representations of data. Ideally, infographics (short for information graphics) present complex information in an easy-to-understand visual format. If you’d like to learn more, here’s a post on the history of infographics.
Nonprofit organizations have used infographics to increase awareness of diseases ranging from pancreatic cancer to lupus. I also found a lot of interactive agencies, design companies and newspapers creating wonderful infographics to explain health topics. The FDA even uses them. Here’s one explaining cholesterol and another on understanding generic drugs. But I only found one pharmaceutical company using them.
Let’s be honest, at the end of the day, what we want is a drug that works for our children.
We are honored to share this guest post from Melissa Hogan, founder of Saving Case. Melissa started the organization after her third son, Case, was diagnosed with the rare disease Hunter Syndrome or MPS II. She is also the author of Calmer: Medical Events with Cognitively Impaired Children.
During my recent time at the World Orphan Drug Congress, I had the pleasure of a nice dinner and conversation with some operations folks from a larger pharmaceutical company, otherwise affectionately known in our crowd as “big pharma.”
Interestingly enough, while we talk about big pharma (I’m going to keep using that term even though it is not precisely defined) entering the rare disease space for MPS/ML, some of the companies more established in our space are definitely not “small” by pharma standards – Shire and Genzyme/Sanofi.
But, sometimes it’s the case that you can slander your family, but you’re not going to let anyone else do it, you know what I mean? Our patient populations have grown up with these companies in many respects, from when they were small and testing that one compound that gave us hope.
harmonization across all rare disease stakeholders is essential for success
The World Orphan Drug Congress last week consisted of three days jam-packed with presentations and networking. While the event focused on rare diseases and orphan drugs, the scope was still wide and addressed issues ranging from pricing to patient registries to various country regulations.
The highlights for me were the patient/caregiver testimonies scattered throughout the conference which reminded everyone why we were in the room. The presentation by Yi-Ou Wang from the nonprofit organization China-Dolls Fund was especially powerful as she described the lack of social awareness and support for rare diseases in China.
I had the chance to talk with a few empowered caregivers: Melissa Hogan from Saving Case, Lori Sames from Hannah’s Hope Fund, and Kelli Foster from The Mastocytosis Society. I was also pleased to finally meet two legends within the rare disease industry: John Crowley from Amicus Therapeutics and Pat Furlong from Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy.
Harmonization
The theme that was woven through many of the presentations was the idea of harmony—the state of being in agreement. Kinnari Patel, Bristol-Myers Squibb, started the first day by noting that harmonization across all rare disease stakeholders is essential for success. There are a variety of levels of harmonization required, and many of the speakers are working on facilitating these partnerships.
only 2% of the US population and 4% of physicians ever get involved with clinical research
Use mobile devices to keep patients motivated. Leverage electronic health records to find eligible participants. Create a robust website dedicated to educate participants. These were some of the innovative tactics discussed at the 3rd Patient Engagement Summit in Philadelphia on March 20-21, 2012.
Joe Kim, Director of Clinical Operations at Shire Pharmaceuticals, was the conference chairperson, and he did a great job of keeping the audience engaged and on track. He is clearly one of the leaders in innovative ways to engage patients and shared his expertise judiciously throughout the two-day event.
The biggest challenge identified by all speakers was finding patients willing to participate in clinical trials.
I was part of the Siren team that attended the World Orphan Drug Congress last week in Washington, DC. On the first day we led an interactive workshop entitled, Engage with Rare Disease Patients Using MicroTargetingSM and Social Media.
We believe it’s essential to include the patient/caregiver point of view, so we invited Melissa Hogan, founder of Saving Case, to present with us. Melissa started the organization after her third son, Case, was diagnosed with the rare disease Hunter Syndrome or MPS II. She spends her time “writing, speaking, and advocating for children with MPS and other rare diseases in the health care, education, and social services contexts.”
At the workshop Melissa shared the journey to Case’s diagnosis and how she uses social media. Melissa calls the empowered moms in this space “pusher moms” because they are constantly pushing forward for their children. See the video below where she describes how she approached clinical trial recruitment.
Watch this space for more insights from the World Orphan Drug Congress.
we get between 5-10 comments a day and I’d say 80% of the comments get posted
The Johnson & Johnson Health channel, which recently hit 6 million video views, is the most popular pharma channel on YouTube. Much of the success is due to the volume of videos (nearly 600) on a variety of health topics. Four years ago, J&J started the channel by utilizing existing videos they had produced over the years. They’ve continued to create new videos, facilitated by having an in-house production studio.
Rob Halper, director of video communication at Johnson & Johnson, moderated the #SocPharm tweetchat on Wednesday and talked about their process: “We create the videos in-house. I hire producers and they work with freelance crews and editors using our facilities. The exception to that is when we do shoots out of state, when I hire local video crews, but I’ll send a producer.”
The marketing monologue has turned into a conversation
“We don’t believe in digital marketing. We believe in marketing in a digital world, and there’s a huge difference,” said Clive Sirkin, new chief marketing officer of Kimberly-Clark, in an Ad Age article.
I take this to mean that at Kimberly-Clark, digital marketing isn’t in a silo but incorporated as part of the larger marketing team. That interactive tactics are viewed as an integral part of a holistic marketing campaign. Marketing in a digital world still requires offline tactics—they just need to be fully integrated. I hope Sirkin is including social media in his use of the word digital because it’s essential that social media tactics support the overall company or brand marketing objectives.
Most of our target audiences are living in a digital world—one of multitasking, near constant noise, and information available 24/7. Interactive devices, especially smart phones, keep many of us constantly digitally connected. In just a few years, this access has become an essential part of our daily lives. I thought this Domino Theory blog post had an interesting way to think about the topic: “Marketing in a digital world isn’t about the tools YOU use, it’s about the tools your customers use.”
It remains to be seen how users will react to all this additional marketing
Facebook’s announcement on February 29, 2012 that it would allow brand pages to use the timeline format overshadowed the debut of their new ad formats. For large advertisers Facebook “premium offers” now allow ads to be posted to newsfeeds and timelines. This front and center placement of advertisements shows that Facebook is serious about selling ad space. Facebook’s logout page will also now feature ads. In addition, news feed ads will start being seen on mobile devices.
Page owners can take wall posts, including polls or videos, and easily convert them into ads. The idea is that these ads will become less like advertising and more like storytelling. As Facebook’s customer marketing director, Mike Hoefflinger, said at the launch, “We are evolving from advertising to stories. Ads are good, but stories are better.”
These ads also try to add in a social element. If you view a premium ad, Facebook will expand the ad to include a line that shows which of your friends “like(s)” the page. Read More
