Warning letters. Off-label promotion. Adverse drug reaction reporting. These are compelling reasons why pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device marketers should be nervous about social media. There’s little regulatory guidance and lots of risk.
Watch out for hype
Just because “social media” is the big buzzword for Q1-2009 doesn’t mean it’s right for health care products. Consider a recent blog post over at Adotas by respected marketer Michael Maher:
Drug firms must communicate via social networks because it’s a primary way consumers prefer to make health decisions… [making them] better-informed patients, who’ll make smarter decisions, become more compliant, and advocate an effective treatment to their social contacts.
His opinion is appropriate for consumer packaged goods, but not for health care. The Pew Internet and American Life Project reports that “the population of e-patients may have stabilized at 75% to 80% of internet users” but this does not correlate with better decision-making, compliance or advocacy. Correlation does equal causation. It just reflects the shift in mass media away from television and print and towards online sources.
If your product is regulated, you’ve got to control your marketing message
Health care marketers are well-advised to evaluate the role of social media on a product by product basis. Truly savvy marketers will further investigate on a property by property basis. While McNeil Pediatrics may want to sponsor “ADHD Moms” on Facebook (to great success with more than 7,000 fans), you’ll want to note their fine print:
Please note that we will not post comments about any specific products or treatments, whether they are sold by McNeil Pediatrics, affiliated companies, or competitors. Product-specific questions should be directed to the companies that sell them.
What health care marketers can do in the next 5 minutes. Free.
If you are a pharmaceutical, biotechnology or medical device brand manager there are a few things you can today to get started that carry no risk and no expense:
- Monitor the user conversations on consumer web portals like RevolutionHealth and WebMD (pick your Rx, drill down into user reviews and comments).
- Take John Mack’s Rate Your Social Media Marketing Readiness to get a sense of where you and your company fall on the risk-taking spectrum. [Tip: you don’t have to provide your name and email address at the end to see the cumulative, anonymized scores)
- Learn more about measuring and monitoring online sentiment from companies like Nielsen BuzzMetrics, Cymphony, and Envision Solutions
Social media has great power: some credit its effective use with Obama’s successful presidential campaign. But just like a president’s first 100 days in office, consider your own 100 day plan to explore what you can reasonably hope to accomplish in a finite amount of time. All eyes will be upon you.
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