Marketers and regulators continue to grapple with what ­constitutes ­appropriate use of social media in life-sciences ­communications. Regardless of the outcome, analysts agree that the explosive growth and adoption of social media is bound to revolutionize pharma marketing strategies. In the last few years, social media has progressed from hipster fad to communications ­fundamental. The user-friendly interfaces of utilities such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn have prompted even the least tech-savvy individuals to embrace them as a ­convenient means of keeping in touch with far-flung family, friends, and colleagues through real-time status updates, photos, interactive games, and instant messaging. The uncertain regulatory environment surrounding such wide-open communications spaces has relegated social media to the fringes of many companies’ marketing plans. Glenn Byrd, director, regulatory affairs at MedImmune, says his company maintains a Twitter account that is used for dissemination of unbranded corporate information, and also employs social media through its corporate communications and brand team functions. “But we limit some of the ‘social’ capabilities, such as commenting, rating, and sometimes sharing due to the uncertain regulatory environment," Mr. Byrd says. Sue Foelix, Genzyme’s VP of U.S. renal marketing, says to date, her company has been conservative in its use of social media, mainly because Genzyme employs less consumer and physician marketing and more personal selling and support for the rare diseases the company’s products serve. “The cornerstone of the patient-centric focus for Genzyme is a direct relationship with healthcare providers, patients, and caregivers who need our products," Ms. Foelix says. Ms. Foelix adds that Genzyme did recently establish a Twitter feed. “This is likely a way to become more confident in utilizing social media as an organization while navigating through the challenges of claims, fair balance, and adverse event monitoring that social media presents for brands," she says. “As social media increasingly becomes the ‘currency’ of communication, it will become important to generate standards for this new media." At AstraZeneca, Bob Allen, director of mobile and social media, says social media is currently used as a vehicle for corporate affairs and as part of the marketing strategies for a select number of brands. “We’re proud to be on the front lines of stepping into interactive digital engagement through our Twitter account, blog, Facebook page, and YouTube channel," Mr. Allen says. Other companies are testing the waters by adding social media components to existing online marketing and philanthropic efforts. For example, Mr. Byrd notes, MedImmune conducts a branded public education campaign in partnership with Women’s Professional Soccer and the American Youth Soccer Organization, focused on the importance and need for eligible persons to get vaccinated against influenza each year. In addition to traditional media, the campaign includes a Facebook page with the theme “Don’t Wait to Vaccinate;" for every person who “likes" the page, MedImmune donates $1 (up to $50,000) to the nonprofit organization Families Fighting Flu. A separate advertisting campaign includes the use of “webisodes" on select websites that deliver educational, disease awareness, and product awareness messages, Mr. Byrd says. Social Media Guidelines After months of hearings and input from industry leaders, healthcare professionals, and the public, the FDA is expected to issue its long-awaited draft guidelines for use of social media tools in pharma marketing before the end of the year, giving some clarity to an area clouded by inconsistent policing of seemingly random minutiae, such as a warning letter issued over the text color in an ad link. “Regulation tends to follow, not lead, commercial activity," Ms. Foelix says. “The industry has an opportunity to take the lead in evaluation of new media based on the spirit of the regulations: to tell the truth with appropriate balance of benefits and risks." While most agree that PhRMA and other industry advocates should have a place in the continuing development of social media guidelines, they also concur that FDA oversight is necessary to ensure a level playing field for all pharma marketers. “The FDA’s purpose is to promote and protect the public health, and the agency have a vested stake in ensuring that the best possible information is reaching the American public," Mr. Byrd says. “Therefore, the FDA definitely is the body to perform this task. Industry and industry groups cannot be expected to define, agree upon, and enforce guidances or guidelines uniformly. There have to be checks and balances, and FDA provides that." While Mr. Allen agrees the FDA is the agency best suited to monitor social media use in marketing, he says the agency needs to better understand the technological evolution the industry is experiencing. “Technology is fueling an information-driven society, and we will need to have guidelines that are commensurate with the changes in technology and the changing needs of patients and medical professionals," he says. “Guidelines that take this into consideration will ultimately allow us to better serve the needs of our customers." Interaction, not just delivery At its core, social media is about interaction, not just message delivery, according to industry experts. In addition to monitoring their brands’ overall share of conversation, social media gives pharmaceutical companies a direct line to their customers’ concerns and challenges related to the brand. Experts on the topic say through social media, pharmaceutical companies can identify the major detractors, and the major influencers — the consumer opinion leaders (COLs) — and where they interact with their followers, and then can try to build positive relationships with these COLs. “The unprompted online conversations about our company and our brands are invaluable," Mr. Allen says. “Being able to listen to those conversations gives us a better understanding of the needs and concerns of our customers, and presents us the opportunity to respond in a manner that is genuine and adds value to their relationship with AstraZeneca and our products," he adds. Mr. Byrd sees the biggest advantage to using social media as being the ability to inform consumers and healthcare professionals about important topics in a way that is user-friendly and contemporary. “More and more people are turning to electronic tools to find the information they need and the messages have to go where the audiences are," he says. “The industry has to find ways to communicate effectively and efficiently, and this medium offers both a large potential audience and economies of scale." A recent whitepaper by e-patients.net Founder Tom Ferguson, M.D., concludes with an observation that the old paradigm in which health professionals were viewed as the exclusive source of medical knowledge and wisdom, is being replaced by an expanded worldview in which family caregivers and the systems and networks they create are increasingly seen as important healthcare resources. Industry experts believe that pharmaceutical companies can also play a vital role as an important healthcare resource in this new paradigm. Whereas companies were once simply drug manufacturers, they are now becoming healthcare companies — in part because of evolving new media tools, especially mobile and social, and in part due to the decreasing ability of physicians to spend adequate time with patients. It’s apparerent that someone needs to fill the unmet need for accurate information, and many are looking toward pharmaceutical companies to take the lead in filling this gap. Learning from Social Intelligence Consumer feedback obtained via monitoring of social media can be an invaluable resource for pharma marketers looking to boost sales of their brands in a tough marketplace. According to a recent MarketsandMarkets.com report, Effective Social Media Marketing Strategies for the Pharmaceutical Market, an increasing number of pharma companies have begun leveraging social media platforms to enhance consumer relationships and improve brand management, based on the market intelligence generated by monitoring and analyzing user-generated content. Mike Russo, director, corporate digital marketing strategy for Acorda Therapeutics, says one use of social media Acorda is piloting on its Ampyra product page involves a type of crowd sourcing. “We allow the community to rank the frequently asked questions (FAQs) in order of importance by clicking a ‘recommend’ button," Mr. Russo explains. “This allows our community to help tell us what is important to them and get the information easily to other community members." According to Mr. Russo, Acorda’s MoveOverMS.org community website for people with multiple sclerosis (MS) relies on the principals of social networking to build relevant content and allow that content to be shared with interested parties to give the information greater reach. “Before social media, marketers would count the people that came to their website; now we find value in allowing our content to be viewed by people who have never come to our website," Mr. Russo says. “That is a profound change in the way a brand or company measures online programs." Social media can help boost search rankings, which are largely driven by the volume of high-quality inbound links a website receives. According to industry souces, if a company creates content compelling enough to get mentions on Twitter and Facebook, it can drive inbound links from these social sites. Along this same vein, monitoring social media channels for help choosing keywords for paid search campaigns and long-tail terms for search engine optimization provide opportunities to find out how customers naturally talk about diseases and pharma brands. creating an online dialogue The two-way nature of social media conversations can present a number of challenges to an industry accustomed to conventional media. “Unlike the controlled, one-way communication of messages through traditional advertising media such as print advertising, the real-time nature of social media is inherently challenging for a system of communication that relies on regimented review and documentation of all brand-related communications," Ms. Foelix says. “To enter into social media without listening first is going about it the wrong way," Mr. Allen cautions. “Entering into this space to promote a product without first understanding what is being discussed can be seen as gratuitous and disingenuous." Some social media brand programs consist solely of the same sound bites or promotional messages recycled repeatedly, with either no commenting allowed, or with comments reviewed and sanitized before being posted. According to some, this is pharma trying to adopt a new communication methodology without giving up the old model of communication. Pharmaceutical companies can stay connected to the conversation by listening to patients in communities, but they are then challenged to dialogue with them, and this dialogue is the very heart and soul of being social. Mr. Byrd says the uncertainty among both industry and regulatory authorities with regard to social media governance often results in a lack of attention to detail by pharma companies. “In the absence of clear FDA guidance, there is a variety of content out there, and industry teams may not be as careful as they should in looking at the end result of their work products to see if they fit the regulatory mandate to provide truthful, balanced content to audiences," he says. Mr. Byrd suggests that companies begin communicating across all functional areas as soon as social media ideas hit the drawing board. “Regulatory professionals need to be an integral part of that cross-functional collaboration to help guide both development and finalization of content to ensure the message is either bona fide disease awareness, or appropriate product-related content," he says. Ms. Foelix suggests that one way to mitigate the risk of inadvertently disseminating inappropriate content via social media is to adopt an “almost real-time" policy, where any postings or answers have some level of review. To mitigate the risk of customer backlack in the social media arena, Mr. Allen says it is crucial to listen to them. “Don’t make assumptions about what you hear, and remain true to what your social surveillance research tells you," he says. “Also, don’t jump the gun and go right into deploying tactics; not every brand or company needs a page on Facebook. By listening to your customers, you may find that the majority of those relevant conversations about your brands could be happening in other social networking venues." Experts suggests the best use of social media is the development of a disease-state social community led by allied healthcare professionals (AHCPs). They say AHCPs can provide authoritative answers to members’ questions on management of the disease and related lifestyle issues, and they possess the training to recognize adverse events and off-label comments. AHCPs can quickly handle queries, either by interceding through a time delay of a few minutes from when the comment is submitted and when it goes live, or by a terms-of-use policy that makes it clear what types of comments the AHCP will deem inappropriate and delete from the site. Integration of new and ­traditional media Despite social media’s increasing popularity and proliferation, marketers are unlikely to completely abandon traditional media channels for social utilities anytime soon. “I don’t think social media will ever fully replace traditional marketing," Mr. Russo says. “However, I feel there is a role for it to play in pharma marketing, since we can reach our customers where they are looking for health information." Some experts believe that social media marketing will fully replace traditional marketing when people fully stop using TV, radio, and print media. Even though research clearly shows that patients and physicians spend more time online than offline when searching for health information, pharmaceutical marketers will continue to put more of their budgets into traditional marketing channels. “The role social media plays in the overall market mix for a brand depends on the product, its target audience, and the overall marketing approach for that brand," Mr. Allen says. “Just like other forms of communication, as time goes on, social media will be an integral part of how brands go to market. It won’t be this exotic tool in the marketing toolbox that comes with great risk and great reward; it will be a tool that will achieve specific objectives." “It is hard to imagine a world where social media would replace, versus complement, other key elements of the marketing mix like personal promotion," Ms. Foelix observes. “This may be particularly true for complex and rare diseases where personal engagement is a key to appropriate therapeutic intervention. The magnitude of ‘e’ within the marketing mix will continue to depend on consumer demographics, the online accessibility of the relevant populations, and the claims and risks that must be communicated." n PharmaLinx LLC, publisher of the VIEW, ­welcomes comments about this article. E-mail us at ­[email protected]. thought leaders n BOB ALLEN. Director of Mobile and Social Media, AstraZeneca, a global pharmaceutical company. For more information, visit astrazeneca-us.com. n GLENN BYRD. Director, Regulatory Affairs, MedImmune, the worldwide biologics unit for AstraZeneca. For more information, visit ­medimmune.com. n SUE FOELIX. VP, U.S. Renal Marketing, Genzyme, a global biotechnology company dedicated to making a positive impact on the lives of people with serious diseases. For more informati n, visit genzyme.com. n MIKE RUSSO. Director, Corporate Digital Marketing Strategy, Acorda Therapeutics, a biotechnology company developing therapies for multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury, and other nervous system disorders. For more information, visit acorda.com. We’re proud to be on the front lines of stepping into interactive digital engagement through our Twitter account, blog, Facebook page, and YouTube channel. Following the FDA hearings on social media last year, AstraZeneca submitted a proposal to the FDA outlining the five principles it believes should be at the core of any company engagement in social media. Bob Allen, director of mobile and social media, lists the principles as follows: • Truth and accuracy: Content must be created, developed, or made available that is truthful, balanced, accurate, and not misleading. • To be respectful: Encourage product sponsor participation that respects the interests of patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers, particularly related to matters of privacy and the primacy of the patient/physician relationship. • Protect and advance patient health: Facilitate patient access to quality information for use with their physician to improve their health and protect patients through encouraging accurate and timely reporting on medicine safety. • Transparency: Any product sponsor participation should be accomplished in a manner that, at all times, is entirely transparent to other participants as to the role of product sponsors as participants in online discussion. • Respect the views of others: Acknowledge that patients, caregivers, clinicians, and others who participate in social media have their own opinions, and that when they differ from those of the product sponsor, it is not the role of a product sponsor to censor or limit these views, but to add the product sponsor’s own views to the discussion. Source: Bob Allen, AstraZeneca. Five Principles for Social Media Engagement As social media increasingly becomes the ‘currency’ of communication, it will become important to generate standards for this new media. Top 10 Global Web Parent Companies Home & Work, August 2010 Unique Audience Rank Parent (000) Active Reach% 1. Google 205,814,883 87.79% 2. Microsoft 180,098,857 76.82 3. Facebook 118,840,955 50.69 4. Yahoo! 100,511,198 42.87 5. eBay 95,426,342 40.70 6. Wikimedia Foundation 87,394,392 37.28 7. Amazon 54,444,795 23.22 8. Apple Computer 49,831,728 21.26 9. Telefonica/Terra 45,830,250 19.55 10. InterActiveCorp 43,291,706 18.47 Top 10 U.S. Web Parent Companies Home & Work, August 2010 Unique Audience Rank Parent (000) Active Reach% 1. Google 160,785 82.4% 2. Microsoft 136,430 70.0 3. Yahoo! 133,349 68.4 4. Facebook 131,381 67.4 5. AOL 80,127 41.1 6. InterActiveCorp 75,989 39.0 7. News Corp. Online 70,344 36.1 8. eBay 65,316 33.5 9. Amazon 61,440 31.5 10. Apple Computer 61,255 31.4 Top 10 U.S. Online Video Brands Home & Work, August 2010 Unique VIEWERS Rank BRAND (000) 1. YouTube 101,074 2. Facebook 36,866 3. Yahoo! 27,825 4. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing 17,050 5. Hulu 12,290 6. The CollegeHumor Network 9,079 7. Fox Interactive Media 8,985 8. CNN Digital Network 8,341 9. Turner Sports and 7,862 Entertainment Digital Network 10. Disney Online 7,815 Source: The Nielsen Co. For more information, visit en-us.nielsen.com.

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