I'm an avid skier, so it is surprising for most people to discover that I started the sport late in my life. When I was still a novice I was given one piece of advice that has been crucial not only to my skiing, but to other aspects in my life as well as in business
"Lean forward!"
It seemed like such a counter-intuitive concept. When I was going down a particularly steep slope my obvious first instinct was to lean backward. This is a natural reaction, to protect ourselves we lean backward away from the slope, trying to avoid speeding up. But, in reality, as all professionals skiers know, leaning backward is the fastest way to lose control and balance.
Leaning backward is the fastest way to lose control |
For me, my late start in skiing brings to mind the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and social media. Pharma had a late start, when it comes to social media, and is acting as I did when I first started skiing by leaning backward.
Essentially 2006 was the turning point in social media for most businesses. It's the year that Twitter first launched and when Facebook created "Facebook Pages" for brands. Many companies clamored to the new avenues of communication, experimenting with pages, newsfeeds and Twitter updates. Pharmaceutical companies at this point began to slowly join the social media milieu, but in limited capacity. For example, the Twitter accounts and Facebook pages were often for the corporate brand, not the individual drug brands or care areas, and the Facebook page comments were disabled almost across the board. This limitation of conversation on social media is logical given the concerns about AER (Adverse Event Reporting) requirements and the lack of relevant FDA guidelines. However, the minimal effort led to minimal results. Pfizer, for example, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, attracted only 27,000 followers on Twitter (numbers from 2011). Most likely, the followers were largely made up of all of us in the health 2.0 community rather than patients. Without providing real value to the patient, and only leveraging social media as a traditional one directional media channel, no significant relationship between brand and patient can be formed. Like in skiing, the one directional Facebook and Twitter feeds, was pharma 's way of leaning backward. In many respects, pharma is still stuck on the proverbial bunny hill.
Patients realizing that pharma social media channels do not offer any venue for real communication (sort of a "social media without social media") started choosing other social venues to discuss their medication and conditions. This then created opportunities for other interested parties to establish engaging social destinations for patients that focus on specific brands and conditions. As a result, pharmaceutical companies have slowly but surely been losing control over the discussions regarding their brands and allowing other parties to "hijack" the mindshare of their clients. Also, with last year's social media changes, there came challenges. Facebook no longer allows the blocking of comments, which caused concern for pharma and some have decided to back off from Facebook all together, leading to further loss of control.
Because of the challenges, the lukewarm response to social media is understandable but pharma can't stay out of the game forever. The healthcare industry is definitively driving all stakeholders into social, as KV Makena discovered. Last year, KV Pharmaceuticals received approval from the FDA for Makena, an injection to reduce the risk of premature delivery. The company initially planned to charge $1,500 per dose, although a generic version has been available through compounding pharmacies for many years for just $10-$20. Activists led a social media campaign in protest, which created a widespread backlash and ultimately damaged the brand's image. KV Pharma later lowered the cost of the drug and eventually established that 85% of patients would still be paying $20 or less per dose, but the damage was done. This sort of social media crisis is a clear demonstration of what can happen if policies are poorly communicated, and it shows that patients are becoming progressively important stakeholders in the pharmaceutical market. If KV had established a social destination where patients could access the right information right away, establish a dialog with KV and allow KV to address patients' needs, the backlash could have been less damaging if not all together avoided.
Lean forward and embrace new technologies and emerging outlets of patient engagement. |
In a recent survey, conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), one in three pharma companies have Facebook walls available for individuals to write comments and initiate posts. It was also reported that many communities were created on Facebook that weren't sponsored by the pharma companies for which they were created. The study also tracked one week's worth of social media activity and found that out of all healthcare companies that had consumer created communities (pharma, providers, and insurers), pharma communities were by far the most viewed. It is clear that people are interested and want to get information from pharma companies directly. It's important for these companies to adopt, and quickly, because communities will be created regardless.
Despite the fact that there are minimal regulations currently in place for social media, pharma can't afford leaving their social media initiatives in the hands of others. To solve this stalemate, at Wellness Layers, it is our belief that the answer to pharma's social media problem lies in the creation of private and branded communities with the ability for Facebook integration. In private communities, control can be established through various modes including strong moderation policies or by further controlling the discussions using innovative approaches. Within private networks, pharma companies have the ability to create guided experiences, increase patient engagement, adherence and education, listen to patient comments while simultaneously promoting their brand.
The lesson here is to think like a professional skier and lean forward, because embracing new technologies and emerging outlets of patient engagement is the key to staying relevant and impactful in a fast moving industry.