Anticorruption law to clean up South Korea pharma industryPharma using social media but strategy needs tweaking

Print 07 October 2016
Brian Orelli / BioWorld

A new report from health communications company Ogilvy Healthworld released last week revealed a high level of social media activity by the top 20 pharmaceutical companies, but argues that pharma's social media strategy could use some tweaking.

"It's clear that there is still a difference between the types and themes of content that pharma is pushing out compared to what the audience engages with," Rebecca Canvin, social director at Ogilvy and one of the authors of the report, told BioWorld Insight.

The report analyzed the social media activity of the top 20 pharma companies over the first half of 2016 using FACE Inc.'s Pulsar software platform. There were 20 Twitter accounts, with an average of just over 76,000 followers producing an average of 26 tweets per week. The 13 pharma Facebook accounts averaged 168,000 page Likes, but the companies used the accounts one quarter as often with an average of six posts per week. The report also analyzed 18 Youtube and six Instagram accounts, but both had substantially fewer subscribers/followers and were used considerably less frequently.

Most of pharma's social media activity is original content. For example, just 10 percent of tweets were retweets, although some companies such as Bayer AG, of Leverkusen, Germany, and Dublin-based Allergan plc had a higher level of curated content at 25 percent and 22 percent of their tweets coming from retweets, respectively.

"Retweeting shows reactivity and active engagement in social conversations," the report points out. "Ultimately, it is not the number of retweets and shares, but the quality and the relevancy of posts that can add value. Taking the time to curate content from popular sources and known influencers for a specific audience will likely result in higher engagement."

Pharma's use of social media varied substantially from over 1,700 posts by Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. to less than 100 for Allergan and Jerusalem-based Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. But the companies with the highest number of posts – Lilly, Pfizer Inc., of New York, and London-based Glaxosmithkline plc – didn't have any higher engagement with followers than companies with a third to half as many posts.

And the number of followers doesn't necessarily result in a higher level of engagement. The engagement score of Johnson & Johnson, of New Brunswick, N.J., which has the most followers, was only slightly above the average. As the report points out, "social media offers a more level playing field."

The highest level of engagement came from Novo Nordisk A/S and Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, which were both substantially higher than the third-place finisher, but the report hypothesized that the companies might be using paid social strategies to increase their engagement.

Pharma companies post a variety of content, but their mixture doesn't necessarily match what the audience is engaging with. More than a third of posts, 38 percent, contained a link to an external source with more information, but those types of posts had lower engagement rates compared to videos and images, which made up just 9 percent and 27 percent of posts, respectively. And only 1 percent of pharma's social media content contained GIFs, but the engagement rate for GIFs was at 1 percent, which was only slightly lower than the 1.12 percent for links.

"Where pharma perhaps lags behind is the visual aspect – namely videos and GIFs – which are increasingly important as the online audience's attention span gets shorter and shorter and they don't have the time to dedicate to text-based information," Canvin said.

For images, the report gives some suggestions for success, "Often the most impactful and popular were those which summed up a simple key message, or included personal photos. Images of employees were more successful, rather than stock photography, which can be perceived as too corporate or clinical."

The subject of the social media content also didn't necessarily match with engagement rates. Posts about disease awareness made up 29 percent of pharma's social media posts, but the category had an engagement rate of just 0.71 percent. By comparison, posts abut company news, which made up 25 percent of posts, had an engagement rate of 1.93 percent. Posts about corporate social responsibility, product and research updates and Congress rounded out the top four.

"The fairly low engagement rate for disease awareness content suggests that perhaps the pharma companies do not have as high a following in the health care community as they would wish for. With this in mind, whilst pharma social teams should optimize content to meet the needs of their current audiences, they should also consider ways to attract new audiences, in line with their preferred audience profiles (such as HCPs)," the report concludes.

CHANGING FOCUS

"The take-home message [for pharma companies] is to develop an in-depth understanding of their social audiences so they can publish relevant content that promotes meaningful conversations," Canvin said.

One way pharma companies can increase engagement is through paid social content to "target and reach relevant audiences beyond their own followers," Canvin pointed out, especially for disease awareness content that has lower engagement rates with current followers.

Canvin also suggests companies "consider partnering with doctors or patient groups to co-create content that is relevant for their audiences." Those individuals or groups can create content using the preferred language and subject matter, and the company can benefit from the individuals or groups sharing the content within their own social media networks, raising the profile of the company.

To match content with engagement, the report suggests companies change their mindset "from being marketers to publishers. In this way, they can transform superficial content into great stories and experiences; shifting from aimless connections to meaningful conversations."

Source

Return