It's good to talk

Pharmaceutical companies are currently missing a huge opportunity in the digital arena through a paroxysm of indecision and misplaced understanding of what they can use it for. Even though social media is a 'hot topic' in healthcare communications, few pharmaceutical companies are embracing it wholeheartedly. This is largely due to fear that they cannot control the internet, messages may get into the wrong hands, online conversations may result in a surge in pharmacovigilance cases, and ultimately companies will fall foul of their code of practice and the law. In order to turn the situation around, the industry needs to self-medicate with a healthy dose of education and common sense.

Perhaps the first question you might ask yourself is: why would the pharmaceutical industry want to engage with (a) patients and (b) through social media. After all, the customer is the healthcare professional (HCP) or payer isn't it?

Even if we wanted to converse with patients, the law and our own country's regulations don't allow us to say much and there's no control over social media, so anyone can access what we say through it. After all, what goes online, stays online.

End of story you might think, turn over. Well don't. Please.

The European Commission wants patients to have access to reliable information on available medicines, the grounds on which they have been authorised and how they are monitored.

The challenge for pharmaceutical companies is to supply understandable, objective, high-quality and non-promotional information about the benefits and the risks of their medicines, while maintaining the ban on direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines and making sure that there is a clear distinction between advertising and non-promotional information.

The EFPIA broadly supports this position and adds: 'access to high-quality medicines information in all languages via the internet must be enhanced'.

So even though communicating with prescribers (HCPs) will remain important, the pharmaceutical company of the future will also need to communicate with the end-user (patients). There are many vehicles for doing this and social media is an important one.

You're not alone if you feel the concept lacks feasibility in the current environment, but people within and outside pharmaceutical organisations often engage with social media without consciously being aware of it.

So what is it? In its broadest sense social media encompasses the tools and technologies that enable people to have an online interaction. This can be anything from forums such as chat rooms, blogs and twitter to technology, such as Skype, or even a website with a phone number encouraging people to make a call and engage in a conversation.

The world is literally at people's fingertips and there lies the problem for many pharmaceutical companies, who can't see how they can control their messages in such an interactive environment.

A company is accountable for any information you release and if a company sponsors an online activity it is duly responsible for all of its content – even if part of that content derives from a forum where anyone can post their views.

Everyone online can now report on their health experiences, so while from a media perspective pharma companies and their customers have always been able to share information – what has changed is the scale and the speed.

The ultimate fear for all companies is breaching their national code of practice or breaking the law and the penalties that might then be imposed. At worst this could be a huge fine, a company audit, and the ultimate possibility that the medic responsible could be imprisoned.

But it is not the channel of communication (including the speed at which it operates) that really presents a problem – and in that respect nothing has changed for marketers in terms of code compliance – it is the content and intent of any message that has to be ethical, accurate and appropriate.

Care should be taken about the tactics used around digital activities and `black hat' activities avoided – unethical attempts to improve rankings in ways that are disapproved of by the search engines, or involve deception. One method gives a different page depending on whether the page is being requested by a human visitor or a search engine, a technique known as cloaking.

One of the attractions for using digital communications is the immediacy with which information can be posted. However, pharma companies are not structured to deal with instant updates – the practicalities of `sign off' mean that pharma's chances of being `current' are slim if not impossible.

The lack of understanding of the purpose of digital activities can be a huge barrier between marketing and compliance – for example, brand managers might see a website as a simple `must have' tactic but for those signing everything off this could be 100-200 job bags to approve. In such cases 'no' is the default position or sign off takes so long, the information is out of date.

Medics and compliance officers are not often involved in the strategic development of a website and therefore may struggle to understand the intent. Something brand managers may struggle to educate them on within the given time frame for approving materials.

The best practice when companies embark on using digital channels for the first time is to have cross-functional teams inputting into the overall marketing campaign.

Given the importance of proving RoI on marketing activities the industry needs to develop a proven methodology of determining Return on Engagement (RoE) for digital activities. This should encompass both trust and customer relationships.

One of the complications for European marketers is the remit of their global communications teams who are invariably responsible for corporate and brand websites.

While European marketers may be allowed to conduct local activities, strategy for digital is often dictated by the global department. However, unless European marketers are more proactive in developing their own digital activities, HCPs and patients searching the web will invariably visit the global (usually American) sites and this may be ultimately detrimental to the patient.

Although HCPs are still the core audience and digital communication is seen as a consumer/patient-focused activity, we must not forget that HCPs are consumers too.

Pharmaceutical companies need to pay attention to online sources that patients and HCPs trust. Wikipedia, for example, is a very popular source for patients and HCPs alike, but is it accurate? In general, it's fair to say that the scientific content is accurate – however the main issue is with editorial choices, specifically what content the site chooses not to include in terms of the safety profiles of medicines.

Pharma has a moral obligation to ensure that information about its products is correct and has the right to reply if articles are incorrect. However the challenge with Wikipedia is that it is a global resource and what may be within licence in one country may not be the same as in another.

There is a lot of ignorance about Wikipedia but the resource actually self-regulates better than the pharma industry. If statements are not referenced or substantiated they are taken down and altered. In that respect it is important that the pharmaceutical industry is perceived as ethical by social media and therefore seen as a trusted source of information.

Transparency from the pharmaceutical industry for digital activity is essential. Roche was the first company to publish its social media policy, quickly followed by Janssen.

The Roche policy outlines seven rules for personal activities speaking `about' Roche and seven rules for professional activities speaking `on behalf of' Roche.

The main message to employees is always to remember who you are or who you are representing and what your role is in the social media community. Just because it's social, it doesn't mean it's casual.

The authors
Catherine Warne is CEO of the Red Door Communications Group, which for the past year has run a series of industry meetings brainstorming the challenges and devising solutions for pharmaceutical companies wishing to embrace digital activities.

David McCormick, Digital Lead at Roche UK, has attended three of the meetings and has been a key contributor to the group’s findings.

If you would like to join the Red Door Digital Debate please contact Catherine at cwarne@rdcomms.com