Pharma Social Media: The Rx for Success

In this piece we will attempt to offer some insights into what makes for a successful pharma social media campaign…

First, a bit of background… Drug marketers are fervently grasping the importance of pharma social media programs as such programs can greatly expand the reach of their marketing budgets when measured against what traditional media costs. However, these companies understand that pharma social media efforts should be integrated into their offline, relationship-building marketing plans in effect resulting in a multichannel approach designed to fulfill the informational needs of an increasingly mobile consumer public.

In undertaking a pharma social media program, keep these things in the forefront of your mind:

Define the brand.
While snazzy digital marketing tools might get your product found, it might not be remembered. Even a well-designed site will not distinguish a product or drug when there is no promise of difference. So the first priority in a pharma social media program is to define and express that difference. You need to lay the paving stones for distinguishing your brand from the competition if you are to succeed with your pharma social media efforts.

Build the brand.
Once your brand position is carved out, it is time to give it life through all forms of media. In terms of pharma social media, it starts with your website, but should move out to the blogosphere, LinkedIn, YouTube, FlickR among other vehicles.

Make it easy to be found.
The secret to success in pharma social media is how to make your product easily found. Relevancy scores—the math behind each of the major search engine’s rankings—can be influenced through deliberate steps. A careful selection of keywords that best capture what you’re all about woven throughout your website content is a smart step. Headers and subheads, and links from other sites to yours are all key components for success in pharma social media.

Search advertising can pave the way for successful pharma social media efforts
There are quite a few Internet advertising options and drug companies should be aware of in deploying their pharma social media campaigns. Google AdWords is one such program. AdWords can be changed quite quickly and your pharma social media campaign can be adapted to take advantage of emerging opportunities.

Measure and fine tune the program
For drug marketers, it is critical that the success of the pharma social media campaign be measured. Analytics and AdWord reports are free to Google advertisers. These reports require a degree of expertise to interpret and evaluate. And, while most pharma social media programs will enable you to adjust your campaign quickly, you do need internal resources to track, analyze and manage your efforts or else you could be shooting in the dark.

While there are many other pharma social media techniques we didn’t touch upon (e.g., blogs), there aforementioned represent a good starting point and can be expanded and provide a strong foundation by which your efforts can be deployed.