The Fault, Dear Pharma, is Not in SM ROI, But in Yourselves, That You Lack Commitment
[Richard Meyer, says] False information is a problem with social media so much that Facebook is trying to stop false news stories at the sources. But what about all the bad information when it comes to healthcare? In most cases, it’s consumers who are left to sort out what is true and what is false, but we all suffer when it leads to a patient not getting help on a small problem that can lead to a huge medical issue.
Only 7% of social network users have provided a review of pharma products according to Wave research and while that is a low number it’s still significant given the number of people who use social media.
However, we need to look beyond the numbers for how people use social media for health. Rodale found that the top uses for social media and health information were information about a medical condition (55%) followed by reviews and ranks of doctors (38%). In other words, consumers are not necessarily going to use social media to comment about a specific drug or treatment. However, there is considerable risk if pharma continues to ignore the conversation.
While it does seem that some pharma companies are indeed starting to embrace social media the biggest stumbling block seems to be that damn ROI bug which dictates everything that pharma marketers do (see chart).
Social media is becoming a more important part of the conversation and decision making around health care treatments, but I do not believe that a lot of patients believe what they read on social media when it comes to treatment reviews. However, that being said pharma still needs to decide whether they want to be part of the conversation or continue to remain on the same legal and regulatory side lines.
Further Reading:
- “The Twelve Steps of Pharma Social Marketers Anonymous”: http://bit.ly/2hGOA0U
- “Do Privacy Concerns Stand in the Way of Measuring Pharma eMarketing ROI?”: http://bit.ly/2hJRBB6
- “Correcting Independent 3rd-Party "Misinformation" About Prescription Drugs”; http://bit.ly/pmn130901
- “FDA Opens Window for Pharma to Correct Misinformation Online”; http://bit.ly/pmn1306-02
- “Are There Special Cases for Correcting Misinformation on Social Media Sites?”; http://bit.ly/19tn1s
- “Causes Digital Marketing's Failure? Restricted Budgets & Inability to Measure ROI”; http://sco.lt/4oWnMf
Is it really proving ROI that prevents pharma marketers from using social media? I don’t think so. First, how often do pharma marketers actually measure the ROI of their regular, non-social media campaigns? Probably never (listen to this podcast, for example, “You Want Marketing ROI? You're Not Ready to Measure ROI!”; http://bit.ly/PMNT029) . Second, when the ROI of social media campaigns have been measured, most often it is positive (listen to this podcast audio snippet, for example, “A Successful, Integrated Mobile App Ad Campaign”; http://bit.ly/2aueB45).
A more likely reason is lack of resources; i.e., money and personnel (FTEs), or commitment. For example, it would take a huge amount of resources to track down and correction misinformation about drugs on social media. The same is true for social media (read, for example, “Janssen to Shut Down Psoriasis 360 FaceBook Page Due to Lack of Commitment”; http://bit.ly/GPBCrk).