PHARMA NEWS, MULTICHANNEL & CROSSCHANNEL MAKETING

Facebook is hosting an invitation-only summit dedicated to health on June 6 in New York, according to a source familiar with the matter. CNBC tracked down a screenshot of the invitation, which has the tagline, "Health in the era of mobile."

It's part of an initiative for advertisers called "Facebook Health," run by a small team reporting into former Google director Meredith Guerriero. The team includes about a dozen people based in New York, our source says, as well as others in Washington, D.C., and Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California, according to Medical Marketing & Media.

The source said the June 6 meeting is primarily geared to marketers in the pharmaceutical industry, although other health industry leaders might also be in attendance. The person expects Facebook Health to unveil tweaks to the ad product, so pharma companies can more easily plug themselves on the platform. It could focus on mobile video, as that's been a major focus for the team.

Our source said that Google and Twitter hired large teams to work with pharmaceutical companies on ad campaigns, but Facebook hasn't had a real seat at the table until the past year. In November, the company made its first appearance at a conference to show off its scrolling ISI feature to pharma executives. That feature allows drug companies to remain inside Facebook's limits for text and photo copy but incorporate required safety information. After the rollout, Bayer launched its first Facebook ad campaign for a multiple sclerosis drug and injector (read “Bayer's Betaseron Facebook Ad Uses a New Feature: Scrolling ISI”; http://sco.lt/77xvd3).

Industry reports show that pharma has been slower than other industries to shift its ad budgets from television and print to digital, making it a prime target for tech companies. The research firm eMarketer estimated in 2016 that pharma and health care marketers spent $1.64 billion on mobile and online advertising, but projected that number to rise to $2.55 billion by 2019.

Further Reading:

•  “Big Pharma Likes Facebook for Disease Awareness & Facebook Likes Pharma Back!”; http://sco.lt/58WlYv
• “Top Pharma Companies on Facebook”; http://sco.lt/7g80Ej
• “Three effective ways pharma brands have used Facebook for marketing: ads, live events, apps”; http://sco.lt/9Afp4L
• “Will Drug Ads "Like" Facebook?”; http://sco.lt/8ANn1d
• “#Pharma Lacks Commitment To Do Facebook Well”; http://sco.lt/4xfXQv
• “Yo, #Pharma! You Can Do Facebook for Brands. Here's What You Need to Know.”; http://sco.lt/6q4R05

Back in August, 2011, Facebook opened up comments on ALL pharma pages, which meant that the pharmaceutical industry no longer was able to shut off comments on their product-related pages. Consequently, several companies decided to shut down their pages (read, for example, "Pharma Facebook Pages Being Phased Out" and "Janssen to Shut Down Psoriasis 360 FaceBook Page").

These days Facebook offers new opportunities and tools for the pharmaceutical industry to do promotions such as disease awareness campaigns (e.g., "Novartis, Queen Latifah, & American Heart Association Team Up on Facebook Live Broadcast") and ads that comply with FDA regulations (e.g. "Bayer's Betaseron Facebook Ad Uses a New Feature: Scrolling ISI" and "Will Drug Ads "Like" Facebook?").

Meanwhile, many top pharmaceutical companies have corporate Facebook pages. The following Slidehsare presentation is an analysis and review of Big Pharma Facebook pages. View the presentation here.

Further reading:

• #Pharma Lacks Commitment To Do Facebook Well
• It's Time for Pharma to Get on the Facebook Brandwagon, Says @zdunnhealth
• Yo, #Pharma! You Can Do Facebook for Brands. Here's What You Need to Know.
• Poof! FB & SnapChat Offer #pharma Marketers Transient, Untraceable Messaging
• Facebook Likes Pharma. Pharma Likes Facebook. So Why Doesn't FDA Like "Likes"?
• FDA Targets Companies for Facebook 'Likes.' Is Twitter 'Favorites' Next?

Marketers are taking to Facebook Live en masse, but can live social video work as a marketing tool for pharma? Yes, experts say—and it might be easier than expected.

The easier-than-expected part is that pharma marketers can and should build on live content they already use. For instance, pharma companies could use Facebook Live to stream conference speeches by key opinion leaders with added interactive elements, such as a question-and-answer session after.

The recent Novartis Facebook Live chat with Queen Latifah about heart disease (read “Novartis, Queen Latifah, & American Heart Association Team Up on Facebook Live Broadcast”; http://sco.lt/6caCxN) is another good example of a “safe” experiment where pharma can engage with patients and caregivers through disease awareness and community building,said Dave Wieneke, digital strategy practice director at Connective DX.. Patient stories in general are a good use of Facebook Live in both the initial broadcasting and in the ability to access those authentic social stories later, said Wieneke.

Another bonus to Facebook Live is audience building. During any particular session, viewers can click to follow all future Live sessions from the marketer.

In general healthcare, Wieneke noted several hospitals including the Mayo Clinic, UNC Healthcare and Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin successfully using Facebook Live with live-streaming events such as “ask a doctor” sessions, lectures, fundraisers, and guided tours. UNC Healthcare, in fact, reported results of its Facebook Live streaming that included a 480% increase in daily interactions and a 75% increase of page likes in the first six months. One of its live chats about the Affordable Care Act has been replayed more than 2,000 times.

The risks, which pharma companies tend to fall back on when it comes to new forms of media, are more about being live than the use of video. Potential comments made during interactive sessions around off-label use, incorrect information, or the reporting of an adverse event, for example, are the same risks as at any live event, said Wieneke.

Bayer’s Facebook ad campaign for multiple sclerosis drug Betaseron and its Betaconnect injector launched this month with several firsts. It's not only Bayer’s first Facebook ad, but it's also the first time Facebook has enabled a scrolling ISI inside a pharma ad.

Scrolling safety information allowed Bayer to stay inside text and photo limits of a pre-determined ad box but still meet FDA guidelines for necessary risk information. While some pharmas already do that in banner ads, it had not been done inside Facebook ads until this campaign, said Craig Hashi, Facebook Health client partner, who--along with Ozgun Demir, associate director of emarketing at Bayer--talked about the work at the Digital Pharma East conference last week.

Another new feature of the ad is the “call now” button, a feature Facebook added last year for business ads. However, for the Betaconnect ad, the phone button is connected to a live nursing-staffed line. To accommodate the real-time interaction, the ad was set up to run only between the weekday hours of 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

The Betaconnect Facebook campaign is using Lead Ads, which allows users to click to sign up for more information without leaving the site and with the ability to input the person's Facebook account data, such as name and email address, into the form. Going from the initial idea for the ad to publish took about four weeks, Hashi said.

Roche Diabetes Care France vient d'ouvrir la page Facebook « Bien vivre mon diabète ». Ce nouvel espace d’informations et d’échanges a pour objectif de faciliter le quotidien des patients diabétiques et d’améliorer leur qualité de vie, leur autonomie, leur confort et leur mobilité.

1998-2006. Documents. Web 1.0 Il aura fallu 8 ans à Google pour parvenir à indexer tous les documents disponibles. Oh je vous vois venir, oui, vous avez raison, Google n'indexe pas "tous" les documents disponibles. Probablement moins de 5% des..

Olivier Ertzscheid, 03/03/2015

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