A recent Manhattan Research Whitepaper, Pharma & Social Media: Practical Social Media Strategies for the Pharmaceutical Industry lays out the footwork for a successful social media strategy. Here’s a brief summary of the paper’s 10 key elements:
Know your audience—younger, female, and primary care physicians are most likely to engage in physician-only online communities. Physicians using social media are also more likely to own a smartphone, or PDA, and go online during or between patient visits.
Review others’ social media initiatives—check out existing social media applications for inspiration, such as Johnson & Johnson’s childrenwithdiabetes.com or Bayer’s WomenHeart Strong @Heart online community on Facebook.
Develop a company wide social media policy—having a formal plan for how to monitor, seek out, and respond to the conversations of online consumers is an important tool in risk management.
Boost customer service—monitoring social media outlets is a useful means of identifying customer concerns, as well as optimizing products and services.
Make it a group effort—get an early start ensuring roles and processes are commonly understood by related teams such as communications, marketing, legal and regulatory review, agency partners and IT.
Make it measurable—define performance indicators based on what you want to get out of a social media strategy. Don’t forget to define measurement and optimization cycles as well.
Every interaction counts—useful, regularly updated content that is closely tied to your overall goal is essential to a social media strategy.
Coordinate your efforts—social media is closely connected to search and public relations strategies and should be factored into an overall marketing plan.
Be transparent—honesty is the best policy when it comes to your identity and your intentions with social media.
Have fun—don’t forget to enjoy yourself in the process.