Social media has been the dancing elephant in the living room of medical marketing ever since user-generated content on the Web became possible, and the furniture hasn’t stopped shaking since. But 2009 was a watershed year in terms of adoption and next steps, as pharmaceutical companies from AstraZeneca to Sanofi-Aventis explored channels from YouTube to Twitter, while in November FDA took the unprecedented step of holding a public hearing regarding use of the Internet and social media for the promotion of FDA-regulated products. The once far-fetched notion of FDA-issued Internet guidelines now looms as inevitable as it once seemed surprising. Experts are making predictions about the exciting year ahead, unabashedly speculating if 2010 will indeed be the year the healthcare social media groundswell turns into a transformative medical marketing eruption - and whether that disruption proves to have an overall positive or negative impact on the industry.
Honored to be on the pulse of these seismic shifts through our Website FDASM.com, we reached out to the experts in the field through the very tools we study and support and asked for their predictions to be shared through 140-character tweets. We then organized the predictions into 10 key categories. The following insightful responses were gleaned from the tweets of more than 30 experts collected over a 10-day period in early January 2010.
Please note that each name in this report is followed by that person’s twitter handle (e.g., @twittername), and if you are not already doing so, we strongly encourage you to follow these people. To do so, simply go to www.twitter.com/twittername and click “follow." To see the “Rules of Participation” for this twitter-sourced prediction campaign or to view the complete list of tweets submitted in their entirety, please visit HCSM2010.com.
Top 10 Healthcare Social Media Predictions for 2010
Prediction #1: FDA will issue draft guidelines that outline how manufacturers can and should use the Internet and Social Media for FDA-regulated products by the end of 2010, infusing the channel with direction, legitimacy, and explosive activity.
As far as the timing goes, Rick Wion (@rdublife) of Golin Harris predicts FDA healthcare social media guidelines will be “released in December as a holiday present for the pharma industry.” Wendy Blackburn (@wendyblackburn) of inTouch Solutions also predicts “a steady increase in the amount of social media participation by pharma, despite the FDA guidelines not being available until year-end.”
“The first FDA guidelines draft will be shared before the end of 2010,” predicts Spain-based journalist Miguel A. Tovar (@blogaceutics), and “pharma’s participation in the channel will steadily increase.” Angel Gonzalez (@angel189), founder and CEO of Ideagoras, agrees; despite pharma’s “shy attempts to test social [with] extreme caution and fear,” pharma will nonetheless “start embracing what they now consider the unstoppable paradigm.”
But don’t expect an overnight change, stresses Melissa Davies (@MelissaKDavies), research director for Nielsen’s Healthcare practice. “Change will at first seem slow, but looking back at the end of the year will reveal a significant difference.”
Prediction #2: Google’s new “pharma-friendly” ad format, now in testing with select customers including Bayer, will propel these guidelines, revolutionize paid search, and help reinstate the “one-click rule” for fair balance information.
The feature works like this: Instead of a single link associated with a keyword search, the new ads will feature an additional line of text copy that includes the word "Warning" and includes 35 characters of Important Safety Information plus enabling users to click directly to any one of multiple subpages within a Website. Pharma advertisers will thereby be able to feature fair balance information in proportion to drug indication and proven benefits, hopefully providing FDA with an acceptable approach for presenting “fair balance," culminating in the resuscitation of the perceived legacy rule that allowed complete fair balance information to be at most a single click away.
The result, according to Ian Orekondy (@iano1000) of Rosetta, is that healthcare marketers will again be able to feature the indication and benefit of a drug, helping to improve advertising relevance as well as patient access to safety information, although he also believes that Google will revise its currently-proposed pharma ad formats to better leverage new search ad capabilities (see Video section below). This basic, simple change is so important and contingent on this new advertising model that John Mack (@pharmaguy), author of the wildly popular Pharma Marketing Blog, predicts that “the FDA draft guidelines will focus on one thing: blessing the one-click rule a la the Google new search ad format.”
Prediction #3: The role of video will exponentially increase and be taken even more seriously by healthcare companies and the FDA.
With YouTube already the second most popular search engine in the world, healthcare companies will increasingly create branded channels to educate patients and healthcare professionals. Although bridgeheads have already been constructed on this platform by several manufacturers, the full capabilities of interactive video formats, dynamic rating systems, and true user-generated content have yet to be taken advantage of, but they hold great promise for adventurous healthcare marketers willing to take up these and other exciting challenges.
The possibilities, as our experts contest, are boundless. For example, interactive video technology will go so far as to “help pharma address fair balance issues in social media,” predicts imc2’s health practice President Hensley Evans (@hensleyevans), while Rosetta’s Ian Orekondy (@iano1000) believes that new technology such as a Video PlusBox variation will actually replace current FDA-proposed Google pharma ad formats.
But Rich Meyer (@richmeyer), industry consultant and author of the World of DTC Marketing blog, emphasizes a return to Marketing 101 basics and warns that adoption doesn’t necessarily imply understanding. “Pharma will develop more videos, but still won’t really understand why consumers generally don’t use them,” he says.
Prediction #4: The role of patients and patient communities will increase and prove central to both branded and unbranded social media DTC initiatives.
“The relative paucity of patient representation at the FDA hearings in November was a sign of the work still cut out for us in 2010,” insists Ross Fetterolf (@digitalbulldog), senior VP of brand strategy and channel innovation at Ignite Health. “Better understanding how, where, and why our patient audience communicates must act as the foundation for establishing meaningful guidance as we move ahead.”
Many experts concur, emphasizing the significance of the end-user and core target. “A few pharma companies will actually discover what it means to partner with patients using social media in 2010,” insists Steve Woodruff (@swoodruff), founder of the pharma-vendor selection company Impactiviti, suggesting a shift of emphasis back to where our attention belongs, the patients and their unique therapeutic needs.
Silja Chouquet (@whydotpharma), founder of the European-based consulting company WhydotPharma and co-founder of HCSMEU, agrees with Steve and also predicts that in 2010 we will see the e-patient role as patient educators increase in their importance. She believes that provisos of the new FDA guidance will formalize patient/pharma collaboration. Rick Wion (@rdublife) also admits that “smart and brave pharma companies will more closely align with patient communities.”
To facilitate that end, Eileen O'Brien (@eileenobrien), the newly appointed director of search and innovation at Siren Interactive, believes that pharma will continue to expand their social media monitoring efforts. As companies better understand where and how their patients communicate, “social media participation will steadily increase as small pilots prove successful.”
Participatory medicine will also increase next year, predicts Kelley Connors (@kelconnors) of KC Healthcare Communications, “with e-patients demanding a central role in R&D,” affecting and informing major marketing decisions. Rob Halkes (@rohal) of the Netherlands-based consulting company Van Spaendonck, sees a similarly expansive role, with 2010 seeing the dawn of multi-party contracts in delivering value to patients in formats of integrated care.
At the core of these efforts is patient protection. “FDA will not govern healthcare social media, but they will make every effort to ensure patient safety,” predicts Jim Lefevere (@jimlefevere), global group manager of Roche Diagnostics. What those efforts will entail exactly remains to be seen.
Prediction #5: The role of healthcare communications agencies will increase, meaning a bigger role for social media marketers and consultants.
Although the inevitable FDA Internet guidelines will provide better direction on how to engage, “companies will still need to establish their risk position,” guaranteeing the marketers’ place at the table, insists Med Ad News editorial board member Dennis Urbaniak (@durbaniak), VP innovation and new customer channels at Sanofi-Aventis.
Jessica Seilheimer (@jaeselle), VP, account group supervisor at Euro RSCG Life, elaborates on this, predicting agencies will progressively augment their traditional ad strategies and act like “social media shepherds” to help educate and inform their client POVs regarding social media channel engagement. To that end, the creation of guidelines and best practices created through obtaining advance buy-in from the clients’ own clinical and regulatory teams will prove essential.
Brad Pendergraph (@bradatpharma) of Novartis agrees, seeing this increased role as an opportunity for social media savvy healthcare marketers to no longer take an ad hoc approach and to tap into a bumper crop of new consulting roles within the space. Ironically enough, as FDA provides these anticipated guidelines, the need for a professional social media mentor and consultant progressively increases, since pharma will need help maneuvering ever-deeper into uncharted territory.
Prediction #6: A daring pharmaceutical company and healthcare marketing manager will score a “big win” with social media, opening the floodgates.
Once the pariah, social media will “become the darling” of the industry in 2010 according to Varadh Krish (@varadhkrish) of Clouds Direct. This will happen when a company is bold enough to claim a major win though the channel. Although one could argue that the industry is already ripe with examples of social media “wins” (e.g., Gardasil’s Facebook page, Sanofi-Aventis’ YouTube channel, and Novo Nordisk’s Twitter feed), we contend that a real victory will come when a company is able to participate in regular, real-time, and compliant two-way communication in a way that adds measurable valuable to the community. Despite pending regulations, a few feel that 2010 will bring just that.
Industry consultant and entrepreneur Jane Chin (@janechin) goes even further, alleging that next year PhRMA will appoint its first ever “Chief Tweeting Officer.” Such optimism is shared by InterBrandHealth’s Managing Director Bunny Ellerin (@bunnyellerin), who predicts that “one pharma CEO will throw caution to the wind and engage with patients and MD's in a way that makes us proud.”
Who do you think that will be?
Prediction #7: Not only pharma, but government and health authorities will increasingly utilize social media as their preferred communication strategy.
Real-time H1N1 updates through multiple social media channels in 2009 was only the beginning, suggests consultant Xavier Tello (@stratcons), as this next year will see the modality taking an ever-increasing role in the communication of epidemiological alerts to multiple target audiences of immense scope.
Watch for similarly exciting viral communication flow across all sectors of the pharmaceutical industry, as information travels faster and broader than ever before and social media platforms create communities within communities optimally positioned for increasingly targeted messaging.
Prediction #8: Social media will prove to be a vital internal communications tool.
“Internal social media channels that help collaboration will be as important to Pharma as external marketing use,” predicts Ruder Finn’s Yan Shikhvarger (@shikhvarger). The trend has already begun with officially sponsored pharma corporate blogs, collaboration portals, and platforms. After all, monitoring and stimulating internal brainstorming can prove as valuable as listening to customer conversations, since the creation of a transparent, responsive organization begins within a pharma company’s own walls. One recent example of what that responsiveness might look like is the @mcneilrecall twitter account that was launched on the same day McNeil Consumer Healthcare announced its recall of various OTC products. This was launched in conjunction with a Website, was tweeted about by Johnson & Johnson’s Marc Monseau via the company's corporate Twitter account, and written about on its corporate blog. While some may criticize that the recall itself should have come sooner, there is no denying that the company’s social media response was lightning-fast.
Prediction #9: Social media will help nurture the physician-patient relationship.
“Social media will extend and give a distinct healing power to the patient-physician relationship,” predicts Spain-based industry consultant Pedro L. González (@pedroluisGS). But “it’s up to pharma to collaborate.”
Compass Healthcare’s Maureen Miller (@maureenmiller) agrees, claiming that “smart pharmas will use social media to deliver value and nurture relationships with patients and healthcare professionals.”
Trust and transparency will be even more important in 2010, as other industries continue to leap ahead of healthcare in terms of information sharing and open communication channels. “Pharma will realize that it's essential to bring value and create content that patients/healthcare professionals view as share-worthy,” asserts Eileen O'Brien (@eileenobrien).
Prediction #10: Social media will actually begin to benefit pharmaceutical companies’ own processes, tools, and technologies.
Chris Schroeder (@cmschroed), CEO of HealthCentral, predicts that the social media focus in 2010 and beyond will be on support, as the medium helps “build useful web tools for patients and encourages feedback.”
Dennis Urbaniak (@durbaniak) also insists that within this next year we will see the rise of a “comprehensive customer service and safety platform via social media,” as pharmaceutical companies realize that providing value goes well beyond mere promotion.
Jonathan Richman (@jonmrich), director of strategic planning at Bridge Worldwide and author of the industry-leading Dose of Digital blog, agrees: “A handful of companies will begin to use different social media channels as ‘customer service’ platforms to calm angry customers.”
Jane Chin (@janechin) thinks social media will spur new approaches to customer care and technology, as “cutting edge pharma companies will experiment with a blend of continuing medical education and cloud-based user-generated content for CME 2.0.”
Melissa Davies (@melissakdavies) even believes that social media will improve the regulatory process, as “companies that focus on disease category social media will 1) pass through medical-regulatory review more easily, and 2) better speak patients’ language.”
“Mobile will start to be utilized by pharma, especially the use of SMS for adherence programs,” says Eileen O'Brien (@eileenobrien). Mark Harmel (@makharmel) agrees: “There will be both condition specific and product specific mobile apps.”
Bill Evans (@ohnoitsmrbill), practice group lead for Fleishman Hillard Digital, looks to the exciting advances in technology spurred on by social media, with branded, socially-enabled tools becoming more commonplace, “like applications harnessing crowdsourcing and location awareness.”
The contrarian view
“Plus ça change...” predicts strategic consultant and popular blogger Sally Church (@maverickny), offering some counterpoint to the optimistic social media majority, “nothing material will change, no FDA social media guidelines will be published in 2010.” Jonathan Richman (@jonmrich), while believing in the creation of guidance, nonetheless predicts an overall decline in pharma-sponsored social media initiatives, suggesting that “pharma participation levels off and then slightly drops, as companies aren't seeing a return on their efforts.”
Jane Chin (@janechin) emphasizes sound strategic judgment and an eye on the needs of a targeted audience for specific, relevant content by warning that “pharma will realize, once again too late, that data dumping fails both in real life and in social media.”
And finally Rich Meyer (@richmeyer) reminds us of larger looming issues, many of them independent of new modalities and technologies, however exciting they may seem: “Pharma will come to realize that social media is NOT the answer to DTC marketing troubles, regardless of FDA.”
Summing it up
As an ancient Chinese curse goes, “May you live in interesting times!” Interesting times are certainly upon us — how we move forward depends not only on FDA, but on how well we understand our healthcare communications specialties, and the demanding yet appreciative audiences we serve.
Now that you’ve heard from these experts, what do you think? Let us know your thoughts, and let the conversations continue! If you have a prediction, tweet about it using the hashtag #hcsm2010. If you want to participate in the broader conversation related to healthcare marketing, social media, FDA, and the Internet, tweet using one (or all) of the following hashtags: #hcsm, #socpharma, #fdasm (or #hcsmeu if you’re in Europe). And of course, please visit FDASM.com for all the latest information related to the journey we are calling “The Road to FDA Guidelines”. Lastly, feel free to follow us on Twitter.
• Fabio Gratton (@skypen)
• Michael Spitz (@mistermookie)
• IgniteHealth (@ignitehealth)
Fabio Gratton is chief innovation officer at Ignite Health, an inVentiv Health company
Michael Spitz is senior digital strategist at Ignite Health, an inVentiv Health company
*Important disclaimer: The predictions contained in this article represent the personal perspectives of the contributing authors and not necessarily those of the companies where they are employed.
Links to other DotPharma content
"E marks the spot" (Joshua Slatko, Med Ad News)
"The new digital reality" (Michael du Toit, Digitas Health)
"ePharma Consumer: The online pharmaceutical information-seeking landscape." (Manhattan Research)
"The future is online, virtual collaboration … in 3D!" (Steven Niles, Med Ad News)
"7 questions key to social networking success." (Information Week)
