Technology Solutions
The Pharma Perspective: What Pharmaceutical Companies Think of Social Media
By Agatha Gilmore
January 25, 2012
Social media poses an interesting challenge for pharma meetings — but that doesn’t mean it isn’t on planners’ radars. Brad Goodsell, president of executive travel directors, a provider of onsite meeting-planning services, said he recently attended a forum for pharmaceutical meeting managers in San Diego, and social media was a hot topic of conversation.
“It is a huge part of where meetings are going: having a Facebook page or LinkedIn account associated with a specific meeting, but also doing live tweets,” he says. “The forum I was at had a Twitter account.”
Julie Masow, director of external communications and media relations for Novartis Corporation, says: “Leveraging social media channels like Twitter and YouTube helps create a ‘surround sound’ effect and helps amplify important information at key medical congresses. Social media can help educate about and increase awareness of diseases and conditions and encourage conversation among key constituents.”
To that end, Masow says Novartis takes to Twitter to spread key announcements and activities, and at meetings and conferences the company hosts Twitter booths, “which provide a steady feed of Congress-related communications and encourage attendees to stop by to stay connected and see what’s trending at the meeting,” she says, adding that a key tip for tweeting at medical meetings is to use the “meeting” hashtag to ensure inclusion in Twitter aggregators. This ensures when people do a search on Twitter for topics related to meetings, the tweets from your medical meeting will show up.
Masow stresses that these Twitter booths also help extend the online conversation about the meeting offline — which is particularly helpful for those attendees not using the microblogging service.
Goodsell says another crucial tip for pharmaceutical companies that wish to encourage — yet moderate — social media use at meetings is to formulate a clear policy around it and state this policy on all meeting materials.
“Transparency is the name of the game right now,” he says. “[For example], when somebody registers to attend a particular conference, they’re probably giving some sort of acknowledgement that materials are not for promotional use. I would encourage pharmaceutical companies to put in a social media use policy there as well.”
Ultimately, “social media is an increasingly important mechanism for patients, healthcare providers and caregivers,” Masow says. “For Novartis, use of this medium provides another potential opportunity to engage and more closely understand the needs of patients and other customers, which will help us continue to develop targeted solutions to help meet unmet needs.”
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