Presentation at the SMI Social Media congress, January 2014. A case comparison of 4 Pharma companies efforts on Facebook. GSK, Pfizer, Novartis and Boehringher Ingelheim. Some useful learnings around Health Care Social Media.

1. Social Media in
Pharma
Making it Happen
Gary Monk

2. Social Media in
Pharma
Making it Happen
Gary Monk
Presentation includes
speaker notes on slides

3. @garymonk
garywmonk
gary@garymonk.com

4. @garymonk
garywmonk
gary@garymonk.com
I have delivered social media
programmes inside and outside of
pharma and understand the
challenges, I hope I can share
some useful learning’s!

6. This presentation centres around
Facebook, it is the biggest social
media platform however the
learning’s can be transferred to
almost any social media platform or
programme

8. There are other pharma companies
on Facebook. These ‘FAIRLY BIG 4’
corporate pages have been compared
and contrasted. The Top 2 pages by
likes are J&J and Bayer. A subject for
another presentation...

10. This presentation is not about beating
up ANY of these companies, rather
identifying and sharing valuable
learnings

12. ALL of these companies deserve
recognition for being brave and
actually going out there into the
social space!

15. Terms and conditions are warm,
welcoming and friendly. The
language is fun, yet explains clearly
WHAT is allowed, in terms of
comments and WHY

17. Example of Boehringer using human
language to outline community rules

19. Boehringer have an interesting
approach curating exciting health
technology news and innovations in
combination with their own news

20. “So we're changing from just
Boehringer Ingelheim 'boring
pharma company', just giving out its
news, to become more of a news
source.”
Quote via PM Live on why they have
taken this approach

21. Approach
The content approach thus combines
a blend of internal and external news

22. Responding
Boehringer respond quickly to
questions in a friendly way

23. Responding
Responses are considered, compliant
but warm

24. Engaging
Boehringer like to ask questions and
they usually get a good response

25. Infographics
Note Boehringers use of infographics and the split
between German and English language

28. • Nice friendly introductory
explanation as to what can and
can’t be discussed
• Very transparent list, If you choose
to list these in your own page,
consider how you word these to
ensure they remain friendly
• Consider the resources required to
deal with non-english or non-local
language. What language do your
stakeholders want to express
themselves in?

29. Good transparency from Novartis, asking employees to
‘announce’ themselves in Social Media

30. Approach
Novartis produces engaging content primarily internally
focused, around the company

31. Responding
Novartis are very good at responding quickly. In this case
they had to hide a product mention for compliance
reasons however responded back with clear next steps
for support

32. Infographics
Novartis also use engaging infographics

33. Employee support
Novartis employees strongly support the
Facebook site and help to dilute any negativity

35. GSK are clear on what is allowable on their page
and explain why

37. Approach
GSK talk primarily about themselves, they use
interesting hooks to generate engagement such
as celebrity endorsement i.e. F1 driver Jenson
Button. They also had a great sponsorship
campaign of the London 2012 Olympics

38. Historic negative comments
In a previous blog I highlighted historic negative comments to GSK.
These seem to have reduced. It is not clear if they becoming less
prominent or if GSK are taking a stronger line in terms of moderating
them

39. Non English comments welcome
GSK have a global approach with
comments allowed in multiple
languages

40. Strong employee support
Employees are very positive. Even assuming the ‘KILLERS’ comment is negative
and not simply an off topic reference to the band of the same name, it is
diluted by the positivity cultivated on the page.

41. Responding
A really nice example of GSK responding quickly and openly to questions about
a negative GSK news story. It is very important to get the responses to these
constructive questions right, and of course to not hide these sort of
comments!

42. Responding
Another example of a typical response although a little
slower

45. Pfizer are clear what is and what is not permissible. They
do suggest people reach out to them which is a nice
touch

46. Approach
Pfizer use strong news articles that people tend to
interact with. These are very much focused on Pfizer

47. Unanswered questions

48. Unanswered questions
There are several recent questions asked of Pfizer on their
page and they elect not to reply. It is important to
consider your approach. Usually it is a convoluted legal
process that prevents responses being given to questions
in a timely manner, rather than a desire not to talk to
people

49. Strong employee support
Employees are extremely ‘loving’ to Pfizer. It would be
good to see at least some discussion here with differing
view points

51. Different companies, different tones and styles however
some common principles on using corporate social media

52. Page likes
43367
95748
92989
84545
All companies have significant numbers of page likes

53. Average post likes
99
153
171
347
Boehringer have a significant number of average post
likes, partly driven by rich media such as video and
curating exciting and relevant healthcare news

54. Average post comments
4.4
4.6
5.5
4.3
All companies are generating a similar amount of
comments with GSK slightly ahead

55. # posts last 3 months
25
26
25
37
All companies are generating good interactions with
their posts and could consider increasing the volume
of quality content that they post

56. Learnings
•
•
•
•
Human and friendly ‘engagement policy’
Defined process for managing comments
Rich content schedule
Approval processes to support a quick &
human response
• Stakeholder value?
• Consider approach to multiple languages

57. Questions?
@garymonk
garywmonk
gary@garymonk.com
Please get in touch