ASCO 2016 Twitter Analysis

www.ashfieldhealthcare.com
How did pharma use
Twitter at ASCO 2016?

www.ashfieldhealthcare.com: Part of UDG Healthcare plc2
The meeting is one of the largest gatherings of medical professionals in the
world, with world-renowned faculties discussing the very latest in cancer
treatment, and ground-breaking research announced throughout the event
Additionally, ASCO’s Annual Meeting has led the way in terms of social
media utilisation. Indeed ASCO themselves state that “Social media serves
as one of the major public health engines of the 21st century, granting
doctors and the general public alike unprecedented access to information
on cancer prevention, treatments, research, and survival.”*
In particular, ASCO has championed the use of Twitter to open
conversations around the world and provide guidance and knowledge to
the public and professionals alike.
Each year, ASCO’s Annual Meeting brings together
30,000 oncology professionals from around the
world
*Source: https://www.asco.org/training-education/education-career-resources/social-media-resources

In particular, we wanted to look at how pharmaceuticals are
communicating using the hashtag, to provide insight into how the most
active companies are being successful on the platform
We found that pharma companies were a large and valid part of the ASCO
conversation, and were using increasingly innovative techniques to interact
through the platform
That analysis can be found here:
 http://www.slideshare.net/Ashfield-Healthcare/how-did-pharma-use-twitter-at-
asco-2015
So the question is… How has this evolved in 2016?
Last year, we conducted some analysis
of the #ASCO15 hashtag

ASCO focus in 2016
The theme for ASCO 2016 was Collective Wisdom: The Future of Patient-
Centered Care and Research.
ASCO state “We must partner with healthcare professionals and specialists
of diverse backgrounds to meet the evolving challenges in providing optimal
care to our patients”*
*Source: https://am.asco.org/about
Did Twitter support this goal?

BEFORE WE ANALYSED PHARMACEUTICAL
INPUT INTO #ASCO16, WE TOOK A LOOK
AT THE BROADER TRENDS

0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
70000
80000
#ASCO12 #ASCO13 #ASCO14 #ASCO15 #ASCO16
We are beginning to reach the point
of maturity for the hashtag,
continued growth will be largely
reliant on overall Twitter usage
growth, rather than awareness and
engagement with the hashtag
154%
increase
50%
increase
Use of the ASCO hashtag continues to
increase, albeit slower than in previous years
Source: Symplur, Date range: 2nd June – 7th June
Numberoftweets
15% increase

As with #ASCO15, #ASCO16 was utilised to
raise awareness within specialist areas of
oncology
#bmsatasco #lcsm #immunotherapy
#cancer #bcsm #immunooncology
#lungcancer #oncology #breastcancer
MOST POPULAR HASTAGS
FOR #ASCO16
#cancer #oncology #hcsm
#btsm #breastcancer #asco14
#lungcancer #melanoma #hpm
MOST POPULAR HASTAGS
FOR #ASCO15
Lung Cancer/Breast
Cancer Social Media
communities
These topics included breast cancer and lung cancer, for which specific community hashtags have
increased in popularity
Also, perhaps unsurprisingly given the industry’s continued increased focus on immunotherapies,
immunotherapy hashtags featured amongst the most popular

Looking at overall mentions of terms used
alongside #ASCO16, a similar picture emerged,
with immunotherapy leading the way
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
Mentions
Immunotherapy Breast Cancer Lung Cancer Myeloma Immunooncology
Pancreatic Cancer Kidney Cancer Ovarian Cancer Genomic
Source: Sysomos.com, based on Tweets using #ASCO16, between 2nd – 7th June 2016
Topic
Mentions

WHO WERE THE MOST ACTIVE
PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES USING
#ASCO16?

Who were the major influencers
within #ASCO16 conversation?
Impressions are a way to measure
conversation around an event on
Twitter, showing the potential
number of people who could have
viewed your tweet, as opposed to
follower count.
As in 2015, four pharmaceutical
companies featured in the top 10,
demonstrating their continued
prevalence on the platform
Merck featured in the top 10 for the
first time, amassing 5.6 million
impressions
2016 2015
Vs

Across the board, 2016 saw a decrease in
tweets from pharma companies during the
event when compared to 2015
Roche BMS Genentech AstraZeneca Merck Pfizer
ASC02015 ASCO2016
Total number of #ASCO16 tweets by company
Source: Sysomos, Date: 2nd June – 7th June
200
150
100
50
0
Numberoftweets
Across the most active
pharmaceutical companies, there
was an average 57% fewer tweets
sent!

: Part of UDG Healthcare plc www.ashfieldhealthcare.com12
Pharma representation in the top 10 influencers, measured by impressions
*
Source: Symplur, Top 10 by impressions, Date: 2nd June – 7th June
*Genentech were the 11th biggest influencer in 2015 and 2016, included for illustrative purposes.
This resulted in less impressions overall from
the top pharma influencers
Numberofimpressions
0
5,000,000
10,000,000
15,000,000
20,000,000
25,000,000
30,000,000
35,000,000
40,000,000
45,000,000
50,000,000
ACSO13 ASCO14 ASCO15 ASCO16
Merck
Astra Zeneca
BMS
Pfizer
Genentech
Roche
Novartis
Boehringer
17% decrease

BMS Merck Genentech AstraZeneca Roche Pfizer
ASCO15 ASCO16
Nevertheless, despite fewer tweets, retweets
of top content were on par with #ASCO15
BMS generated 2,917 retweets over
these 20 tweets, which is the likely
result of a sponsored twitter
campaign
3000
2500
1500
1000
0
500
2000
Source: Sysomos, Date: 2nd June – 7th June
Total number of #ASCO16 retweets by company – top 20 tweets only
Retweets
Merck's engagement with the
hashtag generated the 2nd highest
number of retweets over ASCO 2016
This shows that the
quality of the tweets has
remained high, pharma
companies are just
reducing the quantity
being sent
3500

WE LOOKED AT THE TOP PHARMA
INFLUENCERS IN MORE DETAIL,
REVIEWING ACTIVITY COMPARED
WITH #ASCO15

WHAT WERE THE TOP PHARMA
THEMES DURING #ASCO16?

Pharma added a face to #ASCO16, through well-
received video interviews, statements and trial updates
13 Retweets
14 Favourites
9 Retweets
45 Favourites
29 Retweets
60 Favourites
19 Retweets
27 Favourites

Immunotherapy featured heavily, with pharma
engaging with the topic through a wide range of
content types
infographics
Videos
Surveys
Animations

‘Patient power’ was a theme of many of the
tweets

WHAT WERE SOME OF THE NEW
WAYS PHARMA ENGAGED WITH
THE AUDIENCE?

0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
35000
40000
30-May 31-May 1-Jun 2-Jun 3-Jun 4-Jun 5-Jun 6-Jun 7-Jun 8-Jun 9-Jun 10-Jun
Tweets
The top pharma influencers continue to extend the life of
the congress through the hashtag, but could do more...
#ASCO16 was utilised before, during and after the event, however this graph demonstrates that
the top pharma influencer’s content was still very much focused on the days during the event –
only Roche were still tweeting the hashtag 2 days after the event
ASCO 2016
0
5
10
15
20
25
31-May 1-Jun 2-Jun 3-Jun 4-Jun 5-Jun 6-Jun 7-Jun 8-Jun 9-Jun 10-Jun 11-Jun
Genentech
Pfizer
Bmesnews
Aztrazeneca
Roche
Numberoftweets
36,703 #ASCO16 tweets on
5th June, a 120% increase
from #ASCO15
BMSnews
AstraZeneca

New trend 1: Promoted campaigns to drive
retweets
BMS retweets outnumbered all
combined pharma retweets by
approximately 37%
This is likely to be due to a selection of
tweets promoted through a
sponsored Twitter campaign to reach
a larger audience
On the surface, this campaign looks to
have been successful, with significant
exposure of the tweets and a huge
number of likes
To our knowledge, this is the first time
the ASCO hashtag has been utilised
within a sponsored campaign
2401 likes
3602 likes
1922 likes

New trend 2: Utilisation of polls to
engage with the audience
Twitter introduced polls in October 2015, and
these are beginning to be utilised by pharma to
engage with the audience in a compliant way
These polls registered between 69 to 86 votes,
which is great engagement and can allow for
some really useful insights for both viewers of
the poll, as well as the pharma company

Source: Twitter
Creating content that requires the audience to respond in an interactive way is a great way to
ensure users spend longer engaging with content
Genentech continue to lead the way here, following up last year’s ‘T Cells Attack’ game with a
game to raise awareness of MRD status. They have also created a great piece of content
exploring cancer trends in the USA – this was amongst the most retweeted content of the
meeting
New(ish!) trend 3: Creating
interactive content

FINAL THOUGHTS

Thoughts for #ASCO17
Last year we hoped for more of a focus on patients and for
pharma to help amplify the work of patient advocacy groups
and associations. While ‘patient power’ was definitely a major
theme this year, pharmaceuticals still tend to focus in on their
own initiatives rather than demonstrate partnership with
these groups and really try to lift the patient voice.
Let’s use Twitter to highlight great initiatives outside of
pharma!

Whilst Twitter polls have enabled a form of interaction with the
audience (and should continue to be encouraged!), Twitter and
#ASCO16 was still primarily used as a push, ‘one-way’, platform
for pharma communications.
Additional direct engagement with professionals during the
congress, through scheduled tweet chats involving experts and
researchers should be encouraged, and will support in ASCO’s
quest for ‘partnership’ across disciplines

#ASCO16 was the year that pharmaceutical companies reduced
the quantity of tweets and continued to increase the quality.
This is a trend we would like to see continue. The audience is
exposed to an incredible amount of information during ASCO, so
every tweet must count. The leading companies will continue to
refine their Twitter strategies and this can only be a good thing for
themselves and their audiences.

Authors
Steve Huntand Jason Mazurare StrategistswithinAshfieldDigital
& Creative, part of AshfieldHealthcare Communications,a global
leader inmultichannelmedicaleducation,healthcare
communicationsandPR.
Theviews presented inthisslidedeck are the authors’ own.
Contact
steven.hunt@ashfieldhealthcare.com
Steve Hunt Jason Mazur

ASCO 2016 Twitter Analysis

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