Promote Biotech through Social Media

Biotech Companies and Individuals, who have embraced this technology have come to understand how essential--and powerful--social media has become for brand management. Biotechs should consider including Twitter in their social media plan, but not just because everyone else is doing it. It's a strategy that requires constant monitoring, and a real commitment to maintaining the relationships you build in the Twitter community. Here are a few things to keep in mind when building your Twitter presence.

Users don't want to hear from an unidentified corporate voice--they like to know there's a real person tweeting. Designate someone in your company to be the voice of your Twitter account. Once you have decided who will be the voice behind your identity, find your audience on Twitter. Observe how they speak and interact with each other, and use that knowledge to shape your account. Finally, focus on providing a service to your followers. Rather than simply blasting your latest press release, you should look to build communities and have conversations with those who have similar interests as you. The companies that are most successful on Twitter are those that join in on discussions, and provide valuable information to their audience--whether it's news from the company or a different source. 

What are the benefits of building a solid reputation within the Twitter space? Respect and attention. Companies can monitor discussion about their brand and get a sense of what news and information impacts their reputation. It's also a very affordable way for otherwise cash-strapped small biotechs to get their name out there in front of industry, journalists and consumers. "Respect is earned through repeated acts for micro-relevance. It can be earned 140 characters at a time."

Why Pharma Brands Use Google+

It is well known that pharmaceutical brands are often reluctant to use social media channels due to heavy industry regulations and fear of engaging with consumers in an uncontrolled space. However, here is a new platform that pharma brands may end up adopting more rapidly due to it having a number of ‘pharma-friendly’ features – Google+.

Google+ has launched branded pages. Given that they appear to be very similar to the ones on Facebook, numerous bloggers have criticised the new feature for being unoriginal. Nevertheless, a number of companies have decided to see for themselves how they could utilise this new social media channel. After using the page for a couple of days, we have spotted a number of advantages that Google+ has over Facebook that pharma brands can really embrace.

While it is unlikely that Google+ will eventually become a serious rival of Facebook, for pharma, Google+ can be of real value for a number of reasons:

1)      Privacy: 

A key difference between Facebook and Google+ is Google’s so called ‘Circles’. This feature addresses some key privacy concerns that Facebook has so far failed to tackle. These Circles allow brands to exercise control over what content is being shared with whom. What this means for pharma brands is that they can now reach out to specific interest groups by having separate patient/HCP circles for instance and thereby, they can easily block people from seeing certain pieces of content.

2)     ‘No Promotion – No Problem’: At present, Google+ does not allow promotions on pages. The content policy for Google+ Pages states that “you may not run contests, sweepstakers, offers, coupons or other such promotions directly on your Google+ page”. For many industries, this is devastating news, but for obvious reasons, pharma is not affected by this policy and does not have to worry about having their pages labelled as ‘uninteresting’ compared to other brands.

3)      Hangouts:

A ‘Hangout’ is essentially a group video chat, which is a truly unique feature to Google+. A company could host a ‘Hangout’ with their customers where they get to ask questions about products and services. Pharma could utilise this feature to keep key opinion leaders up to date on industry developments or use it as Q&A sessions for healthcare professionals.

4)    SEO benefits: While this benefit is not unique to pharma brands, it is nevertheless worth mentioning. Google+ pages are factored into Google search results and there is also a recently launched ‘direct connect’ search feature where by typing “+” ahead of a search, visitors can go directly to your page.

5)    A potentially more reliable alternative to Facebook?:

In August, Facebook’s new ‘no comment’ regulation has caused quite a stir in the pharma industry. By banning pages that do not allow comments from visitors, a number of pharma brands decided to quit Facebook altogether. Facebook has thereby proved to be a rather unpredictable platform and many pharma marketing professionals have come to hope that Google+ will offer a reliable alternative.

How iPad change the Pharma Sector

During the iPad2 launch Steve Jobs previewed a video that chronicled the various uses of the iPad- one of which was medicine.

Dr Halamka, who had recently announced that he would step down from his post as chairman of the US government’s Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) spoke on the video about how the iPad could build a relationships between doctor and patient and concluded with a loaded statement of “So I think what is so exciting about the iPad, is it will change the way doctors practice medicine” 

Worldofdtcmarketing.com, however, disagree that it will be the ipad2 which will change the world of medicine but agrees that tablet technology will be involved. They state that by the end of 2011 there will be over 80 tablets on the market to choose from. Jobs in the iPad launch speech claimed that 2011 would be the ‘year of copycats’ and that the competition haven’t even cracked the technology of the iPad 1, however with large capital investments such as ‘The Motorola Zoom’- a multimillion dollar projects to become the Ultimate Tablet ( BrandRepublic.com), there is competition in the market.

The iPad which was host to 65,000 medical apps at the time of launch has been increasing in pharmaceutical favour with the creation of some truly incredible applications (‘Apps’).

One such app is the ‘3d4 Medical app’. The medical pictures app was ranked number 1 in 49countries, and the Heart Pro (Nova Series) was chosen from over 65,000 to be shown on Apple's iPad commercial, currently being shown in the UK, Japan, France and Germany (3d4 Medical.com). It is also listed as one of the best iPad apps by Apple's VP, Michael Tchao (3d4medical.com).The apps, which are medically approved, create realistic images which can be studied, cut, explore etc. and customised by doctor to explain patients their specific injuries, among many other medical uses.