Talk to executives in the pharmaceutical sector about social media, and there is still a lot of fear, confusion – and disinterest. Many executives are aware that social media has been a powerful marketing tool in other sectors, but are unsure how it can be applied in their own regulated industry, and don’t know where to start.
Indeed, the top digital challenge for pharma companies in 2014, according to a recent survey by Digital Futures 2014, is “unclear strategy”. Working this out must be a top priority both for the sector as a whole and for individual companies, as no headway can be made without a well-thought-out plan of action; dabbling in social media hoping to stumble across a tactic that works is a colossal waste of time and money.
Last week, we gave 8 crucial tips for pharma companies struggling to formulate their strategy, outlining what issues they need to consider, what research they need to do, and what choices they must make, all in view of ABPI guidelines.
Today let’s examine how – once you have an idea of the approach you want to take – you bring all this together into a social media strategy document, which fleshes out your plan.
It is crucial that your strategy is actually written down, in as much detail as possible. This sets out expectations, provides a useful day-to-day guide, and most importantly, maintains focus when it is tempting to stray from the roadmap (usually every day!).
So what do you include? Here are 8 essential elements:
1. Mission statement. Spell out, in one short paragraph, what you are going to accomplish with your social media presence. Don’t focus on what you are going to do for your company, but on what you are going to do for your fans and followers – as this is the key to your success!
For example, are you going to create an online space for people with a certain disease to connect to other patients, uncover information about their illness, and get practical tips about how to handle their condition day-to-day?
Or perhaps you are going to maintain a blog where healthcare policy-makers will be able to stay up-to-date with the latest legal developments and access strong viewpoints on the issues?
Formulating your vision in just a few sentences will set the tone for the rest of the document, and ensure that your management team, as well as the staff implementing the strategy, have a very clear picture of your concept.
2. Goals. Now focus on what your company wishes to accomplish. Do not settle for generalities, such as “raise our profile” or “get more visitors to our website”. Make sure they are SMART goals – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.
A good goal would be, “Raise our profile by guest-blogging in six leading pharma blogs, with readership of over x/day, over the next nine months.”
Or, “Build up our email database by getting 50 website visitors each week to sign up to our email newsletter.”
This gives you very precise targets to work towards, as well as a clear way of measuring whether your social media is successful or not.
3. Budget. Work out now how much you are prepared to spend and where, in order to keep costs under control.
Don’t forget about the cost of pictures, software, researchers, writers, training for in-house staff and any ad campaigns you intend to run on your social media platforms!
4. Roles and responsibilities. One of the main reasons social media programmes fail is because the wrong people are in charge of implementing it, or because there is no clear line of responsibility.
In too many cases, the blogging is given to Richard from the policy department because “he has time”, or various aspects of the programme are divided between different departments that don’t talk to each other – leading to a non-joined-up approach.
Take this opportunity to work out who are going to be the best people for the job, and set it all down in writing.
Particularly in a regulated industry like pharma, it is essential to be clear about who must approve material at any given stage, and who has final authority to press the ‘publish’ button.
Under what circumstances, for example – if any – are staff allowed to reply to followers’ comments on Twitter without approval? What is the line of authority in a public relations emergency?
5. Target audience. Being specific about who you are trying to target is your key to success, as your social media strategy needs to be built around your target audience’s needs and interests if you are going to have any hope of connecting with them.
Make sure you clearly define who you are going to try to communicate with: a specific group of patients or stakeholders? Executives in companies in a certain niche, with over 1,000 employees?
The more clarity you have about their problems and behaviour, the more easily you will be able to shape your social media programme around them.
If you have buyer personas, include the material in your appendix.
6. Tactics. Here we come to the nitty-gritty of your plan. How exactly are you going to execute your strategy, and get those six guest-blog slots or the 50 newsletter sign-ups?
Set out which social media platforms you are going to use (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest etc.) – and how. When are you going to update them? With what kind of material? What kind of tone are you going to use? Are there any style guidelines?
Most importantly, what do you plan to say to your audience that will convince them to take the action you want – visiting your blog from Twitter or Facebook, signing up for your newsletter or making an enquiry?
7. Measurement. In order to get the best out of your campaign, you need to regularly check its performance. This will allow you to tweak or drop elements that are not performing as well as you hoped, and to do more of the things that are working better than expected.
Record your benchmarks. If you are planning to generate 300 more leads a month through your website, you need to know how many you have before you start. If you want to up Twitter engagement by 200%, you need to measure how well you’re doing now!
It is also useful to record how your competitors are doing, so that you can measure your progress against theirs.
Write down which tools you are going to use to check your stats – and how often you plan to do so.
8. Revision. Mark a date, set in stone, at which you will evaluate your entire strategy in order to figure out whether you are on the right track, or whether you need to reconsider your whole approach.
Allow enough time to give your strategy a chance to work – at least 6 months. In general, it normally takes 9 month-1 year to see significant results with content marketing – deep relationships with your client base are not built in a day, so have patience!
Have we missed anything? What would you include in your social media strategy? Let us know in the comments!
Miriam Shaviv is Director of Content at Brainstorm Digital
If you liked this piece, you will enjoy:
- 8 tips for pharma companies struggling with social media strategy
- 3 pharmaceutical companies whose blogs rock
- In a regulated industry? How to minimise risk on social media
