Have Pharma marketers got it all wrong? Instead of trudging uneasily into the world of social media, should they be going back to the future – to email marketing? I’m asking because, according to reports, one of the presentations that generated most excitement at the Eye for Pharma conference in Barcelona this week concerned the…
Do you have a social media strategy, policy, or a content schedule in a file on your desktop, unopened for the past 6 months? Or perhaps you’re slightly more old-fashioned, and they’re in a draw by your desk, gathering dust? If so, you’re not alone. Companies everywhere do all the necessary groundwork for a terrific…
Do you ever get a feeling of déjà vu on social media? Sometimes it feels like all blog posts have began to look a little similar. Headlines always promise 7 tips that will transform your company – or else threaten 8 mistakes that will destroy it. No one ever promises tips that will make a…
Last month, Diana Mekota, a young American job
seeker tried to connect on LinkedIn with Kelly Blazek, head of the Cleveland
Job Bank. The response from Blazek has now gone viral.
She attacked Mekota, “a total stranger who has
nothing to offer me”, of trying to access her LinkedIn connections, decried “the
sense of entitlement in your generation,” and said that she enjoyed turning
down her request on LinkedIn, as well as her request to join the job bank.
“I suggest you join the other job bank in town,”
she wrote. “Oh wait – there isn’t one.
“You’re welcome for your humility lesson for the
year.”
Inevitably, the one who received the humility
lesson was Blazek herself, as Mekota posted the entire message online, and
Blazek was practically forced into hiding.
Is Pharma getting too excited about social media?
This is the closing question in a thoughtful interview with
Anish Shindore of Novartis in Spain.
He argues, essentially, that social media is a means, not an end, and that the
real focus should be in developing good drugs, because that is where the real
competition is.
Well, yes and no. Of course, if you have the wrong products,
no amount of marketing is going to compensate. But if you are going to invest
anything at all in marketing, social media has changed the rules of the game.
The ability to target and interact with individuals has meant that what you
say, how you say it, where you say it – it’s just not the way it was even five
years ago.
Why does some content go viral – while other, possibly equally good content, languishes unnoticed?
For content marketers trying to get their brands known (and loved) on social media, understanding this process is the holy grail. Unfortunately, while it is usually easy to explain in hindsight why some material was wildly successful, it is quite hard to design it with virality guaranteed.
In his new book Contagious: How to Build Word of Mouth in the Digital Age, Jonah Berger, associate professor of marketing at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, nevertheless tries to provide a framework. Ideas which get shared a lot, he claims, contain one or more of the following:
1. Social currency. The product / idea makes people feel that they have special insider knowledge and are ‘cool’.
2. Triggers. There is something in people’s everyday routine or environment that consistently reminds them of your product. (For example, KitKat is now associated with coffee breaks.)
Why do companies start a social media programme? In many cases, it is because they are very aware that their competitors are already doing it, and that they risk falling behind.
And yet, nine times out of 10, they never pay serious attention to what their competitors are actually doing online, beyond the fact that they’re there and are building up a following.
It’s a major mistake, because analysing your competitors’ social media activity can give you enormous insight into what you should be doing yourself. If you’re a little ruthless (which you must be in business!), you can also snatch some of their success.
So how exactly does a competitor analysis help you? Let us count the ways.
1. Understand the opportunities. Before you even launch your social media programme, you need to make sure that there is room for what you have to offer online.
Have you noticed that social media is becoming a lot more visual? Platforms that focus on visuals such as Instagram and Pinterest are becoming far more popular, and on the main platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, the chances of your content getting seen goes up if it contains strong images. Google+, too, displays pictures beautifully as do, of course, Tablets.
So how can Pharma take advantage of this trend – which is really becoming crucial for social media success?
1. Banners. Many of the main platforms allow you to adjust the way your own pages look, starting at the top with banners which can be customised. Make sure that the first thing your visitors see is a powerful image, which conveys what your brand is all about.
Here’s how Shire Pharmaceuticals has done it on LinkedIn:
Samantha Bass is a 34-year-old mother of two who has a family history of cancer. As a result, she is obsessive about her own children’s health, making frequent doctor’s appointments, eating well and insisting on family exercise.
Until recently, she had health insurance through her parents, but now they’ve decided it’s too expensive, and she’ll have to take out her own cover.
The catch: Samantha isn’t a real person. She is a ‘buyer persona’ – a fictional representation of an ideal client created for a company selling health insurance.
The company knows a lot about her: what she looks like (she has a profile that includes a picture), what her background is, what she thinks about her family’s health issues, her internet habits and what factors might influence her decision to buy health insurance. Other personas might even have a video profile.
For its 10th anniversary, Facebook sent each of its users a customised video, highlighting their most popular posts and pictures since they joined. The series was a hit: over 200 million people downloaded, watched and then shared their version.
It was the world’s first personalised video campaign to go viral. But soon, personalised videos are going to become a standard social media marketing tool.
How do I know? Firstly, because all digital communication is rapidly becoming personalised. Most companies would not dream of sending out mass emails that are not personally addressed to their recipient.
