Mobile Apps vs. Mobile Optimization: Which Offers Pharma the Best ROI?

According to the "Mobile Health 2012" survey on the use of cellphones for healthcare that was just been released by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, "half of smartphone owners use their devices to get health information and one-fifth of smartphone owners have health apps."

Pharmaceutical marketers who wear "rosy glasses" may take away from that top line synopsis, which appears as the subtitle of the survey report (find it here), that it is time to develop Rx branded health apps -- such as adherence reminders -- for consumers. But if you look more deeply into the survey results, which I am sure you will do after reading this, you will find that only about 9% of U.S. Adults over the age of 18 (19% of the 45% of smartphone owners) "happen to have" apps that help them track or manage their health. Keep in mind that "having" does not equate to "using." We know from other surveys that the majority of these apps may have been used just a few times and then forgotten.

Also, 81% of those 9% have health apps for:

• Exercise, fitness, pedometer or heart rate monitoring (includes specific types of exercise like running, ab workouts, yoga, etc.) - 38%
• Diet, food, calorie counter - 31%
• Weight - 12%

Other "uses" include "period or menstrual cycle" (7%), "blood pressure" (5%), and WebMD (4%).

So, on the one hand we have these disappointing numbers regarding mobile health apps. On the other hand, however, PEW reports that "in 2010, when the same percentage of U.S. adults owned cell phones, 17% of cell phone owners reported using their phones to access health information. Today, that number stands at 31%, almost double the previous figure." That's 31% of 85% of all U.S. adults over the age of 18, or 26% of all adults!

"Access health information" more or less refers to using the browser on the smartphone to access plain old web sites. IMHO, this means that drug companies would be better off optimizing their Web sites for mobile access than putting money into the development, distribution, and support of "apps." And, according to Klick Health, which is in the business of optimizing Web sites for mobile, "Google recently reported that 1 in 5 searches on Google are now from a mobile device. [Google] also asserted that ranking priority within mobile search results will be given to sites that are mobile optimized. This further underlines the need to ensure your website is optimized for mobile." For some interesting statistics from Google, see "Mobile-friendly sites turn visitors into customers."

"Sadly," reported Michael Maher, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Digitas Health (here), "a 2011 Mediapost audit showed just 19% of pharma sites are mobile-optimized, and Google estimates only slightly higher at 21%." A Digitas Health December 2011 survey found that of the top 25 pharmaceutical brands of 2010, only three had mobile websites specifically built to display on mobile browsers.

I wonder if the situation viz-a-viz pharma Web site mobile optimization has improved much in the last year.

Consumer Use of Social Media for Healthcare Purposes: Pharma Shouldn't "Drink the Kool-aid"!

A Twitter pal suggested I would "enjoy" this Los Angeles Times article: "Consumers using social media for medical information, report says." The report from PwC’s Health Research Institute found that "one-third of consumers are using Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites to seek medical information, discuss symptoms and express their opinions about doctors, drugs and health insurers."

This sounds like good news for pharmaceutical marketers who want to "engage more with consumers online since they are increasingly making medical decisions based on the information they find there."

While surfing the Health Research Institute's web site for the details, I stumbled upon a chart summarizing a previous survey of 1,000 US adults in the fall of 2011. The chart, which I found here, allowed me to segment the data by age and gender, which are two demographics that are very important to the pharmaceutical industry.

First of all, most pharma marketers want to reach an somewhat older population who are most likely to be suffering from some medical condition for which new drugs are being developed - type 2 diabetes, for example.

Here are the data for two age groups (25-34 and 45-54):

I imagine that the 45 to 54 age group is the "sweet spot" for pharmaceutical marketers. According to this survey only 25% of consumers in that group uses any type of social media for healthcare purposes.

NOTE: Comparable data from Manhattan Research’s Cybercitizen Health® U.S. 2011 study, suggests that 65% of U.S. adults in the 25-34 age group use health-related social media, whereas 43% in the 45-54 age group use health-related social media. It should be noted that MR focused on consumers who have created or consumed health-related user-generated content on blogs, social networks, health ratings websites, online health communities and message boards, or patient testimonials, whereas PwC focused only on the six specific social media sites indicated in the above charts. 

IMHO, the PwC data is more useful to pharmaceutical marketers interested in reaching consumers via social media. Often, online health communities and message boards -- which are included in the MR anlaysis -- are not accessible to unregistered users and search engines and are therefore of limited benefit to advertisers (see "Data Mining in the Deep, Dark Social Networks of Patients").

Women are also very important to pharma marketers -- they are the caregivers and make most of the health decisions for their families. Here are the data comparing the use of social media for healthcare purposes for women versus men:

This is a surprise. First, I was lead to believe that women dominate social media (see, for example, "How to Score With Women (as a Marketer) via Social Media"). Well, that may very well be true for general use, but a significantly greater % of men use social media for healthcare purposes than do women if we believe the data shown here. Twitter is not favored by women at all!

NOTE: MR data from a survey cited above says that 45% of BOTH U.S. adult men and women use "health-related social media." Again, I think MR includes social media sites in its data that are not very relevant to pharmaceutical marketers (see note above).

This is not good news for the marketers in the pharma industry who proselytize the use of social media. Beware of the Kool-aid being served!

Sermo Physicians Use Telephone, Eschew Social Media, to Communicate with Patients

The third edition of "What Physicians Want!," a biennial survey conducted by Publicis Touchpoint Solutions and Sermo, offers evidence that tech-savvy physicians are not embracing social media to communicate with patients. The survey questioned more than 250 Sermo physicians, sixty-two percent of whom were primary care providers (FP, IM, Ped), while the remaining 38% comprised more than 20 surgical and nonsurgical specialties.

Only 19% of the surveyed physicians use Twitter. That compares with 22% of respondents to the 2010 survey. These physicians, however, are flocking to LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+ for personal and professional use (see chart below). LinkedIn showed rapid growth in users, from 18% in 2010 to 40% in this year’s survey. Google+ is surging quickly, with 38% using this site.

As for communicating with patients, physicians prefer the good old telephone and email rather than Facebook or Twitter (see chart below). Only 15% of respondents are currently using Facebook or plan to use it in the near future to communicate with their patients. Less than 10% of respondents use or plan to use other social media -- including Twitter -- to communicate with patients.

Given that these are tech-savvy registered SERMO physicians, I would have expected them to be more interested in using social media to communicate with patients. There are obvious privacy and other issues involved. The American Medical Association (AMA) warns physicians that "Social networks, blogs, and other forms of communication online ... create new challenges to the patient-physician relationship" (see "AMA Policy on Use of Social Media Sees the Glass Half Empty").

Despite such concerns, physicians use email to communicate with patients. Why not social media like Twitter and Facebook? Both allow private messaging between parties. I don't expect a lot of physicians to do this, but I expected to see a trend in that direction. These surveys, however, reveal no such trend.

One trend that the survey DOES clearly show is physician interest in iPads! 82% of survey respondents want to see “more” or “significantly more” use of iPads or other tablets by pharma representatives calling on their practices. Over half of the survey respondents (54%) are using iPads/tablets for personal and/or professional use. And of the 46% who don’t yet use tablets, nearly three-quarters plan to use one for personal and/or professional use in the near future.

Perhaps with the NEW iPads, more physicians will communicate with some of their patients via FaceTime -- a nifty Skype-like app that allows you to talk to and view friends, colleagues, patients.

You can read more about this survey as well as download a white paper summarizing all the results here: New Survey: Physicians Ask Pharma, Help Me, Help My Patients

The Definition of Insane Pharma Marketing

It may have been Einstein who defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. When I analyze a recent survey of pharmaceutical marketing executives, I believe that definition fits them to a T!

The headlines read: "Pharma execs expect to increase use of doctor-focused social media" (here), but when you dig down into the data, you discover that there's practically nothing many of these guys don't think they will spend more money on when it comes to communicating with physicians -- except, that is, print journal advertising.

The data I speak of comes from a Booz & Co survey of 156 senior industry executives from Europe and the U.S. You can find that survey attached to this post. Below is the relevant chart of the data:

First of all, 156 is not a significant N and the error here must be at least ±20 percentage points error. Thus, the 58% of execs who say pharma will increase spending on "MD-oriented Social Media" could actually be 38% (ie, less than a majority). Secondly, these data are probably skewed in favor of executives working in the EU. Booz only says "All survey participants work in either the United States or one of the big five European Union countries, and they represent a diverse range of pharmaceutical companies."

Whatever! These VPs (15%), directors (52%), and managers (20%), most of whom are responsible for a product portfolio (46%) or a specific brand (33%), are an optimistic bunch. Practically speaking, except for the case of print advertising, NONE of these guys think spending will decrease in the next two years for any "communication vehicle!" This despite the belief of many of them (43%) that the sales-force time for their products will decrease.

Obviously, to believe otherwise is to question your existence on this planet!

Strangely, however, 68% of the execs agree or strongly agree that "the current commercial pharmaceutical model is broken and needs significant repair." And practically 0% believe the model is NOT broken!

Isn't part of that model exactly what they say will see increased spending in the next two years? I mean, most of the "channels" in the chart above are part of the current "model," no? There's nothing new there.

In other words, these guys think the model is broken, but they are going to spend more on the model in the next two years! That's the definition of insane pharma marketing!

Should Pharma Disclose Payments to Celebrity Spokespeople?

In my podcast interview of Ambre Morley (listen here or read it here: "Novo Nordisk Defends Choice of Paula Deen as Diabetes Spokesperson"), Associate Director, Product Communications, Novo Nordisk, I brought up the subject of compensation for celebrity pharma spokespeople like Paula Deen, the celebrity chef who was recently hired by Novo Nordisk as a diabetes spokesperson.

Obviously, Paula Deen is being paid to do the deed, but she doesn't want to talk about money because it's ‘garish’ according to her. But for me, talking about how much money is spent in the different areas of pharmaceutical marketing is a valid topic. I’d like to get a better idea how much money the drug industry spends on celebrity spokespeople. I always ask the money question because the industry is criticized for spending so much money on celebrities and it takes away from other things that the money can be spent on.

When I asked Morley the money question, she demurred and said “We don't discuss compensation. If Paula was a regular, everyday employee, I couldn't tell you how much she is making. I can't tell you how much I'm making nor would I ask you how you're making."

Aside: Deen must have felt the heat about her compensation. It was reported that "she announced that she and her sons will donate part of their compensation from Novo Nordisk to the American Diabetes Association, and an ADA spokesperson confirmed that the Deens will be appearing without pay at upcoming events. (see here)"

A few years ago, the pharma industry could have used the same excuse for not revealing how much they paid physicians as speakers, consultants, key opinion leaders, etc. But today there's the Physician Payment Sunshine Act, which requires that all pharmaceutical companies reveal details about the payments they make to physicians (see "Proposed Rules for Physician Payment Sunshine Act").

Of course, the main reason why this law was passed was because of potential conflicts of interest -- physicians who are paid by pharma companies may be more likely to prescribe the drugs of those companies. Often, those drugs are more expensive than other, equally-effective products (eg, generics). Congress has a fiduciary duty to make sure that the government doesn't overpay for services such as Medicare re-imbursements for prescription drugs. Consequently, the impetus for passing this law.

Celebrities, however, do not have the power to directly prescribe drugs. But they are VERY influential. Morley admits as much: "When you talk about the pharmaceutical industry and it's spend on celebrities, it's interesting because you wouldn't see celebrities working on campaigns if it wasn’t a good investment from a marketing point of view."

Given the power of of celebrities to influence people, should pharmaceutical pharmaceutical companies disclose the details of payments made to celebrities like like they are required to do for physician payments?

That's just one of the questions I ask for your opinion on in the following survey. I also ask:

• Is it OK for pharmaceutical companies to pay celebrities to be spokespeople to raise awareness of medical conditions?
• How about celebrities being paid to promote specific Rx treatments? Is that OK?
• Do such celebrity spokespeople provide a good return on investment for pharmaceutical marketers? 

Please take a few minutes to respond to these questions in the following survey. At the end you will be able to view the de-identified summary of results to date.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Predicting the Future of the Drug Industry: 2012 and Beyond

It's time to revisit a survey I ran a couple of years ago that attempted to predict future healthcare market scenarios that would impact the drug industry. The survey asks respondents how likely it is for certain events or conditions to unfold in the next 5 to 8 years (ie, 2012 to 2019).




You can take the survey here. But before you do that, let's review the first-round of results (ie, responses collected from 2 December 2009 through 8 January 2010). Events since then may have made some of the following scenarios more or less likely. You tell me.

The scenarios -- with my updated comments included in brackets [] -- that are included in the survey are as follows (see the chart afterward for the first-round results):

1. New follow-on biologics legislation in the U.S. will increase competition from generic equivalents and eventually decrease brand profits. [I think the legislation is still bogged down and when finalized may not have much impact within the time frame specified.]
2. Broadcast (ie, TV) Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) drug promotion will be banned or sharply curtailed by law in the U.S. [This may have been a big issue back in the day, but it doesn't seem to be center stage right now.]
3. The European Union will finally allow Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) advertising to its citizens. [The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, recently ruled that pharma companies would not be allowed to disseminate information about drugs and their indications beyond a narrow set of circumstances. For the details, see, "In Rejecting Proposal, EU Dashes Drugmakers’ Hopes of Having a Voice"]
4. Internet-based drug promotion (including search engine marketing) will overtake TV-based DTC in the U.S. in terms of dollars spent. [There's still time for this to happen. I'm guessing that right now only about 5% (maybe 10% if you include search advertising) of pharma's DTC advertising budget is spent on Internet advertising whereas TV accounts for over 50% of the budget. See "Double Dip in DTC Spending Plus 33% Drop in Internet Display Ad Spending!"]
5. Due to decreasing effectiveness of traditional physician detailing and rise of non-personal detailing, the role of traditional sales representative will become obsolete. [I'm surprised that over 50% of respondents think this is likely to happen before 2020 (see chart below). Perhaps a sign is the recent closing of Pharmaceutical Representative Magazine (see here). Also read this article: "Consequences of eDetailing Technology".]
6. New healthcare reform legislation will dramatically increase the sales of drugs in the U.S.
7. Extensive outcomes data available to payers and comparative effectiveness research will force the industry much further down the path of pay-for-performance (ie, adopt a more flexible approach to pricing). [For background in this, read the article "A Case for Supporting Comparative Effectiveness Research".]
8. Patients will become even more influential and empowered in making healthcare decisions as they are forced to pay a larger share of costs and/or have access to health information from a variety of sources. [For more background on this, read the article "The Empowered Patient: What It Means for Pharma Marketers".]
9. Despite lack of innovative new drugs and/or generic competition, sales of brand drugs worldwide will show a sharp increase due to increased demand in emerging markets (eg, China). [See the following articles: "Getting Market Research Right in Emerging Markets", "Getting Market Research Right in the Middle East", and "Getting Market Research Right in India & China".]
10. More efficient targeting of drugs and marketing to specific patient populations will greatly increase effectiveness and decrease side effects of drugs. [See, for example, "New Big Pharma Economies of Scale: Less Patients Needed to Reach Blockbuster Sales". At least one targeted therapy (I can't recall which), however, recently failed and that may cast a shadow on progress in this area.]
11. Social media marketing will become a significant part (>10%) of the pharmaceutical marketing mix. [Hmmm... A lot of people seem to believe this is likely (see chart), but FDA's delay in issuing guidance may have dampened the outlook for pharma use of social media.]
12. The next BIG opportunity for targeted marketing to patients and physicians is mobile apps on "smart phones." [To prepare for this, I recommend you read the article "Everything You Need to Know About Mobile Platforms". Take the survey and you will get a discount code that allows you to get this at no charge.]
13. Pharmaceutical and biotech companies will continue to increase their outsourcing of clinical trials and related drug development. Outsourcing will account for more than 50% of R&D spending by 2019.

The following chart summarizes first-round (prior to January 2010) survey results. Please take the survey now and help me get a more current view of what may be dow the road.

Are Pharma Reps Important to Docs or Not?

Back in March, 2011, I reviewed a PhRMA sponsored survey of physicians the results of which PhRMA claimed shows that "nearly eight out of 10 physicians view pharmaceutical research companies and their sales representatives as useful sources of information on prescription medicines" (see "New PhRMA Survey of Physicians: Are Sales Reps as "Useful" as PhRMA Wants Us to Believe?"). If you look at a chart of the relevant data (see below), however, you see that the 80% mentioned by PhRMA includes 53% of physicians who find sales reps only "somewhat useful." Only 26% of physicians surveyed found reps "very useful."

Yesterday, I came across the Wolters Kluwer Health Point-of-Care survey of physicians, part of which looked at where physicians receive information to make decisions about diagnoses, treatment and ongoing patient care (see press release and executive summary here). This study asked physicians: "How often do you use the following sources to gain information used to diagnose, treat and care for patients?" The results are shown in the following chart:

The trends are comparable (eg, prof'l journals are rank near the top and sales reps rank near the bottom in both surveys), but you can't group the Wolters Kluwer categories "frequently" and "occasionally" together as well as you can group together PhRMA's "very useful" and "somewhat useful" categories. Because of the way PhRMA designed it's study -- using categories that can easily be combined -- they were able to spin the results favorably, whereas no such spin of the data is possible in the Wolters Kluwer survey.

So, looking at ALL the data, IMHO, the best that can be said in answer to my question is that most physicians find pharma sales reps among the least important sources of information they use to help them diagnose, treat and care for their patients.

P.S. (27-MAR-2012) I just came across another study attempting to answer the question "Do physicians find sales reps useful?" The study comes from Cegedim Strategic Data (CSD), a provider of integrated healthcare market research. CSD analyzed physician-reported diary entries of recent sales calls. Results from over 30 countries showed that overall 93.8% of physicians worldwide, both GPs and specialists, "find sales representative calls useful and of value to their practice, based on over 5.6 million product detailing mentions" (find more details here).

I believe CSD's methodology asks physicians to evaluate recent sales calls. This technique eliminates physicians who did not receive any sales calls, which skews the data to favor physicians who like sales reps to begin with. The CSD study does not compare usefulness of reps compared to other sources of information.

In any case, it's amazing how many studies are out there and how difficult it is to get a straight answer to a simple question.

New PhRMA Survey of Physicians: Are Sales Reps as "Useful" as PhRMA Wants Us to Believe?

"New Survey Emphasizes Value of Biopharmaceutical Company Engagement With Healthcare Providers" is the main point PhRMA (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing Association - the industry trade association) emphasized in its press release (here) regarding a survey of physicians it sponsored. PhRMA also pointed out that nearly 9 out of 10 physicians considered company-sponsored peer education programs to be "up-to-date, useful and reliable."

That's good news for pharmaceutical marketers who spent $24 billion between October 2009 and September 2010 on physician-targeted promotional spending, not including nearly $1 billion on continuing medical education (more data on promotional spending will appear in a Pharma Marketing News article to be published later today). It's good news because the survey justifies devoting the bulk of that promotional spend to support physician detailing by sales reps.

Of course, it's always educational to go beyond the PR and the trade publication stories that merely rephrase the PR (eg, this story) to learn something new, even some things the drug industry may not want you to learn.

For instance, look at this survey result that PhRMA doesn't mention:

What I notice is that only 22% of physicians surveyed said that patient access to the care they need is "working best." There is some survey results interpretation issues here, but it seems that access to care may be a problem in the US according to physicians. And without access to care, everything else -- including the value of medicines, the quality of care in general, and the value of pharmaceutical sales reps -- means nothing. Of course, "access to care" is probably a physician buzz-phrase related to the shortcomings of "managed care" and even "Obamacare."

The very first sentence in PhRMA's press release emphasizes that "Nearly eight out of 10 physicians view pharmaceutical research companies and their sales representatives as useful sources of information on prescription medicines." What PhRMA does NOT say, however, is more telling. Take a look at this survey result:

What I notice is 38% of physicians find Web-based sources of medication information "very useful" versus 26% who find sales reps very useful for that information. Hmmm... either sales reps are not doing their job as well as the Web or maybe they are doing their jobs TOO well -- ie, providing company-sanctioned and biased information rather than information physicians think is useful. Or you could look it another way -- maybe docs are finding a lot more useful "off-label" information on the Web (and CME, which ranks #1?) -- information they technically cannot get from sales reps.

As with any survey, it is difficult to interpret the results of this survey, which allows for all sorts of spins. You can find the entire survey results attached to this Pharma Marketing Forums post.

Astrazeneca's Twitter Survey: Will They Share Some Results?

@astrazeneca is currently asking its Twitter followers (of which it has over 5,000) to fill out an online survey hosted on SurveyMonkey. AZ tweeted this a few minutes ago: "Last chance 2 complete our Twitter survey, closing fri...we’d like your ideas: http://ow.ly/4bzf0" In case the survey is closed by the time you read this, you can find a PDF version I created for archival purposes here: http://bit.ly/AZTsurvey

I also use SurveyMonkey to survey my Twitter followers and have received over 1,600 responses to date. You can take my survey (here) and/or see the de-identified results (here).

What is AZ interested in learning from its followers? There's the standard demographic-type questions, including "How would you best describe yourself?" The choices listed tell us something about who AZ expects should or could be following them:

• Media/journalist
• Academic/researcher
• Pharmaceutical employee
• AZ employee
• Healthcare provider
• Government agency/regulator
• Communications specialist/agency
• NGO/civil society employee
• AZ business partner
• Patient/patient advocate
• Service provider/consultant
• AZ shareholder

It's interesting that AZ allows respondents to check off all that apply. Obviously, practically everyone should click "Patient/patient advocate" -- we are all patients at one time or another. AZ should have clarified that and put "Patient advocate" as a separate category considering how interested this group of people are in forging relationships with the pharmaceutical industry (see "Social Media's OK Corral: Docs vs. Patients" and "Some Social Media Patient Opinion Leaders Want to be Paid Pharma Professionals" and "PHARMA Co Patient Opinion Leader Programs").

AZ wants to know if @astrazenca (ie, its Twitter account) is the "main source of information about AZ." I'd like to know the answer to THAT question! (I hope AZ shares some results of the survey; I DM'd AZ this inquiry: "I responded to your Twitter Follower survey. Will you share some of the results?").

AZ asks followers what they want to see more/less of from @astrazenca, including (my responses are in parentheses):

• News from AZ (RIGHT AMOUNT)
• Views/opinion from AZ leaders (MORE)
• Coverage of AZ in the media (LESS)
• Retweets of things we find interesting (MORE)
• Financial information from AZ (LESS)
• Twitter events such as interviews and debates (MORE)

The last question in the survey asks "How could we make better use of social media to meet your needs?" to which I responded: "More Twitter chats! Invite guest moderators such as key opinion leaders, patient advocates, etc."

I haven't yet heard back from AZ whether or not they will reveal some results of their survey. If and when I do, I will let you know what they say (SEE BELOW).

P.S. Note to Astrazeneca. I love the simplicity of your online survey; single white page, small unassuming logo at the top, etc. For future reference: When users finish taking the survey, you should direct them to perhaps the AZ corporate website. Right now, they are brought to the SurveyMonkey sign-up page. Why give SurveyMonkey free promotion? I assume you are paying SurveyMonkey a few hundred dollars per year to use their surveying software, in which case they allow you to redirect to whatever URL you wish. Just a thought.

P.P.S. Just got this from @astrazeneca: "thanks for the feedback - yes we'll share some of the survey results via this feed"

Guess What Site Online Health Info Seekers are NOT Visiting So Much

The press release announcing Accenture's new "Consumer Survey: The Evolving Consumer and The Pharmaceutical Company Relationship" claims that the survey "suggests pharmaceutical companies are falling short in addressing this captive audience" (my emphasis; find the press release here).

It's unfortunate that the press release uses "captive audience" to describe consumers who go online for health information. To a marketer, a captive audience is a technical term (jargon) that merely means "people who cannot avoid being exposed to an advertisement."

The top line takeaway from the press release is that only "slightly more than one in 10 (11 percent) [of consumers who go online for health information] regularly turn to a pharmaceutical company’s website to seek information about an illness or medical condition, compared to nine in 10 (92 percent) who look to other online resources more frequently."

The press release then goes on to say that "pharmaceutical companies that are not fully leveraging multiple online channels are missing a real opportunity to address this captive audience. It also demonstrates that the fundamental shift from a predominantly one-way company-to-patient dialogue to enabling a patient-to-patient – and even a patient-to-physician dialogue – through the evolution of social networks and online communities, has resulted in fragmentation."

From this, you -- and probably many reporters as well -- might conclude that the answer to my question is that consumers are not going to pharmaceutical company web sites so much and that the drug industry better engage in conversation with consumers on social networks and patient communities.

But if you look at the details of the survey, you'll discover that social networks such as Facebook are visited even less often than pharma sites by online health information seeking consumers. See chart below (I created this chart from detail survey data sent to me by Accenture):

"Medical Web Site"=such as WebMD; "Informational Website"=news, government, Wikipedia; "Pharma Company Website"=I presume this means brand drug sites; "Online Patient Community"=a group of members with the same or similar condition or illness such as patientslikeme; "Social Media"=such as Facebook or Twitter

In other words, consumers are NOT flocking to Facebook to find health information.

So, why are pharmaceutical companies so interested in having Facebook pages, which, BTW, often do NOT allow comments? Simple. Facebook has surpassed Google in terms of Web site traffic ("eyeballs") and pharma marketers are still seeking this "captive audience" to display ads (ie, Facebook pages), not to engage in conversation (for more on this, see "Drug Companies Are Flocking to Facebook for Eyeballs, Not Conversation").

What's Top of List in Your Social Media Implementation Plan?

Sanofi-Aventis recently experienced a FaceBook fiasco and learned from the experience (listen to this podcast: "What Has Sanofi-Aventis Learned from Its Facebook Experience?"). In fact, it probably learned more from that experience than it learned from reaching out to people like me who were asked to provide some insights.

IMHO, every company should have a social media implementation plan in place. It may not prevent crises like the one S-A was faced with, but it will help your company deal with them.

To determine the relative importance of elements of a social media plan, I started a survey that asks respondents to indicate how important the following action items are in implementing a social media plan:

• Unblock corporate access to social media so employees can monitor and use applications such as Facebook while at work
• Have a sustained vision/goal
• Become a dialogue company - learn how to listen and respond, not just push messages out
• Get everyone - including marketing, regulatory people, corporate communications, C-level execs - on board
• Develop guideposts, internal and external standard operating procedures
• Train people who will be interacting directly with consumers
• Develop a moderation strategy
• Marshall necessary resources - use the best tools available
• Create a social media Tsar position to oversee all the company's SM projects to assure compliance with guidelines

Respondents can answer

• Should be TOP of list
• Very important, near top of list
• Somewhat important
• Good idea
• Ambivalent (not sure how important)
• Near bottom of list
• At very bottom of list

These items were suggested to me at an interactive session I moderated at a recent industry conference. The results to date from this survey are presented in the following chart:

Please take the survey and tell me what you think:

Aged Female "Ka-Boomers" Shun Social Media, Favor Email

A recent "She Says" survey, conducted by Pink Tank, a division of GSW Worldwide specializing in women and health, and Meredith Research Solutions, has been cited to show that "women are highly cynical about pharmaceutical marketing efforts, with 56% of those surveyed believing that pharmaceutical marketing does more harm than good" (see "'Ka-Boomers' blow up more perceptions of pharma advertising").

That's nothing new to me and not the most important piece of information I got from this study, which you can find here.

The most important insight I received from this survey is that these women -- whose MEDIAN age is 53.1 years! -- shun social media and favor email for spreading interesting health news via the Internet (see chart below).

Click on the chart to enlarge.

Sorry if this chart is difficult to read, but the "pink tank" pdf survey summary is so muted with feminine colors that it is very difficult to read with my baby-boomer eyes! I had to darken the image in PhotoShop considerably to get even this barely readable version. I guess the report is not meant to be read by the half of the survey respondents who are over 53.1 years old!

Whatever! The point is that only 4% of these baby boomer women (MEDIAN age = 53.1 years) use social media to discuss and share interesting health information with their peers. Only 1% (a rounding error) use Twitter for that purpose. Meanwhile, 34% of these women use good old, antiquated Email!

As reported in MedAd Blog, "Based on the survey results, Ms. Goffe-Wagner [senior VP and brand manager for Pink Tank] says there are some tactics pharmaceutical companies should be following when evaluating their marketing. 'When the brand is all about itself, women feel, as one put it in the survey, that it's patient before pocketbook,' [sic? should this read 'pocketbook before patient'?] Ms. Goffe-Wagner says. 'That’s the lens they are looking at; they are looking at what you say, and what you do, to see whether they feel that you’re just all about growing sales of your brand, or whether you’re really about improving health and the lives of women."

Another tactic that pharmaceutical companies should be following is to use Email to reach these women rather than social media.

BTW, I would be interested in seeing how women in different age groups feel about the issues studied in this survey. For example, women between the ages of 18 and 44 years may be more likely to use social media and 46.6% of them are using at least one prescription drug according to the survey.