Digital Influence Mapping Project

Pharma Comms Knows Social Media Will Change Them

I started the week at the Exl Pharma conference at Pfizer where I spoke and had a chance to connect with some of the top pharma communications pros. The sessions started with a poll of the room.

"Evolution of New Media"

Asked what the top global communications issue facing pharma is today, the 150 comms experts said the "evolution of new media" was number one with 27% of the room vote. Some other issues ranked high including regulatory concerns. But overall, social media was the topic of the day.

Sally Susman, SVP of Corp Comms at Pfizer, did a great job opening up the sessions. She identified two trends shaking up the business:

• Growing animosity towards corporations (42% of people trust the healthcare industry to do the right thing - drop of 16%)

• Far fewer outlets to promote our companies: 1 in 5 journalists have lost their job,100 newspapers have shut down.

So without the traditional editorial channels to "work", how can pharma rebuild reputation?

Sally identified some new opportunities:

1. New focus on the "how" vs. the "what." People respect what pharma makes just not the how. We need to stop defending the what we do and strive to change the "how." And I think she woudl support that we also need ot change the "how we communicate" about ourselves.

2. Talk about what we are for vs. against. She played a current TV spot that promotes affordable healthcare for all supported by the industry. This is quite a change from the spots launched during the Hillary Clinton healthcare push which were meant to sink the efforts at that time.

3. Communicate using real people telling their own stories. Sally seems convinced that regular people - patients, employees, you name it - are much better at telling the story than ads or even the CEO. She played a Fox segment featuring Dr. Jorge Puente from Pfizer who came up with a program to cover perscription costs for those who were laid off. He is a genuine spokesperson.
This is where the industry can rebuild trust. And it was a perfect lead-in to our discussion about social media later on.

Someone asked "...how should pharma use social media?"

Sally told the group (and I am paraphrasing), "We are trying a lot of things. We wanted to have a company blog and were very nervous about it. Now there is a vibrant debate about (some relatively trivial matter that surfaced on the blog - her point was that blogging didn't deliver the catastrophe some might have predicted)...We are twittering. Ray Kerins and others are tweeting, but we are not sure what will come from it. Facebook is blocked at Pfizer.... "Why?" Sally asks. She mentioned Bill Marriott's blog as a great example where it works.

She made a final, interesting point:  she evaluated a recent ad campaign for its "Return on Reputation" - did it actually enhance or detract from the corporate reputation? More and more communications pros have to step in to manage the impact of all marcom efforts on the reputation, especially in an industry that still feels that its reputation remains at dangerously low levels.

Create a Physician 2.0 Advisory Panel and a Patient 2.0 Advisory Panel

Health care companies (i.e. pharma and device manufacturers) are eager to learn how to use Web2.0 platforms for their business. Many are in their 4th or 5th year of experimentation with interesting digital solutions now in the form of Facebook pages, partnerships with Sermo or patient communities.

Still, companies are spread out across the social media adoption spectrum. Some remain inactive and skeptical, others just launched their latest blog.

One tactic every pharma could benefit from is establishing two advisory panels to help them stay close to the real experience of the patients and physicians they serve. This is about learning from feedback not yet activating outbound word of mouth (WOM).

Physician 2.0 Panel
Identify 10 digitally-active physicians using the Influencer Map criteria that we and many other companies use to pull influencers out of the haystack of social media. Basically this is a X,Y axis of relevance and influence.

Invite the group for an initial on-campus meetup with marketers and communication specialists. The agenda? Ask each physician to share with the group 3 digital behaviors they didn't have a year ago. Then ask them to share how they think those digital behaviors have affacted their practice and to speculate how they may affect the practice in the future.

That's the first half of their session. For the second half, hold a brainstorming session with those same physicians. Ask how they might accelerate their use of social media to enhance their buisness and the outcomes of patients. Explore how pharma might fuel that acceleration.  

Invite the group to remain connected for informal Q&A's from time to time via a private NING network. Make sure the communications team managing the relationships is trained in adverse events reporting just in case that comes up (chances are it won't).

Equip each doctor with a FlipVideo cam. Ask them to create 1 short video a quarter updating us on their use of social media. Those videos will be for internal use only yet can be spread pretty widely via an employee extranet. This is a great way to continuously get the "customer" in front of employees.

Patient 2.0 Panel
With physicians help, identify 10 digitally-active patients that meet the same criteria. Follow a similar process of inviting them to campus for an initial event. Listen to and engage with  them as you did with yoru Physicians. Stay conncected with them for at least one year.

ROI
In the short term, measure the ROI in terms of insights or ideas-generated. Okay, it's difficult to boil down to an ROI. Still, count how many things you learned. Compare it to the actionable insights from a boatload of focus groups. I don't know about you but I consider myself lucky if I end up with 3 actionable insights from groups. If you do 4 focus groups at $15K a pop, that's $60K or $20K per insight. You are going to much better with your panel. The payoff only begins with those insights. Sharing the experience of these folks with as many people as possible in the organization and building relationships with folks who may choose to be outbound word of mouth ambassadors one day will quickly eclipse that value.

Physician 2.0: A Steady Stream of Innovation

Once upon a time doctors and lawyers were portrayed as the digital Luddites of society. Maybe there was a lag of early adoption especially when compared to the tech early-adopters. Not so much anymore. Now there seems to be a critical mass of doctors online and a steady pace of innovation where a subset are trying the next new thing. I have lost hope that my doctor will jump on board. He comes from another time. Increasingly, I think of changing doctors not just to rid myself of his complete lack of interest but to sign on with a doctor looking for every advantage for patients and his business via digital innovation.

Physician 2.0: Doctors of Innovation

Pauline Chen MD had a great article in the NYTimes where she summed up her own use of social media benefits as:

"Social media has kept me connected with colleagues and a few former patients, allowed me to stay up-to-date with certain health care and medical education issues, and helped me to keep abreast of Web-based resources that might be useful to those I care for. It has also taught me a tremendous amount about the experiences of patients and caregivers, information I’m not sure I would have had access to had I not been engaged online."

Doctors in the US are online - period. And they are increasingly "social."

According to Bunny Ellerin at Interbrand Health: "Manhattan Research found that 99 percent of doctors are online daily, 85 percent maintain broadband in their offices, and 83 percent consider the Internet essential to their practice."

According to aseparate report from Manhattan Research, doctors are embracing three social media related behaviors (beyond Search): consuming video, blogging and podcasting. What's interesting is that the content creator core - that small percentage of doctors who blog - are not the young doctors you would expect.

"Perhaps even more interesting is the profile of the segment of physicians authoring blogs  oday–these are younger, savvier, online physicians, right? Wrong. Those with a voice online tend to be older with more professional experience– essentially representing the true “physician blogger” with something to say–while the younger audience may be more likely to listen and then perhaps join in the resulting conversation later."

Social Networks
Increasingly physicians are joining physician-specific social networks like Sermo, Ozmosis or Social MD or even NING. And its not the same blogging doc who's joining according to the Manhattan Research report,

"Contrary to the population of physicians posting professional content online, thisgroup tends to be slightly younger than the average physician today. Another interesting finding is that female physicians are significantly more likely than their male counterparts to engage in online communities with other physicians. Also, physicians in the West seem more apt to engage in conversation and community online than their peers in the Northeast. Finally, physicians based in academic medical centers are significantly more likely to participate in online communities with physicians–perhaps viewing the online channel as simply an extension of their peer-to-peer communication with their colleagues in the halls and corridors. And it’s not just online community that piques their interest–almost all physicians participating in online communities report they regularly exchange email with other physicians."

Twitter 
Like other forms of social media that came before, doctors are adopting Twitter and experimenting how to use it in their daily practice. For bloggers, it becomes a way to announce longer content on their blogs. For all, it's a way to recommend relevant links. Check out the Yahoo pipes that bundles the "doctors on Twitter" into a single feed - I have published at the bottom of this page. .

Pauline Chen MD had spoke in her article in the NYTimes about a particularly poignant case with a patient who may have benefited from the more "always-on" relationship possible via social media platforms to get the support to maintain their regimine. I found it interesting that most of Pauline's references to social media-active physicians were Twitter handles (vs. blog urls).

She seems open to trying anything that might help her practice and is able to connect the dots to patient experinces that might have been enhanced if only the old way could be improved:

"Social media platforms can turn 10- or 20-minute doctor’s visits into an ongoing dialogue, where sources of information and, potentially, support are continually available to the patient and the doctor. “Platforms like Twitter can be powerful if doctors are a lot more active in disseminating their expertise,” Dr. Khozin said. “Patients are being bombarded with information online, but I don’t think all that information necessarily empowers them. You also need expertise.” "

What's the next innovation even as more doctors adopt social networks, Tiwtter and other social media conventions?

USTA Uses Advertising for "Human Factor"

The NYTimes covered a new TV ad campaign from the US Tennis Association that features the greats of the sport - Venus, Serena, Roger Federer - all revealing something personal. Love the idea but where's the social media?

If we want to create new relevance to tennis via the personality of the players, you have to tackle that in social media in addition to whatever your reach tactics (e.g. TV) are. The Venus Williams Facebook page has almost 500K fans yet little to keep any of us there never mind a preview of the spot. How cool would it be to launch these spots via word of mouth first?

If tennis wants to build a stringer bond with their fans and attract new ones, they may need to consider a more personal strategy. Take a lesson from soap stars, country music artists and even sci-fi celebs (not SyFy - an abomination of a change). But do it with a 2010-spin. Each of those groups are known for their generally more personal touch and their demonstration of their love of their fans. But how would a group do that today? Through a stroing use of social media. Create a social media beachhead via facebook, YouTube and even Flickr. Cultivate relationships with fans in a way that is manageable for the star (no one expects them to start Tweeting 12 hours a day or do we.....)

Deliver content early and often to fans. Offer select moments to interact with the stars where the content of that chat, or whatever, lives on through search. I love the idea of letting us see the personality behind these folks but give us access and more than an occaisional nod of thanks.

At least let us see the TV spots first.

Good Directories on Social Shopping

If you are trying to learn more about social shopping innovations, there are two useful resources I have come across. One is a simple, organized directory of different ecommerce examples including 'social shopping.'The other is a white paper download that attempts to catalogue the different social shopping options almost in checklist form:

Directory: Ecommerce Optimization has a great list of social shoping sites along with easy links to join or get your product included.

Social eCommerce Kit: From Optaros, an ecommerce consultancy, comes a very well produced pdf of what to consider on the road to making your store more social and effective.

What is Social Shopping Becoming?

   

Shopping can be one of the most social activities. Then again, I often shop alone. It really depends on what I am going for. On the more social side you have:

• asking friends what they think of a particular Victorinox rolly bag

• reviewing ratings or reviews by strangers or friends
• group buying which is really a form of crowd-buying - still quite social
• finding endorsements from friends or 'strangers with expertise'
• Wish lists and registries
• Affiliate sales networks (e.g. Amazon)
• Relevant recommendations (e.g. iTunes Genius function)

As word of mouth is one of the most influential purchase drivers across many product categories, it only makes sense that we will all continue to push the intersection of social media and shopping.From product reviews like the robust ones found in Amazon, YELP and TripAdvisor to the offshoots like Trusted Opinion, review have been around since the dawn of time. For any brand that sells a product or service, I would rank reviews as the most underleveraged social strategy just behind search engine optimization. If you don't have one, get a product review strategy especially if you are a retailer or sell a retail product of some kind.

If product reviews are fundamental, then what is next? Three things I can see emerging fast:

• Real-time Recommendations via Facebook, Twitter and other social networks
• A new wave of Affiliate Marketing
• Event Shopping

Real-time Recommendations

While reviews may have defined social shopping over the past 10 years, now it is about "real-time recommendations" - a phrase I first heard from Sean Muzzy at Neo@Ogilvy. When I am shopping - that search, assess, decide and purchase activity - how can I tap into my own social graph to get an opinion or some type of feedback?

Some retailers are doing this by integrating Facebook Connect like the backpack manufacturer Jansport. By embeding the Facebook login in the ecommerce pages, I can share my interest in the 22" Purple Sunflower via facebook. I can see what my friends may have said or if they have "liked" it. This will become standard practice for many of us on those products where we value a second opinion. As a business traveler, luggage is one of tehose categories (and I would hope as a Facebook friend you would wave me off the purple sunflower motif for my own good).

Many of us in digital marketing especially on the social media side of life have been creating and stewarding programs for brands that pay off in the middle or top of the funnel - Engagement up to Awareness. Or our approach to driving action or conversion has been a click-through or coupon download or similar action. Now we really can apply "social" to not just shopping but to conversion or sales.

Affiliate Marketing
While the power of building authentic positive word of mouth and even recommendation for a product will drive product preference (see our Conversation Impact measurement model), using social to drive sales will become a new focus for many of us.

As a blogger, would I raise my hand to become an affiliate marketer for the brands, I myself, use and appreciate? Yes. As marketers continue to over-do influencer outreach - trying to capture the attention of influentials like mombloggers and food bloggers such that they authentically talk about products - we will see some simpler and more direct solutions to transparently engage those influencers as affiliate marketers. The benefit back to them is a percentage of sales - all very transparent, of course. Clearly that works best for retail brands vs. manufacturers. I could easily imagine having a Hugo Boss store widget on my site ads the ultimate storefront for black jeans (hell, just my clickthroughs alone would move the needle).

Curated Event Shopping
Remember the Amazon "Gold Box"? It was a collection of time-sensitive specials on Amazon that you could browse through. I never bought anything and I guess others didn't fare much better as the feature is gone.

Now I subscribe to ideeli.com. They send me emails of sales events on great stuff - mostly for women. I have bought some great jewelry there for my wife. If I knew anything about bags, I am certain I could score some gems there as the always seem to have some great ones. The pricess are advantageous - but like the Home Shopping Network, sales are timed so you need to act promptly. The goods are curated and high quality. The combination of timeliness and quality curation makes it sweet. I have told many people about ideeli.com which is another way the "social" quality of the service works. (Essentially, it gives me a little bit of 'social capital' to spend with people I know.)  

There are a lot more innovations on social shopping happening than just these three trends. In fact, the social shopping space is exploding with innovation.

New WOMMA Video Preps You For FTC Guidelines

Our WOM enthusiast at WOMMA, John Moore, has started a new series of videos as part of his overall All Things WOM blog/voice. His first "Video Ditty" is Don't Tell. Do Ask. and focuses on some common ways to do best practice word of mouth marketing no matter which way the FTC lands on its proposed guidelines...

The Lesson Beneath "PR in Silicon Valley"

The NYTimes.com ran a story over the weekend (that finally ended up in the print edition Business section) about the social nature of public relations efforts on behalf of Web 2.0 startups in Silicon Valley called "Spinning the Web - PR in Silicon Valley." They mean old school "social" as their example is a PR pro in the Valley who makes hay of who she knows and her ability to get clients mentioned by those who's who of tech.

Is this back-to-the-future? Hasn't Silicon Valley always been a club of sorts? Now that some of those influencers run popular media properties like Digg and social networks like Twitter that have the 'reach' previously reserved for older more established media properties, now that every business analyst worth her salt gets "news" via an eclectic RSS collection complete with new influencer blogs and Twitter search results (see our TheDailyInfluence.com), this evolution is now complete. I have visions of Pam Alexander and her notorious networking social events that helped her rise to mythical status.

But underneath the story of one publicist/PR person who manages a network of influencers vs. pumping out press releases, is the true story of change.

Public Relations is quickly adapting to the practice of identifying new influencers who have their own public platform and following and can do more to raise awareness and engagement with relevant companies and brands than traditional media relations. This is not new. And for as many examples of old school PR shops who rely on press releases to gain "coverage", there are 5 more sophisticated "new communications" firms who not only understand the phenomena of word of mouth marketing via new influencers and networks of interest groups. Many, like ours, have gotten pretty sophisticated with the process of connecting with vast, new collections of third parties. 

The Silicon Valley tribes (Tech companies, VC, Web 2.0 startups, popular bloggers/twitters) is but one microcosm.

Influencer Segmentation
Turning 'working a crowd' into an effective and scaleable approach to engaging relevant third parties such that they will authentically want to share about a new product, an intriguing service or just cause is about seeing the millions of affinity "groups" online, gauging inlfuence amongst their "members" and then taking the care to provide them a true exchange of value.

For a recent automotive project, we purposely went beyond the car bloggers and even the social media echo-chamber (top bloggers in social media) to identify 6 additional segments. Each is relevant to the brand from parent bloggers (don't forget the dads in your mad-dash to court the mom bloggers!), to design geeks to eco-dabblers (regular folks who care about being 'green' and are willing to make some decisions to be more so).

For a financial services project, we have identified 16 interest groups - things that draw people together online - passions. Within each are different influencers defined by data and qualitative analysis. While Silicon Valley relies on influencers within the tech and social media circles we all know; the rest of the broad universe has its own influencers who you might not instantly recognize.

The article captures the relationship-driven nature of Silicon Valley public relations now dominated by new media properties and individuals. What it's really pointing out is the explosion of new influencers that we identify, build relationships and rely on to reach relevant people on behalf of companies and brands. The Silicon Valley tribes are but one small slice. 

Corporate Guide for Social Media - Redux

Forbes published yet another summary of what CEOs ought to be considering as they ponder guidelines for use of social media within the company. It used to be "blogging guidelines" - many of us created them for our companies years ago - IBM, Yahoo, Ogilvy. We have since expanded ours to cover more recent platforms and behaviors like Twitter and the hyper-public status of Facebook profiles (I encourage staff to think of their Facebook presence as a professional outpost - forget trying to draw a line between "private" and professional)

Our attitude towards our team is to encourage them to communicate not discourage. We are, after all, professional communicators. Our guidlines are about empowerment.

We take a lot for granted. I heard of a client who just recently made it possible for staff to access YouTube and Facebook. I think that type of restrictive access is more prevelant than I would have guessed.

Joshua-Michéle Ross from O'Reilly pens this particular list. The parts that capture a great spirit include:

"Build your policies around job performance, not fuzzy concerns about productivity.

If your employees are using Facebook at work, they are also likely checking work e-mail after dinner or at odd hours of the day. Don't ask them to give up the former if you expect them to continue the latter. If you have good performance measurements, playing the "lost productivity" card is a canard.

Begin from a Position of Trust.

While there are possible negatives involved in having employees on the social Web, most employees have common sense. Begin with a set of possibilities first (increasing awareness, improving customer service, gaining customer insight and so on) then draw up a list of worst-case scenarios (bad mouthing the company, inappropriate language, leaking IP, to name a few)..."

I have attached a draft of our own social media policy for our staff as it may be helpful to you.

Download OgilvyPR_Draft_SocMediaPolicy_v2009

Choosing Marketing Partners With "Social Juice"

Why do we ever choose marketing partners?

Why did Mars ink a deal with Nascar?

Why would SkiDoo partner with Burton snowboards?

Why did Duracell partner with the Children's Hospital at UCLA last winter?

Why did Kellogs partner with Feeding America?

Partners are either willing to fund marketing efforts or, more often, extend marketing reach via a new channel, affinity group or customer base. There are also the partnerships driven by endorsement. Celebrities and non-profits come quickly to mind here. The marketer needs the celebrity endorsement ususally to drive earned media attention. They need the non-profit to lend credibility to their drive to give $100K to charity (tied to selling more of their core product or driving up relevant awareness, of course)

Today, you should always choose a partner with strong social media marketing muscle. This is particularly true in the case of the non-profit endorsement partnership. Many brand marketers form partnerships with non-profits to earn some good will with customers or prospects for aligning their product with a 'social good.' Certainly, many brands have a deep commitment to social causes that are organic to their brand. Starbucks and fair trade coffee come to mind. Many more have a more transitory, campaign-long commitment.

Too many brand marketers select a non profit partner based upon simple relevancy to an issue - are they supporting clean drinking water in parts of the globe; are they supporting breast cancer research?

Beyond the relevancy and responsibility of a non profit partner, brands should look for non profits who understand social media marketing and have built an advocacy network that they will activate on behlf of the partner initiative. They shoudl think of these partners as the most modern of marketing partners.

Look for a partner with:

• A strong email list with whom they connect regularly

• A Facebook presence with a clear sense of mission and growing fanbase
• Experience activating their members to action via digital channels
• Growing use of Twitter to keep followers up to date and driven to deeper engagement
• A "social Web" site: one that is designed for action and sharing not self-aggrandizing Flash movies or simple brochureware

Brands partner with non-profits to support those causes and introduce their supporters to the brand. Brands want to market products on the backs of causes. That's a bit of a cold way to put it but still true. Beyond their authentic interest in supporting a cause, brands are using the partnership as a marketing hook. They are using the "borrowed interest" of the cause to generate interest in their product.

To be as successful as possible, brands needs to leverage the grassroots marketing infrastructure of the non-profit. Many non profits are savvy advocacy organizations. Brands need that social media muscle to connect with people who will care about their partnership and drive them to some meaningful action.