Pharma and social media: How to add value
*Pharma can gain social media credibility by partnering with trust agents*
By on Mar 28, 2011Pharma can gain social media credibility by partnering with trust agents
Just like a good guest brings wine to a dinner party, pharma companies should bring value to the social media space.
Companies that want to successfully engage in social media should first assess what is missingideally by asking those already engagedand then contribute that to the social media party.
This is particularly important for pharmaceutical companies, which generally suffer from bad reputations and are viewed as untrustworthy by many people.
Trust Agents,by Chris Brogan and Julian Smith, provides advice on how to build influence, improve reputation, and earn trust online.
In the online health space, there are already a variety of trust agents, so it makes sense that pharma should partner with them.
Many of these trust agents are nonprofit organizations short on resources.
Pharma can provide support and leverage the credibility of these online leaders.
At Siren, weve seen firsthand that this type of collaboration benefits the patients and both organizations.
An Epsilon survey confirmed that consumers are open to this type of partnership, provided that the collaboration is transparent and openly disclosed.
People understand, especially in social media, that all the information provided is not necessarily true.
The Epsilon survey showed that patients are looking for validation of medication data.
The majority of people surveyed were open to pharma playing a role in this space, in particular with relation to side effects. (For more on pharma and patients, see Making patients part of the pharma conversation, How patient advocacy groups can boost patient compliance, and Collaborative care: Improving information exchange and adherence.)
One option might be providing resources to support a qualified moderator for these discussions.
What role doyouthink pharma should play?
Eileen OBrien is director of search and innovation at Siren Interactive. She blogs at Sirensong.