A lack of confidence about social media is preventing pharmaceutical companies from making wider use of social media, according to a new report.
Digital Health: Building Social Confidence in Pharma by PR firm Weber Shandwick also found that regulatory restrictions were no longer seen as the primary barrier to social engagement.
Instead the pharma marketing and communications executives interviewed for the report said they faced a greater challenges internally when trying to 'socialise' their strategies, instill social media confidence in their teams and align resources.
Laura Schoen, president global healthcare at Weber Shandwick, said: “Patients are increasingly harnessing the internet to gain knowledge about health conditions and even self-diagnose, leading to a more empowered health consumer and more informed patient-physician conversations.
It would be easy to look at the social media projects undertaken by pharma around the world and assume this breadth can be applied to all companies in all markets, but that is simply not the case.
Looking beyond pharma firms' headline use of social media there remains very real concerns about how to implement social media projects, even among some of those tasked with taking a lead on digital matters.
Weber Shandwick's report outlines 10 strategies for building 'social confidence', ranging from 'start small' to 'ramp up internal education efforts' (read the 10 rules of engagement).
• In today's 'open 24/7' world, it is riskier to not engage than to engage.
The research will be distributed in the forthcoming issue of PME (Pharmaceutical Market Europe) and can also be viewed as a digital edition via PMLiVE.
Digital Health: Building Social Confidence in Pharma was based on 12 in-depth telephone interviews with senior in-house pharmaceutical executives, based in Europe, the United States, Asia and Latin America, who are responsible for social media decisions.