Guest comment: Should the healthcare industry be more social?
- Added:
- Dec 10, 2009
The healthcare industry is one of the best equipped to offer an online support network, but why do so many players avoid participating in social media? Rob Marcus director of Chat Moderators, takes a cloer look.
While some enlightened marketeers in the healthcare industry are embracing the digital twenty-first century with social media initiatives such as a presence on facebook or adding discussion forums to websites, perceived regulatory impediments are putting many others off. Chat Moderators, the social networking moderation company, explains why it is that despite the need to capture and report adverse events (the term for any negative effects caused by medication) healthcare companies could be missing a very important trick in terms of reaping the rewards of social media.
Rob Marcus, director of Chat Moderators comments:
More people are using the internet for health information than ever before. The popularity of sites such as NHS Direct, which attracts 1.5m online visitors per month and Bupa’s free online health check which has attracted more than 200,000 people since January 2009 is strong evidence for this.
In my opinion social media is an ideal platform for the healthcare industry to be using, as it provides such perfect support to those consumers who are on what would otherwise be a lonely journey towards better sleep, or better diet, or lower weight or stopping smoking for example. For many people these are difficult ambitions to conquer without help, and having access to a support network of people going through a similar experience massively improves their chances of success. The healthcare industry is one of the best equipped to offer this support network and companies such as GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Johnsons and Johnsons are two of the key players in healthcare-related social media.
Johnson and Johnson has a channel on You Tube with no less than 90 videos which are educational rather than branded. It also has a multiple Facebook pages and a corporate blog. It is also targeting ‘mommy bloggers’ in a new campaign to further its message and excite online users about its products.
GSK’s efforts in social media include a facebook group, a You Tube channel comprising of 12 videos and a B grade ranking on Twitter with 1,485 followers. As well as this presence on third party sites, it also runs forums such as “Click2Quit” (C2Q) which is run off of its own NiQuitin website for nicotine replacement products. C2Q contains a community of people all at different stages in the process of giving up smoking cigarettes, where they share tips and advice as well as helping to distract eachother with games and jokes. The discussion forum has attracted over 40,000 members in five years.
So what is the rest of the healthcare industry so worried about and are the worries justified?
Reporting adverse events: The most common concern is that the MHRA (The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) requirement for reporting adverse events (the term for any negative effects caused by medication) can’t be met where user-generated content is involved. After all, discussion forums can generate hundreds of separate conversations and when the topic of conversation is health-related it is necessary to monitor this in a timely and consistent way, and neither healthcare marketers nor their digital agencies are set-up to do this.
With this in mind, employing the help of a specialist moderation company where you can set specific parameters and guidelines enables brands to engage in social media without falling foul of the MHRA. By moderating community submissions at frequent and regular intervals (a minimum of once a day, every day) if members do begin complaining of serious or non-serious adverse reactions, moderators can flag this up to the brands’ customer relations team for example, for further analysis, logging and possible response.
The risk of negative behaviour: One of the key roles of a moderator is to protect the reputation of the brand not only in terms of its corporate responsibilities (such as to the MHRA) but also to protect the quality of the experience for most members and to guard against illegal material such as defamatory or copyright-infringing submissions. Developing the policies and procedures to implement moderation is something that is well understood by Chat Moderators, who’ve been doing little else for ten years!
I can’t control what people are saying; what if they are not even talking about my product, or even worse – saying negative things about it?
One of the most important things to remember is that you cannot control what people are saying about you online and you lose credibility with the community if you try to. You CAN correct inaccurate information, but do it openly and supported by facts. It is also important to remember that customers care about their own needs and not about your products. It just so happens that some of the best medical advice can be obtained from commercial brand websites. Customers flock to the place where there is genuine value, so being seen to be a credible source of advice or offering a ‘best of breed’ support network will also bring in the online traffic – and why wouldn’t you want potential customers on your site?
GSK’s “Click2Quit” forum is such a success because it is focusing on people’s needs and not about its products. Bringing meaning to customers is how you get their attention and loyalty so it is important to meet their needs before you try to meet your own.
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