Comments on: How to Make the Social Media Risk Worthwhile

By: Jonathan Richman

Jonathan Richman — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:10:32 +0000

Wendy, Great comment (as usual). You’re not dealing with tougher medical/legal/regulatory teams…I think for the most part we’re in the same boat. However, there are a few companies that are a bit ahead. We do get to work with one J&J pharma company (Centocor Ortho Biotech) and this is a different experience. J&J has a social media policy and a way for brand teams to go about it and get approval. Just having a process is a big advantage. Perhaps that’s why J&J companies have done so many things in the social media space.

Thanks for commenting, Josh. I’d tie your comment back to Wendy’s and agree that we should try to reframe the question as you recommend: “Move beyond ‘Oh no there is risk’ to ‘What is the benefit, what is the risk, is it worth it, and how will we manage those risks.’” That’s really what regulatory teams do with everything else, but for some reason they take a tougher stance with social media. So, perhaps this reframe is one approach to moving regulatory teams forward. (Thanks for the feedback on the wiki, stay tuned for the Digital Data Bank.)

By: Josh Bernoff

Josh Bernoff — Tue, 05 May 2009 14:18:44 +0000

Thanks for your analysis, Jonathan. In the context of Chris P's comment, I think companies need to move beyond "Oh no there is risk" to "What is the benefit, what is the risk, is it worth it, and how will we manage those risks." AE reporting is a good example. Your 1 in 500 number is going to be different for a drug that's been out a while vs. a new one -- the former will have less risk. Hope to hear more from social application providers and pharma companies. P.S. thanks for maintaining the wiki, what a great resource. Josh Bernoff’s last blog post..What should NBC and Subway do about the "Save Chuck" campaign?

By: WendyB

WendyB — Tue, 05 May 2009 13:32:26 +0000

A good post and good discussion Jonathan. We’ve talked a lot about which disease states and products are social-ready and which aren’t. It’s absolutely a critical discussion when planning a brands’ digital strategy. Maybe I’m dealing with tougher medical/legal/regulatory teams, but in my experience, you can talk about patient benefit to those teams until blue in the face … and they rarely care. Sadly, the regulators (FDA included) seem to care less about what you are doing for patients’ benefit and instead focus more on that what you’re doing won’t harm or mislead them. There is a subtle difference there. A good example is the recent rash of search warning letters [see http://tinyurl.com/cbpqbq. By issuing these letters, DDMAC is further restricting pharma from branded search advertising … leaving the fake Viagras and dangerous herbal remedies to have free reign over those search results. Is that what’s best for consumers?

Even if you create a great patient community for the “right disease,” there is still unfortunatly a great amount of risk that consumers will post unapproved claims – good or bad. What FDA hasn’t been able to answer is, is that company still liable for those claims? Until they (publicly) say “no,” pharma regulatory reviewers assume the answer is “yes.” And therefore they’re pretty sure they’re still going to get fired for it.

WendyB’s last blog post..Working with Agencies: What’s the Right Approach?

By: Jamie Favreau

Jamie Favreau — Tue, 05 May 2009 04:30:00 +0000

I like your analysis of the situation. I think with cancer if the patients could have a safe place to have a cancer survivor group. Sort of like what LLS does with their patients just an online version. This virtual support system could help between meetings! When sometimes you hit a rough point and need someone to talk to when your family isn’t home or if you need to talk to someone or if you are not ready to commit to your situation. Maybe you’re a cancer patient and you are too terrified to speak but you want to remain anonymous.

By: Lynn Nezin

Lynn Nezin — Tue, 05 May 2009 00:42:23 +0000

Johnathan: You mention “simple ways to moderate and manage the debate” and I think describing these methods will be instrumental in creating the necessary comfort zone for pharma within the social media environment.
I think there are also alternative segmentation strategies with which to classify healthcare consumers that take into account disease severity, numbrer and quality of treatment options, and social stigma associated with the disease. Obesity is a rich target for social media because the obese are subjected to societally-sanctioned bigotry. This makes a virtual environment more welcoming, at so many levels, not the least of which is physical comfort without size restriction.
I would urge marketers to pursue solutions to oversight that work well without adversely altering the social media environment, and then work harder to identify the segments who would most readily embrace social media as part of their disease/health management behaviors.

By: Jonathan Richman

Jonathan Richman — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:21:31 +0000

Thanks for leaving a comment, Chris. AE monitoring is the quick excuse that many companies use to dismiss social media as a channel. Few really know the actual data. I did a post on this called The Myth of Adverse Event Reporting, which found that fewer than 1 in 500 posts on health discussion boards had all the required elements to be classified as a reportable adverse event. Combine this with simple ways to moderate and manage the debate and this issue should go away. The reality is that people are turning more and more to these social settings, so simply ignoring them isn't going to be an option for long.

By: Chris P

Chris P — Mon, 04 May 2009 16:05:57 +0000

One of the risks has been AE monitoring. With diseases like Cancer, the AE rates might be pretty high and require aggressive and potentially unpleasant reporting. With sleep or pain, what kind of risks are there? If rare and critical risks appear in the social setting, would that push the manufacturers to stay away from this kind of work?