For those who know me well enough, you’re probably aware that I’m a bit of a cynic sometimes and that I’m not one to hold back my opinion (most times). Of course, if you’ve read this blog before and don’t really know me, you probably figured this out already. So, today I’m unleashing both of these parts of my personality on a topic that’s been bugging me lately.

The spark was following along with a couple different conferences on social media in pharma via Twitter and receiving (no exaggeration) information about and invites to no less than 5 future conferences about…you guessed it…pharma social media. Of course, I’ve been a part of a lot of these conferences in the past, but you might have noticed that I’ve cut down on my attendance and speaking recently. The reason is that I think we’ve run out of things to say and people who haven’t heard them. I know for my part that I feel like I’ve covered every aspect of social media as it relates to pharma on this blog in many, many posts. I know that I’ve read even more from others and heard a ton of presentations about this topic at many different conferences. Haven’t all of you too? (Voice your opinion in this poll and see what the result are so far)

What I’m not doing today is criticizing anyone out there who has been speaking or writing about this topic. Certainly, I’d be among the people who have covered this topic pretty thoroughly by now.

What I am doing is proposing is a moratorium. A moratorium on debating the details about pharma social media that we all know. There are ten of them that I’m going to specifically ask we stop talking about for one month (for starters) and see what happens.

It’s great if you’ve covered these details in the past, but you are hereby banned from creating anymore content about these 10 topics within pharma social media. If you have something new that is outside one of the ten areas, let’s hear about it. If you’re creating a presentation that doesn’t include any of these ten, more power to you. Share it with us. I’ll even post it on this blog for the world to see if you manage to avoid all ten.

So, do you think you can keep yourself from talking about these ten topics for just a month? I present these to you as almost near direct quotes that I’ve heard or read over the past 3 months…in no particular order…

10 Things I’m Tired of Hearing About Pharma Social Media

1. “Pharma is heavily regulated, so doing anything in social media is a challenge.” This is typically the first line of every invitation I get to every conference on this topic. We know. Pharma=regulated. Always has, always will. Whether it’s TV, print, face-to-face sales calls, and, yes, social media, it’s all regulated…heavily. Having said that, it’s not impossible for pharma to do something in social media, as some may suggest. I constantly see objectives for conferences that are something like this: “Determine ways that pharma can legally engage in social media.” Well, I’ve got 350 ways on the Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki. 350 examples of pharma companies engaging right now in social media.

2. “Social media may be the ‘holy grail’ of marketing for pharma companies.” Feel free to substitute your own hyperbole for “holy grail” if you prefer, but you get the idea. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but social media isn’t the answer to pharma’s marketing woes anymore than TV ads are. It may become a useful channel over time, but if you’re counting on social media to revive your floundering blockbuster or to launch your next one, you’re out of luck. Social media may become a valuable tool for other aspects of pharma company operations, particularly research (clinical and marketing), but it’s not going to be a powerful marketing tool that solves any marketing challenge. I’m not going to get into all of the reasons why, but this visual might help explain it.

Think you’re ever going to see that anywhere?

3. “Because of the rise of ‘e-patients,’ pharma needs to take an active role in social media.” To be clear, I’m not saying anything negative about ‘e-patients’ or the concept behind this term. That’s the last thing I need. Not sure what an “e-patient” is? Check out my prime example, E-Patient Dave. I love what Dave is doing and what he’s advocating, so that’s not what I’m proposing a ban on. Instead, it’s the connection of e-patients, social media, and pharma. Instead of e-patients being the reason why pharma needs to get involved in social media, it actually should be the reason they avoid it. E-patients will provide each other the information they need without the input from pharma companies. At the same time, make an enemy of some e-patients, and you’re done for…as well you should be. E-patients are important to the success of any pharma product, but you’d better bring something big to the table if you plan to focus your efforts on them. Just throwing together a Facebook page isn’t going to be enough and making it all about your products will likely backfire (again, as well it should).

4. “More and more people are turning to the Internet and social media to get healthcare information.” You know how on those legal dramas when the two lawyers are going at each other and then at some point they say something about “stipulating” something. That’s what I want here. Can we all just agree and accept the fact that, yes, the Internet is an important source of healthcare information? And, yes, some people, maybe even a lot or most people, use information found within social media as part of their healthcare decision-making. Haven’t we all seen enough charts from enough sources to say, regardless of which side of this argument you’re on, that you can stipulate that this is true?

I know I have seen enough and I’d imagine that you have too. How do I know? When I was presenting before the FDA panel on social media late in the day, after many other people, I came to my slides that included a bunch of these stats. Stats that had been shown about 50 times already that day. What did I do? I said that I was going to skip those slides because the point had already been made by others. The reaction from the crowd? Applause.

5. “With the impending guidelines on social media from FDA expected later in 2010…” This is going to not sound really nice, but if you’re following the developments of pharma social media use and haven’t heard about the FDA hearing that happened in November 2009 or that some guidelines might come out before the end of 2010, you’ve got a lot of catching up to do. These guidelines might come, but they will not write a marketing plan for you. They will not grant carte blanche freedom for pharma companies to do whatever they want in social media. In fact, expect them to be frustratingly vague simply because FDA can’t write explicit rules for every platform and activity you’re considering for the next marketing cycle.

We get it. Guidelines. Coming soon. Talking about that they might come and speculating what they might include probably isn’t much help at this point. It’s already pretty clear that some things can be done today (again, I give you the Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki). Get out there and do instead of wringing your hands about what might happen. Or don’t.

6. “As social media grows in importance, it’s critical that you have a solid social media strategy.” Ugh. I should have listed this as number 1 in case people don’t make it all the way to number 6. This one makes me crazy. I’ll handle this one really simply. First, this doesn’t only apply to pharma. It applies to every industry, regulated or otherwise, selling pretzels or fishing line, liberal or conservative corporate culture. Listen closely: you don’t need a social media strategy.

Rather than write something new, I’m going to recycle a paragraph from one my personal favorite posts from this blog, “9 Simple Steps to Getting Started in Social Media.” Step number 1 includes this advice: “DO NOT define a ‘social media strategy.’ You should not have a social media strategy. Instead, you should brand objectives. This might  be something like ‘increase market share to 25% by December 2010,’ for example. In order to achieve these objectives, you’ve put together a set of strategies that will get you to those objectives. To deliver those strategies, you’ve come up with a number of tactics. Social media is one of those tactics. Nothing more, nothing less. If you create a social media strategy, it’s highly likely that your social media efforts won’t line up with your overall business objectives. This will make it even harder to measure the impact of these efforts or will outright fail. Perhaps you need social media, perhaps you don’t. Look at it as part of a larger marketing plan to figure this out.” Enough said.

7. “You can begin your social media activities by just trying something small.” Since I said, “ugh,” for number 6, I probably shouldn’t say it here, but if I could I would. Please don’t just do something social media related because you can. Anyone can set up a Facebook page for their brand in minutes and a Twitter account in seconds. Don’t. Yes, it’s easy, but it’s also likely a waste of resources. It might take a second to set up, but if you’re not allowed to use it, then it was a waste. If you are allowed and it takes forever to get content approved or rules on how you can engage with patients, well then your minute invest has turned into weeks.

So, while trying something is important and a good step, it’s not the first step. It’s the last step (of my 6 Steps to Getting Your Healthcare Social Media Idea Approved anyway). Try something if you’ve got everything else aligned and do it to test your process and not simply because you can. You’ll probably find that getting things approved is harder than you imagined. It’s good to know this now when there isn’t a crisis you need to respond to or after you’ve invested hundreds of thousands of dollars on a program. Don’t try anything. Do something with intent.

8. “There is a need for useful healthcare-related social media tools/content/platforms/communities that pharma companies can help fill.” What? There are so many things wrong with this, I’m not sure where to begin. I’ll just cover two though for the sake of time. First, there is not a lack of these things. Again, check out all the communities on the Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki. If your big idea does not add something well beyond what some of these existing, established 3rd party communities provide, it’s time to put that big idea in the trash bin.

It might not be fair, but here’s the reality. It’s harder for a pharma company than, say, a neutral 3rd party (like a patient) to create something in social media that people value. A lot harder. Why? Well, here’s the “not fair” part: people don’t like pharma companies. They are trusted about the same as oil and tobacco companies (and remarkably, less than banks). So, in order for a patient to be part of a pharma-controlled community, he or she would have to put this distrust aside and willingly share personal information about themselves, their disease, and their treatments with “big pharma.” Seem like a bridge too far? It should. There are still some unmet needs out there, but going it alone probably isn’t a winning strategy for most pharma companies. If you build it, unlike in Field of Dreams, people won’t come. Finding a trusted partner who is established and neutral might be the logical path.

9. “Facebook/Twitter/YouTube/Something Else is the future of social media.” Pick your favorite and substitute it at the front of this statement. It doesn’t matter which you choose, I’ll still be making the same point. Here goes: Facebook is not social media. Yep, you heard me, and, yes, I’m familiar with Facebook. Twitter isn’t social media either. Nor is YouTube…you get the point. These are social media platforms. They employ the principles of social media, but a platform can’t be social media. They are simply a means to access the social part of social media. The connections and interactions between people and the sharing of information and data are social media. It’s the bridging of distance, time, and status to connect people together in support of a common purpose. That purpose can be anything, but the connection part is what’s critical. If you think that creating a Facebook page or Twitter account means that you’re “doing” social media, you’re wrong. If your social media doesn’t share in two directions, doesn’t connect people, and doesn’t treat everyone as equals, then you’re probably still just broadcasting. You may as well stick with TV and journal ads…less risky.

10. “Because of the unique nature of its business, measuring ROI for social media is impossible for pharma.” If a consultant or agency person comes to your company and tells you this, fire that person on the spot. No questions asked, just show them the door. Yes, it is hard to measure ROI (return on investment) in a meaningful way in pharma, but it is far from impossible. The rationale for this feeling of futility is two-fold. First, most people think that the ROI for social media in any industry is impossible. Add to this the fact that you can’t track which people actually filled a prescription unlike how you can track the use of, say, a grocery shopper loyalty card and it’s a perfect excuse. To be clear, measuring ROI for social media is possible and it’s done all the time. And for the record, counting the number of fans (or Likers, whatever they’re called today) you have on Facebook isn’t going to give you an ROI. It might be a first step, but you’ve got a ways to go.

If you really want to measure ROI for your social media efforts, visit Olivier Blanchard’s site, which is completely dedicated to this topic, and read everything. He shows that it’s more than possible, it’s expected. You can do it in pharma too and certainly as well as you can measure the ROI of a TV commercial. I’d argue that it’s far easier to measure the ROI for most social media efforts (namely anything digital) compared to any other pharma marketing channel. Period. I’m out of space in this post to demonstrate fully, but I promise to show you in an upcoming post (or contact me and my company will set it up for you).

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So that’s the list of 10 topics that you are not allowed to talk about for the next month. If you make it that far, then we’ll extend it. I’ll be watching to see who breaks the pact first. When I see it, I’ll call it out and I invite you to do the same. Just add the hashtag #smprotest and we’ll all know what you’re talking about.

If you’re with me on this and want to show your support for the cause, I invite you to proudly display this badge. Put it anywhere you think people will see it.

You can just save the file from here or use this little bit of code to embed it anywhere with a link back to this post.

<form><a href="http://www.doseofdigital.com/2010/06/10-thing-tired-hearing-pharma-social-media" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.doseofdigital.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/10_badge-sm.png"/></a></form>

Remember…I’ll be watching. Let me know if I missed anything, as I’d be happy to make a “15″ or “20″ badge if necessary.