Social Media Wiki

Patients WILL Have the Final Say on Pharma Social Media

After reading a bunch of Twitter buzz and a few blog posts, I wanted to weigh in with my opinion on the most recent hot topic relating to pharma, social media, and the FDA. As you all know, the FDA recently had hearings about the use of social media by pharma companies. A number of people  have pointed out that patients were very much under-represented at the hearings (John Mack did the math). Only 5 of the 60 or so speakers were those you could classify as “patient advocates” whether they were patients themselves or speaking on behalf of patient groups. As many have noted since the hearings, this number is probably too low. I agree…sort of.

First off, there’s a reason why patient participation was low. Your “average” patient certainly wouldn’t have known about the hearings. They weren’t talked about on the evening news and by the time they might have found out through some blog or industry journal (if they even read them), the registration period would have long since closed. Perhaps there were many more patients or patient advocacy groups that would have liked to have given their opinion. Of course, they still can, as public comments are open until February (all the info you need to do so is here). It’s unclear if any patients have actually taken the time to do this. However, you can probably bet that your “average” patient isn’t going to be the one who writes comments to the FDA. By “average,” I mean your parents, your friends, not patient bloggers or advocacy group leaders. This is fine. There’s nothing wrong with these leaders being the only patients who submit comments. I love the fact that these leaders exist and really, truly speak on behalf of the groups they lead…nothing in it for them, no ego, just trying to do what’s right for the group. Names like Manny Hernandez (TuDiabetes) and Gilles Frydman (ACOR) come to mind as two great examples.

What’s my point? Where am I going with this?

Well, a lot has been made recently on many blogs and Twitter that the hearings, and by extension, the guidelines that come from these hearings will be completely devoid of any feedback or consideration of patients, who will be the ones really impacted by the final decision. I’ll quote one very representative view (which ironically includes a quote from me), which comes from my friend, John Mack in a recent post (quote in italics):

At the November, 2009, BDI Forum in New York City (“Healthcare Social Communications Leadership Forum Breakfast”), a question from the audience to a panel I was part of got to the core of the value of pharma to online patient communities. The question was “Should pharma be in discussion forums or lists frequented by patients? Do we need an industry consensus where we shouldn’t go?”

My colleague on the panel, Jonathan Richman (@jonmrich) noted that some consumer advocates speaking at the recent FDA public hearing said that under no circumstances should pharmaceutical companies be allowed to engage consumers in discussions on social networks. Jonathan thought that was too extreme. He suggested a few examples where such discussions could bring some value to the online patient community. He said there is data to suggest that patients/consumers would value the discussion if done the right way.

The problem is the TOTAL LACK OF PATIENT REPRESENTATION in this discussion! We’ve heard opinions of agencies and seen data from studies sponsored by agencies, but what are the views of real patients who have been using social media for years? [italics add, bold and caps his]

You can go to John’s blog to see my response, as it’s not really important for my point today. Let’s be clear. I agree that patients should have a voice and that the FDA should want their opinions.

Here’s where it gets controversial: patient feedback in the guideline development process is not at all necessary. The guidelines, whatever they are, will have very little impact on patients.

Now, before you alert the authorities, let me explain. First, to be sure, I don’t want pharma to turn social media into a free for all of advertising. I was pretty clear about that in my testimony for the FDA (download my presentation for “Question 3″). While I said that pharma should be able to participate, I was also pretty restrictive on how they should be allowed to do this. One of these restrictions was that pharma shouldn’t be allowed to just jump into conversations unsolicited. Rather, they can (and should) get involved in discussions where there is a question about one of their brands or some misinformation about one of their brands. Wouldn’t this be seen as a positive versus a negative if done appropriately? On the other hand, trying to sell a product shouldn’t be allowed or encouraged. For example, when someone says, “does anyone know which treatment is best for depression?”  I don’t want to see 25 pharma companies come out of nowhere and give the details on why their product is the best. That is, I don’t want pharma to have unfettered authority and access to do whatever they want online in social media or any other place.

Back to patient feedback on the guidelines. I’ve read a few great patient posts on this (here and here are couple of them). It seems to me that these patients are pretty much in agreement with me. Many say that they don’t want pharma involved at all in social media (which seems like an unlikely outcome). Others Iv’e read seem open to some involvement. Now, here’s why the guidelines will have no impact on patients.

Social media is just that: social. No one is in charge. No one has a higher rank than anyone else. It’s democracy in action. Yes, there are people who are more influential than others and can drive the community in one direction or another, but in the end, the people, whether they be patients or buyers of computers or new mothers, decide what happens in the community. They decide what’s credible, who they listen to, who gets “air time,” and, most important, who succeeds and who fails. Those with more influence aren’t the new members of the community (as pharma companies would be). They are long established members who people learned to trust for a number of reasons. That’s how social media works.

So, picture this: guidelines come out and pharma is allowed to do whatever they want in social media. Does this mean that they actually can? Say a pharma companies joins Tu Diabetes, for example, and inserts itself into a conversation about a particular treatment. If the community doesn’t want them there, that’s it. The show is over for the pharma company. People will ignore them, block them, report them, flag them, and everything else you do to people you don’t want in your community. The community polices itself. That which is not valuable or valued is ignored and rejected. That which is useful and beneficial rises to the top. Which direction do you think the average pharma company would find itself heading in these communities?

This is why I say that patient feedback into the guidelines isn’t necessary. All the guidelines do is give a guide to what is legal and what’s not. They don’t give a guide as to what’s effective and what’s not. A pharma company trying to insert itself into a conversation where it is not welcome will never be effective regardless of what’s actually legal.

In fact, in the end, patients have the most influence on the guidelines. Far beyond any pharma company or agency or government official, the end user, the patient, decides what’s effective, what influences them, and what’s meaningful. Patients don’t care about guidelines. They care about the quality of the discussion and the support they get from others. Do you think they’re going to let pharma companies get in the way of that?

Granted, some patient groups might prefer to nip this in the bud right now by banning pharma straight away from these discussions and avoid the trouble of policing it later. That’s not realistic though. So, in lieu of that, patients should be speaking with their actions in social media and not with their feedback to some set of government guidelines (which may never come). Sure, patients should absolutely submit their feedback to FDA, but they can have far more impact in social media with their actions. There are hundreds of examples from other industries of consumers destroying a company’s social media efforts when they find it useless, insulting, or just plain annoying. Why would patients behave any differently?

If pharma companies come to social media with the same promotional tactics that they use on TV and print, they will fail miserably. Who will see to it that they fail? Not the FDA. Not some set of guidelines. Patients will.

Social Media in Pharma and Healthcare 2009: The Final Wiki Update of the Year

After starting back in February 2009 with about 25 items, the Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki has grown tremendously. Honestly, I never thought the list would have more than 50 items. With today’s update, it’s over 500. This includes efforts from pharma and healthcare companies, industry observers, patient support networks, physician social networks, and many other categories. The tactics run the gamut from Twitter to Facebook to YouTube and everything in between.

Some efforts, naturally, are more ambitious than others, but one thing is clear: the lack of official guidelines isn’t stopping anyone from embarking on some social media efforts. This list is my single biggest rationale I give each day to people who ask: “how can I do anything without some guidelines?” I simply direct them to the wiki and add in the fact that not one single example on the wiki has ever received a warning letter. Read that last bit again…not one.

So, is it really as risky as what you think? Do people really not know what’s permissible and what’s not? No and no. If either of these were true, I think we’d be seeing a lot more letters. What’s stopping you now?

This is the final update for 2009, so a special thanks to everyone who has contributed throughout the year. It wouldn’t be much of a list without your efforts. I’ve done my best to give people credit for their submissions throughout. However, if you see someone else’s name credited to a submission you made, know that I only include one credit per entry and it’s the person who submits it first. For new examples, I’ll get as many as four or five submissions. That’s a testament to how closely each of you monitors this space and also how dedicated you are to sharing this knowledge with others via this wiki. Thank you for that.

Ironically, the wiki started with 25 items, but today’s update alone includes 36 new items. Some highlights from this update:

  • Four new entries for AstraZeneca including two new Facebook pages, their first corporate YouTube channel, and a Twitter account just for job recruiting. They’re making a run at the top social media user among pharma companies.
  • Pfizer added two new examples including a blog and YouTube channel
  • Sanofi-Aventis gets one more entry with their new iPhone app, GoMeals
  • I added 3 great industry-observer blogs that I’ve somehow forgotten to add in the past (even though I read them all)
  • Included three blogs from the Mayo Clinic that should be the standard against which all other healthcare industry blogging efforts should be measured
  • Five more additions to the list of pharma and healthcare companies using Twitter, including one branded effort

Stay tuned in January for the next update. In the meantime, you can submit your recommendations for inclusion (including your own site) using this form. Please read on for more information on what you can do to help support the wiki and ensure it continues to grow.

Here’s the link:

Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki

If I sent you a note saying that you’d be included in the next update and you don’t see your listing, you’re in the queue for the next one.

Many of you have asked what you can do to support the wiki, as you’ve found it so useful. Well, there are a few things you can do since you asked:

  • First and foremost, without your contributions, the wiki wouldn’t be what it is today and it would quickly become outdated. You can submit your recommendations for inclusion (including your own site) using this form.
  • Share with your network. Here are some shortcuts: Send a tweet, update your LinkedIn or Facebook status, and/or whatever your preferred means of sharing is. You can just copy and paste this: “Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki. http://su.pr/20M8CB. (via @jonmrich)”
  • Write about it. Feel free to blog about the wiki and use some of the examples in case studies or presentations you’re developing.
  • Get a badge. That’s right, if you’re listed on the wiki, you can now add a badge to your site to show that you’ve made it to the list. We’ve created a couple of options to choose from. (If you’re not listed and think you should be, see the first bullet above on how to do that.)

Note: some of you who have tried to use the code told me that it wasn’t working for you. I’ve fixed the problem, so these should work fine now.

Option 1

Dose of Digital Pharma and Social Media Wiki Badge v1

Copy and paste the code below onto your site:

<form><a href="http://www.doseofdigital.com/healthcare-pharma-social-media-wiki/" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.doseofdigital.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/doseofdigitalwikibadge1.jpg"/></a></form>

Option 2

Dose of Digital Pharma and Social Media Wiki Badge v2

Copy and paste the code below onto your site:

<form><a href="http://www.doseofdigital.com/healthcare-pharma-social-media-wiki/" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.doseofdigital.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/doseofdigitalwikibadge2.jpg"/></a></form>

Again, thank you all for your contributions. If you have any suggestions on how to improve the wiki, please let me know.

Recruiting for a New Survey: What should pharmaceutical companies be doing in digital marketing?

Hello readers…I’m looking for your help on an upcoming post.

As someone who’s spent a long time working in pharma, it becomes hard to look beyond the industry sometimes. Fortunately, I get a chance to work with and see a lot of work from our diverse client roster here at Bridge Worldwide. However, I’d like to get some unbiased expertise and completely new thinking. So, I created a survey called: “What should pharmaceutical companies be doing in digital marketing?”

Your answers will be part of an upcoming blog post. Only select answers will be published, but if you complete the survey, we will send you a copy of every answer received if you wish.

So, as I mentioned, I’m not looking for pharma people to answer this survey. “Pharma people” includes industry employees and partners (like agencies). If you work directly for or with a pharma company, then we can’t use you this time.

If you are a non-pharma person, then please take a moment and complete the survey. Also, feel free to forward it to anyone you think would have some good perspectives here.

Thanks in advance for your participation and for sharing this with others.

The survey form is embedded below, but if it’s not loading correctly, you can follow this link: http://ow.ly/KYBQ

Monitoring Adverse Events in Social Media for Pharma’s Biggest Brands: Hopeless Task or Simple Project?

Dose of Digital Mini White Paper

Hopeless Task?

Today’s post was co-written with Melissa Davies, Healthcare Research Director at Nielsen in the Online Division.

Key Points Summary (detailed post follows)

  • Reportable adverse events are far less common than most people suspect. There are only approximately 166 reportable adverse events per day recorded across the entire pharma industry.
  • Even for the biggest pharma brands, there are very few discussion happening online that include a mention about the brand. Only 36 per day for the biggest selling drug in the world, Lipitor.
  • When you consider the number of discussions that might have a reportable adverse event, it would take a long time to find one for most brands. For example, you can expect one reportable adverse event every 2 weeks for Lipitor (for the site monitored in this study).
  • For many pharma companies, it would be difficult, but not impossible to do this monitoring in house, as some automatic filtering could simplify things. Using call center employees, who are already trained in how to handle these discussions makes sense.
  • There are three categories of discussions that need to be screened: those you could skim past relatively quickly, those that might give pause for thought but could probably be filed away or handled with pre-approved response language, and those that may require escalation depending on the company’s social media and customer response policies. The time required to screen all discussions depends on the mix of these categories.
  • Companies need to determine what and why they are monitoring. This means determining if you’ll monitor only your sites or which 3rd party sites as well. Finding adverse events isn’t the only reason. Correcting misinformation, understanding patient needs, and engaging in dialogue (e.g., answering questions) are also reasons.
  • If companies are only monitoring their properties, expect a very low number of discussions and even few discussions that might be considered reportable adverse events.

Detailed Post

In a first for Dose of Digital, today’s post was co-written with Melissa Davies, Healthcare Research Director at Nielsen in the Online Division. Not familiar with Melissa, you say? I bet you’re familiar with her work especially if you’re  a regular reader of this blog. Melissa was the lead author for the now famous “1 in 500″ white paper about the incidence of adverse events (AEs) in social media. This is the report that showed the Internet isn’t chock full of reportable adverse events just waiting for the first unsuspecting pharma company to happen by and be crushed by the deluge. Rather, Melissa and her team’s work showed that only 1 in 500 (0.2%) randomly selected discussions (blogs, comments, forum posts, etc.) contained all four criteria required by the FDA to be considered a reportable adverse event. If you want more detail on this then check out my post The Myth of Adverse Event Reporting and definitely get the original paper (PDF) from Nielsen now as well.

Those are some pretty strong credentials to help me out with a follow up to my recent post 166 Reportable Adverse Events Equals One Red Herring. To create that post, I asked Melissa to supply some more information about the original Nielsen study. The reason for this is because in discussions with many people from the pharma industry, I discovered that many knew the “1 in 500″ stat, but remained concerned about the volume of AEs out there. Their rationale was simple: 0.2% of, say, 50 billion is still a pretty big number. Without knowing the number of total discussions, the 0.2% number doesn’t mean much. That meant figuring out how many new discussions are generated each day (and it’s not 50 billion).

The answer came from Melissa, who dug a bit into Nielsen’s database to answer a seemingly simple question: how many new pieces of healthcare-related content are generated each day online? Nielsen monitors 1,350 sites that it considers to be healthcare-specific (and millions of non-healthcare sites too). Looking at these 1,350 sites over time showed that, on average, there are more than 83,000 new pieces of content generated each day on these healthcare-specific sites. So, at least we know it’s not 50 billion.

That was the inspiration for my post. 0.2% X 83,000 = 166. There are 166 reportable adverse events generated each day for the entire pharma industry to handle. 166 isn’t a lot to me when you divide the work to manage these events across all the companies out there. Yes, larger companies are likely to have more and controversial products might also have more, but 166 for everyone to share is a pretty manageable number.

Almost immediately after this post went live, I was contacted by several pharma companies looking for some more information. Specifically, many weren’t convinced that it was quite this simple. That is, it may be one thing for Nielsen to scan through 500 messages and come up with 0.2% and to show the total volume, but it’s quite another for a pharma company to screen the more than 83,000 new pieces of content by hand themselves each day. How could one company possibly screen every single one of these pieces of content each day to find the few bits that refer to their products? What time commitment would be required to find these needles in all these virtual haystacks? When it comes to a particular brand, should they expect to find a few adverse events? Dozens? Hundreds?

I saw another objection to social media igniting before my eyes, so I decided to stomp out the flames before they got out of control.

I went back to Melissa and asked if they’d be interested in doing some more detailed analysis to show that the volume of drug mentions for any brand is quite manageable. They agreed and the result is this post. As I mentioned already, quite a few companies asked me after my “166″ post for the volume of discussions for their products. However, as this is how the folks at Nielsen make a living, we weren’t able to do with this. Instead, we decided to do a random selection of three companies from the top ten US pharma companies. The winners of this little lottery were Lilly, GSK, and Pfizer.

For each company, Nielsen looked at the top-selling products for this analysis. From their dataset of healthcare-specific websites, Nielsen BuzzMetrics collected, on average, more than 83,000 new discussions per day for the first half of 2009. Within this, there are a number of discussions about theses top-selling products. So, without further fanfare, here’s a look at the average number of discussions per day for the top five brands from each of the selected companies:

[Click on the image for a larger view]

Average Brand Buzz Per Day for Select Top Pharma Brands

Across these 15 brands, there are an average of 45.4 online discussions per day incorporating a brand mention. The volume of discussion can vary widely by brand. One interesting revelation: top sellers are not necessarily the most-buzzed brands. Lipitor and Advair, for example, are the two best-selling drugs among the 15 brands in the US (in dollar sales) and yet fall squarely in the middle of the pack for mentions. The top-mentioned product was Lyrica, which came in at number 8 of 15 in product sales.

Of course, there are many factors that can affect conversation volume, including disease state. It is interesting to see that some of the products you might expect to have a lot of volume based on their “controversial” nature don’t rise to the top. Cialis and Celebrex immediately come to mind. For the former, you might expect more off-color discussions cropping up, which would drive volume, but keep in mind, Nielsen only reviewed healthcare-specific sites for this analysis (so, any mention of Cialis on, say, PerezHilton.com, isn’t going to show up). In addition, mentions that included obvious spam terms such as “buy online” were excluded. For Celebrex, you might expect more volume based on the product’s past controversies. This doesn’t appear to be the case. However, volume can also change suddenly – when there is news about a brand (bad or good), a new market entrant, a public event related to the condition (Breast Cancer Awareness Month), etc.

So, that’s the raw data, the question now becomes: If a pharmaceutical brand wanted to monitor all of this discussion for things like adverse events, claim expansion, misinformation – or even just to understand what consumers are saying about the brand – can it be done in a practical manner?

To start, some filtering can be used to automate part of the process. For example, messages can be filtered for mentions of brand keywords. That’s what was done for this analysis. Nielsen filtered the more than 83,000 messages and pulled out only those messages that contained one of the 15 products selected for this analysis. It’s a very simple filter that every basic screening and monitoring tool can handle. The rationale for filtering out discussions that don’t contain a mention of a brand is that with this, you can’t have a reportable adverse event.

The next step is then sifting through all the mentions of your brand. The chart below shows how many discussions per day, on average, each brand would have to manage. For Cialis, about 17 discussions would have to be screened each day. For Lyrica, on the other hand, 132 discussions per day would have to be screened.

When you apply the “1 in 500″ statistic to these numbers, you get a better sense of how often a reportable adverse event is likely to show up.

[Click the image to enlarge]

Number of Days of Mentions to Find One Adverse Event

Translation: It takes a long time before a discussion with a reportable adverse event pops up. For example, it would take almost a month’s (29.6 days) worth of discussions to find one Geodon reportable adverse event. At the same time, you might expect to find one for Cymbalta every 5 days or so. Two things come to mind: first, that’s a lot of discussions to review without finding anything. Second, rather than being a deluge of  reportable adverse events, most brands aren’t even talked about that much making it much less likely that there are reportable AEs out there that you’re missing.

Since you might have to go through quite a few discussions to find one that requires your attention, let’s see at what the screening process might look like. First, the time required will vary greatly. Some discussions can almost instantly be determined not to have a reportable AE, while others are going to require some more time and attention.

Taking a look at some of the discussions seen for Lyrica (the most mentioned of the brands reviewed), you can basically group the discussions into one of three categories: those you could skim past relatively quickly (as they lack even the most basic information), those that might give pause for thought but could probably be filed away or handled with pre-approved response language (if you were doing actual outreach and engagement), and those that may require escalation depending on the company’s social media and customer response policies (these are the Discussions with potential reportable adverse events).

Here’s one of each from Lyrica [note: quotes are unedited]:

Skim past quickly: “i am doing much better thanks hun…i have neuropathy and use lyrica as well as ativan it does help me / lyrica helps with fibro….my very best to you and hubby…happy holidays sweetie” – from healingwell.com

Requires some thinking: “Aren’t they basically the same drug? Lyrica is just FAR more powerful than Neurontin? My Neuro explained Lyrica is 8x more powerful than Neurontin and if he up’s the Neruontin and makes an equiv. does it will be about the same response?” – from neurotalk.psychcentral.com

Might require escalation: “I am on my second try with Lyrica. I am on 75mg twice a day. I had dizzyness and blurred vision both times. The dizzyness has subsided, but the blurry vision is still there. I am on my 3rd week and so far I haven’t noticed any pain relief. Using it in combination with Nortriptylene and Lorcet for nerve pain in my ribs.” – from healingwell.com

So, the screening and coding for the 132 Lyrica discussions might only take a few minutes or could take an entire day and several people’s efforts if they are sufficiently complex. It all depends on how many of each category you have.

Beyond simply filtering for brand names, it’s possible to automate the process by looking for keywords related to known side effects, and/or keywords related to negative perception. However, this step brings up two key challenges. First is that any unknown side effects (which are the ones a brand might be most interested in discovering through this process) are the true “needles in the haystack” since they will likely not be covered by established keywords. That is, you’re not likely to find the unexpected and serious events that can really impact public health if only look for known side effects. Second is the challenge of using natural-language processing to accurately detect sentiment around healthcare messages. The nuances and unique considerations within healthcare discussion make it very tough to train a computer to digest what patients and caregivers care most about. Many monitoring companies, including Nielsen BuzzMetrics, use keywords to identify messages about a brand, and then use manual analysis to read and code messages for sentiment and topics of discussion. Manual analysis means that someone has to go through all the messages by hand at some point and determine what’s important and what’s not.

A pharmaceutical company could consider doing analysis process internally. Social media messages could be automatically screened for mentions of particular brand names, and then sent to a team within the company for review and follow-up action, if warranted. Within BuzzMetrics, they typically find that an analyst can read and code about 100 messages per day. That doesn’t include any internal routing or follow-up communications with original posters that a pharma company might want its employees to do, which would take additional time. An ideal group to handle this at pharma companies are those people already staffing your call center and who deal with adverse event reports received via phone (and other product inquiries). While they aren’t on a call or otherwise have a lull in the action, each person can review a handful of messages and determine if any need action. If they do find one, then the information is already in the hands of the right people at the company. Call center reps are trained on which issues they can handle directly and which need to be escalated. They understand the chain of command. They have established scripts to use over the phone, and some of this language (or key themes from it) can translate to the online world. And, of key importance, they know how to interact one-to-one with customers – which is really what social media is all about.

Let’s also keep one thing in mind. This volume of mentions is basically for all the social media discussions on all the health-related sites on the Internet (English-speaking only). These sites range from massive (like WebMD) to personal blogs with small followings. So, if you choose to monitor everything out there, this data shows what you can expect. However, under the current regulations, you are not required nor obligated to monitor third-party sites unless you are somehow connected with the site (as a sponsor, etc.). This means that you are only required to manage the sites that you maintain, own, or otherwise control in some way. This includes assets like your brand websites, any blogs, YouTube channels, Twitter (if someone DMs or replies directly to you), Facebook pages, and unbranded disease information and community sites. If you already have any of these, you know that you aren’t going to get a huge volume of discussions whether they be blog comments or YouTube comments. Most of the pharma social media programs that I’ve seen have received only a handful of comments over their entire lifetime. Even the most ambitious and well-known properties such as J&J’s BTW blog (the best healthcare industry blog IMO) don’t get very many comments. Their last 10 posts have 13 comments combined (and 6 of these came from Marc Monseau‘s post “What’s the ROI?”). That’s 13 comments since October 27…not a lot to monitor. Of course, J&J might have gotten more comments than this and a few were removed in moderation, but based on what I know of this blog very, very few comments are not published.

The next question is: “why?” Why are you screening and scanning the entire Internet looking for adverse events? The answer might be simple. Perhaps you want to know what people are saying about your brand to help direct future communications. Maybe you’re actually going to talk back and not just listen in. You might also want to listen everywhere because of a genuine desire (whether legally required or not) to know everything you can about the safety of your product. You might be looking just to check for unexpected adverse events. Isn’t it better to find out early about a serious adverse event that keeps occurring and, yet, wasn’t seen in clinical trials? The longer you wait, the more lawsuits get lined up. Of course, more important than the legal issues, the longer you wait or the longer it takes to discover a new, serious adverse event, the more people who could be harmed or killed by the product.

Perhaps the other answer to “why?” might simply be to provide better service to customers by better understanding them. Not just to know about harmful effects, but to know about questions, misinformation, patient concerns about the medication, or about disease treatment in general. You can see from this and many other analyses that there isn’t a high volume of AEs in online conversation, so if we move past that, maybe better serving patients should be the ultimate goal of monitoring online discussions.

We’ve found that most companies actually do want to monitor everything that’s out there (before you do, read my post Why Pharma Should Forget About Social Media Monitoring), but they either lack a purpose behind their monitoring or they’re concerned about what they’ll find. The latter concern includes worrying about how to manage the volume of messages that are out there. However, this analysis shows that the volume isn’t unmanageable even for the biggest pharma brands and perhaps eliminates one more barrier to pharma and healthcare companies first observing and then participating in the discussions happening all around them.

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