Providing valuable, reliable online communications should be seen as one way to improve the reputation of and build trust in big pharma. Movements in the US offer some useful learnings for us, not least the stats quoted in Jon Richman’s FDA hearings presentation. Apparently, the survey by the ‘health activists’ at wegohealth showed 62% of people thought pharma “adds valuable professional expertise to the conversation” and 73% of people thought pharma “brings accurate information into conversations about drugs or devices”. Under the right circumstances, could pharma online be similarly welcomed in the UK?
One route was proposed by Andrew Spong at his insightful STweM blog (we recommend you sign up if you don’t already). Andrew suggests that a progressive pharma company in the UK could safely engage in small scale, relational, indirect social media activity. In other words, help patients access third party resources that are not pharma branded (but acknowledge support). This could lead to patients sharing the story (and potentially the information) within communities they are already a part of.
The phrase ‘you only get what you give’ is pertinent here. It involves giving quite a lot, although could go a long way to building trust and essentially having receptive online communities to tap into for a number of reasons. If you give, who knows what you could get back in return?
Tags: Andrew Spong, digital pharma, FDA, jonathan richman, pharma online