Over the last 20 years, Pharmaceutical marketing has moved from being traditional to social media. More than half the world’s population now uses social media, with user numbers edging towards four billion. The average person spends two hours and 24 minutes on social networking sites each day, according to stats on Backlinko.
While this shift has altered many aspects of life – not least how we consume news media and connect with other people – it has been nothing short of seismic for marketing departments.
As users flocked to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, businesses began to understand what this might mean for advertising and pharmaceutical marketing. Today, more than 90% of marketing executives use social media and it’s rare to find a brand without some form of social media presence.
Pharmaceutical companies can use social media to engage with health professionals and consumers providing valuable health information as well as securing feedback and referrals for online communities . Arguably, social media is transforming today’s market dynamic) and has become an important strategic marketing channel for listening (or monitoring) and understanding physician and patient-consumer behavior, developing, maintaining and proactively managing customer relationships
The Cambridge Health-tech Institute (2008) stated that over the last years, pharmaceutical companies have had huge success, as never seen before. However, this institute states that the growth and profitability of the pharmaceutical industry in the past cannot continue in a market highly modified as the pharmaceutical market in XXI century. It is clear that pharmaceutical companies’ leaders need to understand the changes in this market and identify new strategies in order to have a positive dynamic, leading to a successful future and efficient management of challenges (Cambridge Health-tech Institute, 2008).
For the past 18 years – a timeframe that neatly covers the ascendancy of social media – Page has been focusing on the healthcare sector. He has developed campaigns and brand strategy for a range of pharma, biotech, medical device and health and wellbeing brands across many therapeutic areas. Increasingly, this means thinking about social media. As the drug development process becomes more collaborative, and patients’ insights become more sought-after, social networks are being recognized as a good way to glean and disseminate information.
