Pfizer’s Get Real, Get a Prescription campaign won four Communiqué Awards at last week’s Award ceremony in London, including the prestigious Campaign of the Year Award.

The Annual Communiqué Awards have been running since 1998 and recognise the best of healthcare communications.

With Digital Engagement Strategy provided by Creation Interactive, Pfizer’s campaign was launched in direct response to research highlighting that more than 330,000 men purchase prescription-only medicines from unregulated sources, such as Internet sites, every year in the UK.

‘Get Real, Get a Prescription’ included a hard-hitting advertising campaign, with digital components including a website supported by engagement through social media, YouTube, online PR, natural search optimisation, and search advertising. Creation Interactive’s management of the digital components and ongoing monitoring of all digital channels allowed Pfizer to respond in real time to Internet user activity.

Daniel Ghinn, Creation Interactive’s Director of Digital Engagement, Healthcare, said that the awards recognise the campaign’s results in influencing user behaviour.

“Ultimately, the real result of any campaign must be measured by its outcomes. The effectiveness of Pfizer’s campaign was measured and proven in terms of real user behaviour results. Pfizer winning these Communiqué awards is a reassuring sign from pharmaceutical industry colleagues that a successful campaign is indeed one with successful outcomes”, said Daniel.

Find out how Creation Interactive’s Digital Engagement Strategy helped create this successful campaign for Pfizer in our ‘Get Real, Get a Prescription’ Case Study.

Healthcare companies around the world are exploiting the community-building nature of social media websites to engage like-minded Internet users – and some are achieving significant results.

What can healthcare companies and providers learn from the successful pioneers in this area? Here we take a look at the way three pharmaceutical companies are making the most of Facebook, and we provide some insights about engaging through social media.

It’s not only pharmaceutical companies who will benefit from these examples – aside from the marketing taking place there are valuable lessons for all healthcare communicators and providers worldwide.

Abbott Laboratories: Labs Are Vital

Abbott Laboratories’ use of Facebook to engage a community of people passionate about pharmaceutical science is part of a major communications programme that includes a partnership with Channel One News.

The Facebook page is just one part of what is a significant international campaign by Abbott Laboratories that integrates online and offline media, aimed at demonstrating Abbott’s long-term commitment to the science laboratory profession.

What does the Facebook page achieve?

The Facebook page provides Abbott Laboratories with a platform for telling people in its network of stakeholders (who have identified themselves as ‘fans’) immediately about updates and ideas. This is truly engaging stakeholders who are joined by a common interest in laboratory science.

Traffic is also driven to Abbott’s campaign websites labsarevital.com and labsciencecareers.com.

The community of Facebook fans has been engaged further through a recent user-generated video competition in partnership with Channel One news, where people were invited to create a video promoting careers in lab science.

The social nature of Facebook means that these initiatives are able to gain exposure not only to the page’s 2,500 fans, but to all their friends too.

Merck: Take a Step Against Cervical Cancer

With over 100,000 advocates users signed up as ‘fans’, Merck’s Gardasil Facebook page might be considered one of the most successful examples so far of engagement through Facebook by a pharmaceutical company.

The page unites a community of women on the issue of cervical cancer, and includes tools and links to educate about cervical cancer, its causes and prevention. The page is an excellent example of well-targeted social media engagement  - Facebook users include a high proportion of young women, the group for which Gardasil is indicated.

The viral nature of Facebook – becoming a fan of a page notifies a user’s network of friends – and the strong cause behind the campaign has led to the high level of advocacy and the long term success of the campaign.

Bayer Healthcare: Strong@Heart

Bayer Healthcare’s Strong@Heart Facebook page provides a highly effective platform for raising awareness of heart disease amongst women and for direct product marketing to a community of over 14,000 fans.

Bayer used the incentive of a free Aspirin pill tote to encourage Facebook users to show their advocacy by becoming fans. The free tote was discussed extensively on blogs, further raising awareness of the Facebook page.

The page is published jointly with WomenHeart, a non-profit patient advocacy organisation founded by three women who had heart attacks while in their 40s. Like Merck’s page above, Bayer’s Facebook page is another great example of leveraging the power of a cause amongst social community to gain advocates.

Lessons to learn

These three examples illustrate some common components of a successful Facebook social media strategy:

1. What’s your cause? Facebook users love a compelling cause to tell their friends about.
2. Make it relevant. All three campaigns were well targeted at Facebook’s user demographic
3. Encourage user contribution. This is a concept familiar to Facebook users who are likely to engage with opportunities to contribute.
4. Keep it simple. The most effective Facebook component is simple – a page.
5. Integrate with other online and offline media. Integration with other social media sites and blogs encourages viral community engagement; whilst integration with traditional and press communication adds essential exposure.
6. Think beyond the fans. With an estimated average number of friends per Facebook member  well over 100, total direct exposure from a page with 100,000 fans coudl be well over 10 million Facebook users.
7. Invest in growing the community. A community does not grow overnight, although a good cause will help it grow! Once you have the community you can (and should) keep engaging on relevant issues for a long time to come.

Finally, some engagement strategy advice if you are considering using Facebook, or would like to improve your use fo Facebook for engaging stakeholders:

1. Measure & listen. Measuring and listening to the online community before starting will help you plan your strategy, define expectations, and ensure that you engage in the most relevant way.
2. Ensure senior corporate commitment. Without it, it could be difficult to sustain success.
3. Measure & listen again! A sound system for measuring and analysing outcomes is essential for understanding the real value of your results. Measure not only the direct Facebook engagement but everything else that takes place online and offline relating to your activity. The insights you gain will help you to continually improve results.

Creation Interactive’s 7D methodology for informed engagement strategy development provides a framework for planning and implementing successful digital engagement strategies. Why not find outr how by talking with one of our engagement strategy consultants now?

Engaging the online community can be difficult amidst sensitive regulatory issues faced by pharmaceutical companies.  So when Pfizer wanted to educate Internet users about the dangers of buying prescription medicines from unregulated sources such as illicit websites, they asked seasoned healthcare industry experts Creation Interactive to research Internet user behaviour.

Creation Interactive’s independent expertise helped define a digital strategy that integrated social media, natural and paid search, video, and content syndication with an offline media and PR campaign.

Download the case study and discover how:

• Insights into Internet user behaviour informed discussions with medical, legal and regulatory stakeholders to shape the digital engagement strategy;
• An extensive multi-agency campaign was implemented successfully in a tight timeframe;
• Analysis of online campaign activity helped to refine strategy execution in real time and improve results.

When the official traffic figures for Telegraph.co.uk jumped by almost 40% in March 2008, the Guardian was quick to hit back with an article claiming that the change in figures was in fact due to a change in the way the figures were being measured.

Naturally, the Guardian were quick to find a way of discrediting its competitor – it is proud of its position as the leading UK newspaper online, and the Telegraph’s new figures place it hot on the Guardian’s tail.

Shifting focus to the Internet

Figures from ABC (the standard independent audit of readership) and the online equivalent ABCe confirm that online is where the battle really is for newspapers. Whilst The Guardian and The Telegraph are amongst the most popular newspaper websites with over 17 million visitors per month, their print editions circulate at well below one million, trailing far behind popular newspapers like The Sun and The Daily Mirror. The most extreme case of this move to the Internet is that of the Guardian, which has the highest web traffic at almost 19 million visitors per month yet a newspaper circulation of little over 350,000.

A useful measurement system?

The Guardian’s claim about the Telegraph’s figures does not so much discredit the Telegraph, however, but rather the measurement system by which newspapers define their status online. If the Telegraph can change the way it measures its visitors (in fact it changed its measurement tool, and presumably in doing so it also reconfigured the way it was measuring) and gain a 40% rise in ABCe figures, then what does this mean for anybody who makes decisions based on such audited figures?

The real problem is in fact more complex. As I wrote in my recent , newspapers are having to redefine their business models for new media, and even the innovators amongst them still have a long way to go. Traditionally, ABC figures provided a common way of comparing one printed newspaper with another, and a useful indicator by which an advertiser could gauge the likely exposure they would gain through any particular title. But to see newspapers compete for online figures such as unique users, or page impressions, is frankly missing the point.

Interaction is the key

The new media business models being sought by newspapers will have little to do with counting users, and far more to do with interaction. It is possible that the most successful online newspapers will not ultimately be those with the most visitors, but rather those who truly interact with their visitors and allow their partners and advertisers to do the same. Interaction involves two-way communication between brands and consumers, resulting in loyal consumer-brand relationships. This is where the amazing power of the Internet lies for brands and the media. It’s a land of opportunity for those who will embrace it.

To find out how Creation Interactive could help you build brand loyalty through online interaction, .

I recently heard The Guardian News & Media’s Managing Director Tim Brooks claim he was in a very scary place:

“Digital media are wreaking extraordinary havoc on traditional media… to be in old media space is a very scary place indeed, because the business models are being smashed by new media.”

Coming from The Guardian, who have been relatively proactive about digital media compared with their broadsheet counterparts, this is a bold statement to make. I don’t think that Mr Brooks’ comments mean that he is scared – he simply said it’s a scary place. The important point in his statement is that the business models are changing.

Media moves on

As communications technology and social trends develop, Media will continue to change. Traditionally, ‘old media’ was confined to limited interaction. Radio and television stations attempted interaction through telephone ‘call-ins’; newspapers interacted through letters to the editor.

Traditional newspapers need to move on, embracing the opportunities of digital media for more effective interaction, and even changing their business models to take advantages of new opportunities. We see this just starting to happen for newspapers: most newspapers publish free news online and allow readers to comment. Yet in terms of interaction this kind of thing is at least ten years out of date.

In what seemed like a promising step forwards, The Guardian recently announced that it was going to run a live chat with David Cameron. Sadly this turned out to be a disappointing ‘over-promise’. The ‘live’ chat was simply a traditional question and answer session, with no live interaction. The embarrassing effect of this on both the shadow prime minister and the Guardian is discussed in .

New business models

Examples abound of how business models for newspapers are changing. Do you remember the days before ebay, when people used newspapers for classified ads? Or when we paid to read the news – today even newspapers provide news free to our desktops and mobile phones.

Last December the Sun led the way for UK newspapers as they trialled ‘QR codes’ – a code you can scan on your mobile phone to quickly access web content. Encouraging mobile users to read free content online is another sign that things are changing.

The end?

So, will we see the end of the traditional newspaper? Not yet, but there are great untapped opportunities for those who understand the new rules of engagement in the digital media world.

If you would like to find out more about how we could bring our experience of digital media to national or regional newspapers, .