Pharmaceutical companies can implement social media marketing with more confidence thanks to new guidance issued by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI).
The ABPI social media guidelines suggest best practice for managing events and pharmaceutical data via social media and the internet in general.
They also provide a useful framework for pharmaceutical marketing professionals in the industry who wish to use social media to benefit their organisations.
In a white paper entitled Pharmacovigilance and the Internet: A Call for Change, the ABPI says that blogs, tweets and other online communications and communities hold a mass of important data that could complement traditional marketing methodologies. However, this useful information is not actually being accessed by many stakeholders in the industry because present legislation does not support marketing professionals in their obligations to collect and work with data.
The paper suggests a number of points for pharma marketing professionals to consider, including following discussions on social media sites, sharing messages via one-way communication and engaging with the general public via interactive communication. It also says that social media is a valuable tool with which to communicate externally with customers. According to the ABPI, eight out of ten internet users search for health information online.
