20. “ Boehringer Ingelheim (BI's) - the German pharmaceutical company - has just completed the first-ever full bore social media campaign touting the results of its RE-LY® study - "the largest atrial fibrillation (AF) outcomes trial ever conducted." John Mack Pharma Marketing Blog
We tweet links to our press releases because they have the relevant disclaimers and have been through the appropriate approval processes. We link to press packs and other sources of information on our websites We link to articles written by journalists that we find interesting or relevant. We ask questions, engage in dialogue and try to learn from those that we follow.
I work in Communications or PR, and I’m clear who my customers are: journalists. Twitter provides me with a channel on which I can communicate with journalists. It’s a channel on which I can publish my messages but also listen to there’s. The way our media institutions work now, is much different from just a few years ago. For example, news delivery has changed. Paper newspapers sales have dwindled, advertising profits are down and online offerings have taken over as the key point of news access. The way news is collected has also changed. Citizen journalists or bloggers, are either going to break the story or be part of the process. Turn around time is quicker, the content needs to be richer with video and imagery and dialogue is becoming increasingly important. News stories are breaking on Twitter and being discussed on Twitter, and we believe it is important to be part of that dialogue.
I asked my followers why they use Twitter. Diana Spencer UK journalist tweeted me: I find Twitter useful for getting the latest news in pharma, so regular updates of any product launches, approvals etc She goes on to say in another tweet: or maybe company comments in response to wider events, would be very handy!
This is the most important measure of success: How many of our followers are journalists. We don’t have a perfect way to measure this yet and its reliant upon the tags users employ in their description. According to the free tool Twitter Analyzer: 38% of the people who follow us (ie people who have chosen to receive our messages) are either editors, writers or publishers. Is this normal To test I benchmarked against other pharma companies. JNJ with 14%, Roche with 15% and Astra Zeneca US with 18%. Now, of course this doesn’t take into account who they are targeting, and it’s a guide only.
Which leads me on to the following point. Don’t forget traditional methods. They still work. Include your twitter profile on press releases, websites and email signatures. Boehringer have been successful in attracting media attention for our Twitter activities: It also helps win approval internally but also attracts new followers.
I asked my followers why they use Twitter. Diana Spencer UK journalist tweeted me: I find Twitter useful for getting the latest news in pharma, so regular updates of any product launches, approvals etc She goes on to say in another tweet: or maybe company comments in response to wider events, would be very handy!