{"id":6765,"date":"2010-09-14T15:16:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-14T15:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pharma-mkting.com\/is-pharma-really-listening-to-patients\/"},"modified":"2019-02-21T01:21:34","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T01:21:34","slug":"is-pharma-really-listening-to-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ec2-54-175-84-28.compute-1.amazonaws.com\/pharma-mkting.com\/blog\/is-pharma-really-listening-to-patients\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Pharma Really “Listening” to Patients on Social Media?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n

After criticizing Astrazeneca’s @AZHelps Twitter account as being a poor model for use of social media by the pharmaceutical industry (see @AZHelps: Is This a Good Model for Pharma Use of Social Media?<\/a>), I received several comments that made me think a bit more about how pharma marketers are trying to adopt a new communication paradigm without giving up their old model of communication. That old model is essentially “tone deaf” when it comes to “listening” to consumers.<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong. Pharma marketers “hear” what people are saying on social media sites such as Twitter. They just are not actually listening to what consumers are saying and understanding.<\/p>\n

Let’s look at @AZHelps as an example of this. It appears that @AZHelps seeks out Tweets that mention problems people are having affording Astrazeneca medications. Apparently, AZ monitors social media using tools such a V-Fluence (see comments to the post cited above). This is not the same as having a real person monitor social media, but it’s a necessary tool to get an idea of what people are saying about your product out there. But just like any automated program, it lacks human intelligence — it hears, but does not listen.<\/p>\n

One post the @AZHelps bots pricked up was this one, which was posted by @busterwilson:<\/p>\n

“Almost home. Pat drove most the way. Second day of the trip w\/extensive migraine! NO Zomig cause Obamacare made insur. Not wiiling 2pay4 it!”<\/p>\n

After a couple days delay, @AZHelps responded with:<\/p>\n

“@busterwilson Saw your tweet about access to or the cost of ZOMIG\u00ae (zolmitriptan) AstraZeneca may be able to help. Call us @ 800-236-9933”<\/p>\n

Did @AZHelps actually “listen” to what @busterwilson was really complaining about? No. They heard what they wanted to hear and responded with a “solution” to the problem they thought they heard. But they didn’t really listen to @busterwilson’s real gripe, which was about “Obamacare.”<\/p>\n

Let’s use an analogy: How is social media like helping your wife deal with a problem?<\/p>\n

A: It’s been my experience that when my wife complains about something, she is not looking for me to give her a “solution,” but for me to listen to her and understand her problem. The same may be true for helping patients who complain about products. Before you offer a solution — ie call this number — have a conversation and make sure you get to what the real problem is. In the case I cited here, @busterwilson was spouting off about “Obamacare” and no amount of free ZOMIG is going to put him at ease about that.<\/p>\n

@AZHelps did not bother to learn more about @busterwilson and his Zomig problem, let alone about his problem with Obama. Turns out that @busterwilson is “a husband, father, grandfather, media personality, Sheriff’s Chaplain, motorcycle rider, and lover of Jesus!” It sounds like he has an agenda much bigger than the price of Zomig.<\/p>\n

Of course, @AZHelps is not going to get into a discussion about “Obamacare.” AZ is more interested in getting IT’S message out about Zomig and making sure people call that 1-800 number.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After criticizing Astrazeneca’s @AZHelps Twitter account as being a poor model for use of social media by the pharmaceutical industry (see @AZHelps: Is This a Good Model for Pharma Use of Social Media?), I received several comments that made me think a bit more about how pharma marketers are trying to adopt a new communication […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[341,816,167],"topic":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIs Pharma Really "Listening" to Patients on Social Media? - Pharma Marketing Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/ec2-54-175-84-28.compute-1.amazonaws.com\/pharma-mkting.com\/blog\/is-pharma-really-listening-to-patients\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Pharma Really "Listening" to Patients on Social Media? 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