Marketing Pharmaceuticals Using Paid Social
Best practice and guidelines for marketing pharmaceuticals using paid social.
We know the value that social media plays in our daily lives both personally and professionally. Social media forms the basis of many digital advertising strategies and in the pharmaceutical industry, this is no exception. There are two main ways to use social media to advertise – organic and paid for. In recent years and certainly since COVID-19 hit in early 2020, the rules for using paid-for advertising on social media platforms to advertise pharmaceuticals have been tightened. This blog looks at these rules and will guide you on how best to use the paid function as part of your social media strategy.
Firstly, let’s recap on why you should include paid social in your digital marketing strategy. According to Pew Research Center, 7 out of 10 Americans use at least one social media platform daily, and therefore social media platforms are a fantastic way of creating awareness to a large number of people in an efficient and cost-effective way.
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Whether it is a LinkedIn article with the latest acquisition press release or a Facebook post with a “meet the scientist” interview, these social media updates give followers entertaining, free and valuable information and it shouldn’t be overlooked. The best platforms for pharmaceutical brands are the more informative streams like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook but you can use platforms such as YouTube and Instagram for more dynamic content.
To inform your decision on how to begin your social media advertising, you will need to come up with a social media marketing strategy just like you would with any other marketing tactic.
Define target audience: Know who you are trying to reach (age, gender, interests, behaviours). Once you have done this it will be easy to identify the best social media platform to use. Some platforms attract a younger demographic of users, others require more dynamic content, and some allow very targeted advertising e.g. a specific field of cell and gene study.
Content: What content do you have available at your disposal to form the basis of your advertising campaigns? Most platforms require visual content such as images, photos, videos etc. but there are platforms that only deal in text, such as Twitter. If your content is predominantly videos, then perhaps YouTube would be the best fit. It is hard to create and stockpile vast quantities of new content just for social media so take time to review existing content and tweak it if required.
Branding: Think about your brand values and try to match these up with the platform that has a similar brand value or proposition. Tik Tok for example might not be the right platform to advertise a new business acquisition.
The table below is a clear way to see the difference between various platforms and the content they require.
To help you assess the best platform to use for your content, the next section will go through each social media platform, in turn, highlighting the rules and regulations and some guidance for how to use the platforms effectively to advertise in the life sciences space.
57 per cent of the global population use social media. As the most used social media platform in the world, Facebook has a global reach of 2.79 billion users. 77% of users are women and the average age is between 30-49. Facebook does have a slightly older demographic than other platforms such as Instagram. Over 70% of people use it in their daily lives making Facebook a global super platform.
Historically used as a networking channel, Facebook is now the most versatile and flexible social media platform due to its mix of photos, videos and text plus its ability to share posts.
Rules for paid pharmaceutical advertising on Facebook:
“Ads must not contain “before and after” images or images that contain unexpected or unlikely results. As content must not imply or attempt to generative negative self-perception to promote diet, weight loss or other health-related products.
Ads that promote over-the-counter medicines must comply with all applicable local laws, required or established industry codes, guidelines, licences and approvals, and include age and country targeting criteria consistent with applicable local laws.
Ads may not promote prescription drugs without prior written permission.”
The following entities are eligible to apply for permission from Facebook: Online pharmacies, telehealth providers and pharmaceutical manufacturers.
The main barrier to advertising on Facebook is that you need to get written permission from an account manager at Facebook and you will be assigned an account manager to ensure that the content is permissible. The process of getting permission is very vague so this is a platform that may need more time investment before there is the ability to promote.
Why Facebook?
Facebook can handle various types of content, so it is perfect to drive brand awareness. Facebook also can run targeted ads via groups of interests or topics so you can reach a very narrow audience. Don’t underestimate the power of your own followers either. You can learn a lot by gathering data on your audience and reaching them with new content to drive engagement. So, it is worth the effort in gaining permission to advertise. A later section in the blog will highlight what types of content would work best to ensure rules are met.
Owned by Facebook, Instagram is the image and video sharing platform aimed at a younger demographic. 71% of users are in the 18-29 age bracket so this is something to bear in mind if you are trying to reach a more experienced professional.
Why Instagram?
Instagram follows the same rules as Facebook but don’t let that put you off. If you advertise on Facebook, you can reach further by including Instagram. This is a great platform to reach the younger end of the pharmaceutical world. If you post often and with engaging visual content, Instagram is a great place to build brand awareness, influence purchases and drive thought leadership and all posts can be sponsored and promoted to a wider audience through paid methods.
Twitter in 2021 is a much smaller player than the likes of Facebook and Instagram but it still carries an active user base of 353 million people. According to the Pew Research Center, 23% of Americans say they use Twitter every day and since 2019, this number has grown by over 1%.
Despite being known as the place celebrities use to rant and vent, Twitter is a place to start conversations and challenge points of view by using short snippets of text. You can also use video and photo content on Twitter, but its main function is around short snippets of text.
Yet again, there are strict rules surrounding paid-for pharmaceutical advertising on Twitter. There is a whole article on Healthcare promotion, so I have just taken a snippet below.
“Twitter restricts the promotion of health and pharmaceutical products and services. These restrictions are based on the specific product or service being promoted, as well as the country that the campaign is targeting.” (Twitter)
Like Facebook, to have the ability to promote on Twitter, you need to get permission from the powers that be. You can do this by raising a ticket with the support team and they will assess content pre-posting.
Why Twitter?
Twitter is a platform that is perfect to drive brand awareness across a large age range as it is a platform that is used by all ages. By using short snippets of content, it starts a conversation and engagement within the community which can help drive traffic to a branded piece of content. Twitter is also useful if you are trying to reach a primarily young male audience as 56% of users are male and 40% of Americans aged 18 to 29 use Twitter. Usage goes down as age increases so this platform is closer to the likes of Instagram and Tik Tok as opposed to Facebook and LinkedIn.
Out of all the social media platforms, LinkedIn is the most challenging in terms of paid pharmaceutical advertising as they actually don’t allow any pharmaceutical marketing:
“LinkedIn does not allow ads related to prescription pharmaceuticals, drugs or any related products or services. Ads that promote prescription or over-the-counter drugs, illegal drugs, highs, herbal medicines and treatments, psychoactive effects of substances, or aids to pass drug tests are all prohibited.”
LinkedIn has over 740 million active users in 2020 and has moved from being another networking site to a fully-fledged social media platform in recent years. 57% of users are male and interestingly 4 out of 5 LinkedIn users drive business decisions at their company and as a result, this platform is the favoured platform for B2B marketers.
WHY LINKEDIN?
What is great about LinkedIn for marketers is the ability to target very specific groups of people. As well as job title, and company names, LinkedIn also has groups and communities set up for like-minded individuals or people with a certain career or interest. This makes the art of B2B selling much easier as you know exactly who you are marketing to. To use this platform to the best of its ability, it’s imperative you know who your audience is as we discussed right at the beginning of this blog.
LinkedIn has the strictest rules when it comes to selling pharmaceutical products, but it also has the best audience targeting for this industry so to use LinkedIn effectively, you must get creative with the content as opposed to the product or service you are selling. This does create additional work, but it is worth it due to the quality of the audience targeting.
What types of content works best on social media?
As you have seen from the above, there are various barriers to entry when trying to use paid advertising for pharmaceutical products. But fear not! There are ways to promote on social media platforms in the life sciences space via means. So, what are the best types of content to promote on social media to help avoid rejection emails? To show some examples, I have used Orientation Marketing to illustrate how this type of content can be used across the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry and across the various social media platforms.
1. Press releases, news and events
Press Releases are a great way of creating news-focused content and driving awareness on platforms that don’t involve actively promoting a pharmaceutical drug or product. News pieces such as mergers and acquisitions, new plants opening, recent awards and reposts from other news outlets work well to drive brand awareness of the company, and such news can be pushed further to similar audiences as your own followers via paid-for ads and promotion.
2. Promoting events
Social media is a fantastic place to promote events and where your company can be seen or even a way to talk face to face. It feels like 2022 will be the year events get back up to speed so why not use social media to promote which face to face events you will be attending plus the booth number to actively encourage event interaction. That way the active selling can take place at the event as opposed to via social media. Social Media equally works well when promoting internal events such as a virtual webinar series or roundtable.
3. Company insight
Why not use social media to give an insight into your company by doing a virtual facility tour or interview with a top scientist? This makes your company seem more approachable and human and will also generate interest and engagement. Perhaps you could turn the comments into a live Q&A with the same scientist later to continue the conversation and drive leads.
4. Thought Leadership
The main benefit of social media is the ability to reach highly targeted audiences especially through platforms such as LinkedIn and to a certain degree Facebook. Use your platforms to encourage thought leadership and potentially lead generation by posting interesting articles, whitepapers, and e-books. To make it into lead generation opportunities, why not gate the landing page of the content to capture key purchasing information that will feed the sales funnel. Paid social works really well here.
Marketing pharmaceuticals using paid social
All this activity will ultimately promote your business within the pharmaceutical and life sciences space without actively promoting a certain drug, product or process. Once people are engaged with your brand, they are more likely to follow up when they have a need you can fulfil.
From reading this blog, it might seem daunting when trying to pull together a paid advertising social media strategy in the pharmaceutical space but there are multiple ways you can use social media to generate engagement in your pharmaceutical brand. OK so you can’t advertise a drug, but you can use targeted platforms such as LinkedIn or Facebook to advertise an up-and-coming webinar or showcase your company’s newest facility or latest technologies. Content is key no matter what marketing strategy you adopt, and social media strategy is no exception. Think cleverly and keep content engaging and interesting and you will have a successful social media strategy in the pharmaceutical space.
If you would like further advice and support on the perils and pitfalls of paid social media and how to execute campaigns effectively, please get in touch - we would be happy to help! For more on PPC approaches in the pharmaceutical sectors, and how we can help you with paid social, visit our section on pay-per-click.
