Which drug companies have the best social media presence?

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently drafted guidelines for drug companies wanting to engage on social media. Currently only around half of the 50 largest pharmaceutical companies have a social media presence.

The reasons many drug companies shy away from engaging users and patients on social media are well-known. From anxiety over compliance regulations, privacy concerns, lack of familiarity with social media, to difficulty quantifying return on time invested in maintaining social media account.

IMS Health, an international healthcare communications company, has developed the Social Media Engagement Index, to look at how pharma companies can and should be using sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to connect with physicians and patients.

While many drug companies are using social media to broadcast news and information to their followers, few are fostering interaction or discussion. Smaller firms, with a relatively narrow therapeutic focuses, tend to have the best social media engagement, according to the report.

Regulatory agencies are getting in on the social media act, even as drug companies struggle to get a hold. The FDA has a strong Facebook presence – more than 96,500 likes on their page – and ranks higher than any pharmaceutical company on the IMS Health index. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has a Twitter account – over 9,000 followers – with one of the highest reach index scores, second only to the FDA.

“Manufacturers need to overcome their reticence”

It’s well known that patients seek advice and support online often before seeing their primary care provider. “Healthcare professionals, regulators and pharmaceutical manufacturers all need to overcome their reticence and acknowledge the vital role that they can and should play in contributing to the healthcare conversation,” Murray Aitken, executive director of the IMS Institute, said in a statement.

So, if drugmakers want to engage users, build brand loyalty and place themselves in the centre of the online health discussion, then social media is a “necessary evil”. The index shows only 23 of the top pharma companies are participating on social media platforms, and of those only 10 use the three main websites – Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

So which drug companies are experimenting well with social media? Johnson & Johnson is the only one which ranks highly on the Index in a combined measure of audience reach, relevance and interaction.

This is partly due to the large Johnson & Johnson consumer products business. This consumer business helped GlaxoSmithKline take second place, and Pfizer fourth on the Index. Third place is occupied by Novo Nordisk, a smaller firm specialising in diabetes and haemophilia.

So it seems social media is something of an equalizer when it comes to drugmakers, with the industry giants ranked alongside much smaller firms. When the new FDA social media guidelines are finalised more pharma companies may be spured on to use social media, especially when more and more people are relying on online information.