Jonathan Edwards was a toddler once you know…

Posted on 19. Aug, 2009 by neilcrump in Communications, Health, Industry

The cover story of August’s Pharmaceutical Marketing is entitled ‘Small Steps’. It’s a really smart status update article about web 2.0 engagement by the pharma industry. Chris Ross asked our very own NW1er for Aurora’s perspective on the way the (track and) field of social media use is shaping up.

As pointed out in the article, pharma is being accused of letting social media engagement pass it by. As someone tuned into (read: fascinated and slightly obsessed with) this topic the reasons laid at the door of pharma range from the sublime to the ridiculous including fear and lack of transparency. This couldn’t be further from reality.

The simple truth is that the regulatory and legislative environment in which prescription brands are marketed and communicated about totally prohibits the communication about specific medicines with folk who aren’t healthcare professionals. That’s it, that’s the bottom line – that’s the take-off mark for any communications.

Small steps are being taken and there is some fantastic work being done by a number of pharma companies and their agencies in terms of engagement in areas that are allowed, especially in terms of disease awareness and corporate social responsibility.

The great thing about web 2.0 is that people are out there in the open, contributing, listening and responding. Therefore by the very nature of social media the things learnt by these pharma athletes are shared – they are both athletes and coaches. The people leading the way out there are willing to engage – it’s our personal responsibility as healthcare communicators to get out there and ‘just do it’.

So therefore the small toddler steps underway will ultimately result in a giant Jonathan Edwards sized hop, skip and jump into the healthcare communications sandpit.

PS. I was rubbish at triple jump (and nearly all other sport) at school – although in one year’s school report my PE teacher wrote (much to my parent’s amusement) that I had great ‘bouncing technique’.

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