Social Media Marketing Challenges in the Biotech Industry

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Posted on January 31, 2024 by marc meyer

I once heard this line in a podcast, “Take what’s important and make it interesting.” It resonated with me immediately. If there was ever a direct call to action for all that we do in social media, particularly social media marketing in the biotech space, then that would be it.

I don’t see a lot of “how-to-do” social media marketing articles that focus on the biotechnology industry, and there’s probably a good reason for that. It’s hard. To counterbalance that, I thought this might be a good opportunity to talk about the challenges of navigating through it with a clear path and understanding of what it’s going to take to “win”.

I’ve been in the biotech space with Revvity, for the last three years. Overall, I’ve been in the social media “space” for over 15 years, so I’d like to think I’m fairly qualified to lean in on the topic of social. Depending on your background and experience, I may be preaching to the choir here, but the bottom line is this; The social media challenges that exist in biotech are no different than they are in retail, tech, finance, or sports.

It’s Always Going to be About Content.

Till the cows come home, it’s always going to revolve around content frequency, freshness, and the types of content that are created. At a high level, we can chisel that previous sentence into the side of a mountain. Factor in strict FDA and FTC guidelines and sprinkle in some HIPPA compliance for extra measure and your team has quite the mountain to scale. Fresh content or not, you’re probably asking yourself, how can I tell my company’s story if I’m not allowed to “really” tell my company’s story?

The challenges, however, are this, and I think this is applicable across all industries. Once you get past the creation of said content (including copy, image, and landing page), and of course making sure you’re coloring inside the lines of whatever industry you are in, you’re not done. The emphasis then shifts to the audience and the platform. Is your stuff being seen by the right people on the right platform?

In other words, you must ask yourself (and your internal teams) if creating a TikTok video on cell and gene therapy geared towards chief scientists is really going to have the same impact as a gated white paper on the same topic offered up on LinkedIn. For now, I think we can say with some confidence that at least from a chief scientist’s point of view, they are not gathering market intelligence on cell and gene therapy solutions from TikTok.

As if your content, audience, and platform selection aren’t enough to keep you up at night, let’s factor in the desired outcomes of your content? What is the desired outcome that you want from that content piece? What do you want the chief scientist to do? Let me just say, you don’t have much time to get them to the dance…on time..

The Right Content + The Right Audience = The Possibility of Some Type of Action

At its most basic, fundamental level, you must fish where the fish are. Are we trying to cast a wide net? Sure, we are. But we’re also looking for a specific type of fish that might be interested in our bait. For starters, and this may seem silly, but you must ask yourself another pointed question, and that is, is your audience online? Are your decision-makers online? If so, in what capacity? What do they do when they are online? What types of content are being consumed by them or offered up to them? Do they engage with the content?

All of these answers can be partly arrived at by setting up social listening posts, which is highly recommended. At a high level, your listening posts will tell you IF they are out there, what are the content types being offered up to them, what’s working, and what’s being said. Listening posts, done correctly can give you a lay of the land of what’s possible. I highly suggest that you set this up and you always leave it on. Those insights will fuel your content ideas and your messaging.

When I was with Accenture, we had internal discussions amongst ourselves and with stakeholders every day with the primary goal of trying to understand what content would resonate with our target audiences (white papers, infographics, industry data, videos, our latest thought leadership, etc., etc.), where did they want to consume it (usually LinkedIn but not always), and when did they consume it (on the way into work, at lunch or on the way home). If you and your teams are NOT having those types of conversations, then you’re just yelling into the void.

It’s imperative to dig into your audience personas. i.e., the who, what, why, when, where, and how that comprises your target audience. Your audience IS online, you just have to find the sandbox that they’re playing in. In the past, we have found that LinkedIn user groups have been mildly successful from a targeting standpoint but even that can sometimes be an inexact science as well-, but it is worth trying.

For the sake of this discussion, we must assume that your target audience is online and is impatiently waiting for your creative message/post. You must understand that not all audiences are like you. In other words, there’s a high likelihood that they are NOT in front of a machine from 9:00 to 5:00 like you. Thus, you have very little time to get their attention. The window is half closed already. Thus, you must put yourself in their shoes. Give them what they want, how they want it, and in a manner that doesn’t waste their time.

Picture yourself as the customer. Where do you go for your information? Where do you go for market intelligence? How do you like your content packaged and delivered?

And thus, assuming you have done the work, it comes full circle. You found your audience and now you have to give them what they want.

What is good content?

In our example above we mentioned chief scientists who hung out on LinkedIn. Why not Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter/X? Simply put, LinkedIn has the best distribution of executives, chief scientists, lab managers, and essentially all of the target audiences we are interested in as a biotech organization.

So, if we’re now thinking about that particular piece of content that will resonate with our targeted audience on LinkedIn, then there are a couple things in play. Do we create long-form pieces of content? A video? An infographic? Or do we go with short-form, staccato-like pieces of content? What should the CTA or call to action be that can drive the user to a landing page? See, there are a lot of different variables there that can affect performance. But at the end of the day, let’s decide. Let’s commit to a strategy and consistently measure it. Let’s think about what we want to do here. We have a piece of content. We want to get the most eyeballs on it. We want to get the most qualified eyeballs on it, and we want them to act on it. Are these things possible? They are, but you have to put the work in to understand the lay of the land. It’s no different than scouting your opponent in sports, doing your homework so that you’re prepared the next day or practicing your scales in music.

The last that I’ll add is that you should “always be testing”. One thing that working in social media will always afford you is a front-row seat to people and organizations trying new things. You should do the same. Start with different types of creative, copy or calls to action. Test them against each other. See what resonates and what doesn’t. The proof will be in the metrics and the metrics will be your friend. Be data-driven. Cancel that, be data-obsessed. It will tell you whether you’re fishing where the fish are and whether the bait you have, is working. Now go forth and take what’s important and make it interesting, your chief scientists are waiting for you!

Five Simple Rules for Better Tweeting [Infographic]

Posted on October 6, 2015 by marc meyer

Often times reading Twitter feeds can seem almost post-apocalyptic. A vast wasteland of nothing. You scroll through your feed and you see nothing redeeming. Fun fact, we used to refer to the World Wide Web with the same disdain. It essentially was the wild, wild, west where anything goes and anything went. Some think that’s no longer the case. never fear, there’s always Twitter.

Twitter has, for quite some time, completely supplanted the title of THE place where anything and everything can be said in an uber public setting. Again, some think that that’s no longer the case either. But I digress.

What people think is tweet worthy can sometimes waffle between the sublime and the absurd. Where does that come from? A lack of understanding? Context? Of what might be compelling?

My guess is it may be because of a lack of ground rules or better yet, a lack of golden rules. For that reason, the cracker jack team at Digital Response Marketing Group, has decided to offer up 5 simple rules for better tweeting.

Don’t Mistake Activity for Effectiveness in Social Media

Posted on March 23, 2015 by marc meyer

The world of the content marketer/social media marketer is changing. I had mentioned in a previous post how it resets every day. When it does reset, we no longer are responding to what our readers, followers and fan say as much as we’re responding to what the analytics tell us in regards to consumption habits and trends from the previous day. What that tells us and what a lot of old school social media marketers will tell you (old school being about eight years… ) is that the art of engagement has now become a science. The conversations, have been lost.

How do we get back to our roots, to that happy place, to that place where social is social again?

Mack Collier talked recently about how Twitter just isn’t the same anymore and blames it on a lack of conversation and in a recent New York Times piece on specializing to survive this quote jumped out at me:

“It’s becoming harder and harder to separate the wheat from the digital chaff. The problem with the Internet is anyone can post, so it’s hard to know whether you are looking at a fact or pseudofact, science or pseudoscience.”

Clearly, we are all suffering from a need for speed. A rush to crank the content out. We’re so enamored with the platforms that allow us to say something quickly, or publish or push out a piece of content in just 2-3 clicks, that we have lost our way. We have lost our ability to have conversations and in our desire to want conversations. In fact brands and the companies that monitor brands have even redefined engagement. Just go look up the definition.

The definition of engagement is that … there is no definition!

We can fix this though. It’s simple and it’s in the title of this post. Don’t mistake your social media activity for social media effectiveness. Measure your effectivensss in connections made and conversations had and realtionships created; and not on the quantity of what your pushing out and the number of places that you’re pushing it out on. All that does is dilute the message.

The One Mistake Every Marketer Makes with Social Media Every Day

Posted on March 18, 2015 by marc meyer

I promise you that what I’m about to say is worth reading. Before I elaborate though, let me stress that I am qualified to post something so link-baitish as this. I’ve been knee deep in social for the better part of 8 years. So much so, that it seems that not a year goes by now where I either hear or read about how social media doesn’t work or is useless or is dying. Let me put that notion to bed quickly. It does work, it is not useless and it is not dying any time soon. If anything, social media might be the Benjamin Button of digital these days.

But I digress. You’re not here to read about my justifications of all things social, you’re here to learn one thing, so let’s do it.

If you work in social media for either a small org or the largest of the large, chances are, your work life revolves primarily around content. You have tools to discover it and you have platforms to schedule it within and you have ways you can automate it. It’s tailored to your company and it speaks to your audience. You may set it and forget it and then move on to the next task on your social media to-do list.

Additionally, part of your social media manager duties may include looking at the data, i.e. looking at the numbers. What was the reach? How many impressions? How many likes or shares? How many retweets and how many mentions? Yes they are soft metrics, but they still do matter. It’s how you measure the effectiveness of your content, right? They may even be part of your KPI’s. If you are seriously managing a social media campaign, then you may be looking at CTR’s to a specifically tailored page to grab data, to allow downloads, signups and registrations; stuff that actually moves the needle. Or as a lot of CMO’s are looking for these days: Business Outcomes.

The key being that all of your social media activity above, is just that, it’s ACTIVITY.

But is that enough? Let me ask you a simple question. If I asked you to engage with the people, the followers, the brand champions of your product or your brand, could you do it? If I asked you to be the subject matter expert for your company, product and industry for the social media handles that you manage, could you do it? Can you represent your brand via social without sounding like a novice? Can you hold your own, representing the company, in a space that YOUR company is supposed to own? Do you see what I’m getting at?

The biggest mistake that I see a lot of brands and companies making is discounting the notion that social media activity is not a front-line activity for the brand. Forgetting that sometimes for potential customers, buyers, partners and vendors, their first encounter or engagement with a brand, might be… wait for it… via social.

If you manage a social media team or if you’re the director of marketing or even the CDO or CMO, let’s make sure that some of your most knowledgable people of the brand are doing social; instead of the person who has platform experience but no real world brand experience. Don’t make the mistake of undervaluing the power of educated engagement in social media. It’s tough to influence the influencers if you don’t know what you’re talking about. 🙂

The Reality of Social Currency

Posted on November 20, 2013 by marc meyer

One of the tougher jobs on any given days in the digital space is the curation and or the creation of good content. It’s everywhere and sometimes it doesn’t matter what RSS feeds ot Flip Boards or whatever you use to find it, it can slip through the cracks. Case in point, this morning I came across an interview with Erich Joachimsthaler, a former Harvard professor, author of over 40 articles & two books on brand strategy and the CEO of Vivaldi Partners Group. The interview, conducted by Steve Olenski on Explore B2B was titled: What Twinkies Can Teach Marketers About Comebacks And Social Branding.

Though it was a great read, I was struck by two particular exchanges that I’m semi-condensing. Pay attention to what Joachimsthaler says about social metrics.

Steve Olenski: What are some of things Hostess has done right in re-introducing and re-engaging the Twinkies brand with its fans in your opinion?

Erich Joachimsthaler: They have done well by building on key drivers of social currency mainly conversation, advocacy and affiliation (#cakeface instagram, etc). That is, the comeback campaign sought to activate loyalists and fans through various efforts on social networks. The good part about this effort is that it stretches the marketing dollars because it creates more visibility and awareness for the re-launch. At best, the effort creates some awareness to consideration conversion. The problem with this effort is that it does not lead toward purchase and loyalty.

The category requires constant and always-on top of mind marketing/PR buzz and it is hard to sustain such effort on social channels alone, and media advertising which is relatively expensive and not sustainable. I would say, it is impossible in today’s media cluttered environment, and consumers’ who tend to have ever shorter attention spans.

Olenski: How can Hostess ensure this (Twinkies return) will be a sustained effort and not just a fad that will eventually fade?

Joachimsthaler: Don’t be misled by social media metrics, likes, fans, and followers. It has about 650,000 likes on Facebook, compare this to more than 17 million for Nutella and 34 million for Oreo for example. Don’t measure the re-launch and sustained success on these metrics. Sustainable success will require driving consideration to purchase conversion and purchase to loyalty conversion. Those are the social currency metrics that really matter.

What caught my eye?

Social currency metrics worth measuring are driving consideration to purchse conversion and purchase to loyalty conversion.
Don’t be misled by social media metrics, likes, fans, and followers.
The key drivers of social currency are conversation, advocacy and affiliation

I know you’ve read and heard it all before about social currency and social metrics, or maybe not, but sometimes the message can resonate in different ways depending on the context in which it is said. In this context, it was said matter of factly. Well done!

15 Things I’ve Learned from 138 Social Media Tweetchats

Posted on December 8, 2011 by marc meyer

More than 2 years ago Jason Breed and I decided to create a Tweetchat. The format was pretty simple, we would find a killer, compelling host in the social space, like a Beth Harte who was our very first host, and we’d pick a killer, topical, compelling, subject. After we settled on the topic, we would collaborate on 3 questions and off we would go to promote it for the following Tuesday. We also decided to create a killer, award winning, website thanks to developer Terry Mckyton that would captures all of the conversations in real time and even allows you to tweet from the site, but other than that, we were ready to go have Tweetchats. Boom.

When Jason first called me, he was looking for ways to brand his previous company. At the time, the Tweetchat, “Journchat“, was on fire and that was our inspiration. In the course of about a 1 minute conversation, Hashtagsocialmedia was born. We had no idea that 2 years and 138 tweetchats later, “Hashtag” as we call it would still be chugging along.

So what have I learned?

1) Tweetchat’s don’t work w/o participation. From having great hosts to having great participants, you need both to succeed.

2) The content comes from the crowd. The gold is in the conversations.

3) Trolls can easily be exposed and don’t last long, but contrarians can bring balance and perspective.

4) There is always a retweetable soundbite that can sum up the discussion. Always.

5) There is never a shortage of topics though some seem to be more popular than others.

6) Passion is never on short supply.

7) Smart people are everywhere.

8. The generosity of the hosts has always surprised me and yet doesn’t.

9) The value of the conversations lasts longer than the Tweetchat

10) We can always learn and takeaway something even from sub-par Tweetchats

11) Every Tweetchat will be different. No two are the same.

12) There is a ton of room for growth for all Tweetchats.

13) There needs to be a next gen level of Tweetchats

14) Businesses, brands and companies should incorporate tweetchats into their marketing mix

15) People actually learn from tweetchats.

I could easily come up with 123 more “things” I have learned, because I have learned something from each and every one of them, but the point is, there is always a takeaway. In fact, not only have I grown from these Tweetchats, but also from the half dozen others that I pop in to from time to time. The bottom line is that Tweetchats are a tremendous opportunity to network, grow and expand your user, knowledge and friend base to the nth degree.

I’m better because of our Tweetchat, I’m better because of the people I’ve met from them, and I know it brings value to others and that makes me feel pretty damn good. Tweetchats work. So tell me, have you participated in our or any Tweetchat? What has been your experience?

There are no take backs in social media…

Posted on January 27, 2011 by marc meyer

Originally I was going to write about how NFL players not playing this past Sunday were tweeting during the NFC championship game about how Quarterback Jay Cutler seemed to NOT want to go back in the game because of a perceived injury to his knee, how he was not tough, how he was soft, how he lacked heart. Little did they know that he was actually hurt. They were reacting more to his body language, to what the camera showed us or by what was being said or not said during the telecast. Little did they know that thousands were reading what they were tweeting.

I was going to talk about how the players NOT PLAYING tweeted things I’m sure in hindsight they wish they could have taken back about one of their peers. How they didn’t know the impact this was going to have. How Jay Cutler couldn’t even defend himself given that the game was going on. It was compounded by how quickly it became viral over the course of the next 24-48 hours. Some players retracted what they said through additional tweets AFTERWARDS but the fact of the matter was that the tweets are there to be seen, searched and read by thousands. FOREVER!

Well if this authority figure or this well known former or current player said it or thought it or tweeted it, it must be right? It must be true. Right???

Yep I was going to talk about how athletes should be careful of what they say about themselves or others especially on social networks. Until it happened to me. This is one of those valuable lessons that includes more than public figures. It’s about you and me and how we treat others. And I feel awful about it. Let me give you a quick background.

I joined a private group in Facebook. It was a fun irreverent group of like minded professionals initially talking about the stuff, the challeneges , and the issues we face every day. But the tone of the group slowly shifted or evolved into something I didn’t really recognize anymore. I felt somewhat uneasy about the change and actually thought about leaving the group prior to; but I still fired up the machine to see what was being talked about and to contribute.

What happened was I got caught up in the bashing of a colleague and peer who I have respect for. He wasn’t there to defend himself. He wasn’t part of the group. It wasn’t fair. It’s one thing to critique a blog post-Hey we all write crappy ones from time to time, but taking it down a notch was not fair. I didn’t defend him, I joined in and kicked him too! It was there for people to read and comment on what I said. Most didn’t notice but I did. It’s bothered me ever since. I know better. Not just the fact that it was on a social network but this has to do with civility and respect.

Afterwards, a good friend who was there and who actually defended this person, took the time to point out to me that I was better than that. She was right. I just wish I had realized it before. Sure it was in a private Facebook group but I can’t take back what I did and naming names does me or this blog post no good, but there’s a valuable lesson here. It’s one in which I’ve told companies about and probably fuels a lot of their trepidation of social media engagement.

Once it’s out there, it’s out there for everyone to see. It’s in ink not pencil

Sometimes, the hardest lessons are the ones you have to experience first hand. The NFL players who tweeted about Jay Cutler probably wish they could take back what they said, and so do I. It’s not part of what I am about. I can do better. I apologize. Like I said, there are no take backs in social media.

The Intersection of Customer Service and Social Media

Posted on July 2, 2010 by marc meyer

The conversational divide…

I have a couple of quick questions: Does social media allow customers to get their issues resolved quicker than if they were to use traditional means? Does whining via social media move you to the head of the line? In a recent article in Adage the answer may be yes but below the surface there is an easier explanation.

If I’m a disgruntled customer, or just someone that is trying to get something resolved with a company I’m doing business with, chances are I’m going to go the traditional route; Phone, email, live chat, trouble ticket, phone again..It’s what I know-it’s how I am conditioned. Right?

What if I’m getting nowhere? And I know this social media thing might give me any time access to a company to get my problem resolved? Or at least to be heard? I should do it, right? Absolutely!

On the flip side, If the company is listening and monitoring, that company now has a chance because of social media, to get it right or to fix things before they spiral out of control. Right? And let’s face it, all the customer wants is to get their problem solved-that’s all.

But if said company screws it up, or if I’m getting nowhere-what were my options in the past? Does this look familiar? Phone, email, live chat, trouble ticket, phone again..It’s what I know-it’s how I am conditioned.

According to Pete Blackshaw of Nielsen Online Digital Strategic Services, he thinks that social media is disrupting the harmony between departments when it comes to dealing with irate customers.

I say screw that. That’s their problem, not mine. I’m the customer and now finally, the tables have been turned. Social media is my ally. Treat me right and I’ll tell everyone how great your company is-if you don’t, then watch out.

#SocialMedia Tweetchat #35-Stop Campaigning & Start Conversing – The New Marketing Paradigm

Posted on November 23, 2009 by marc meyer

Build a relationship, garner trust and a customer will never leave. Sounds pretty easy!? In fact we have been talking about it since the dawn of time (social media time anyway) with the Cluetrain Manifesto that started in 1999 and identified that the Internet has forced marketing to be more about conversations than messages. Since then we have Valeria Maltoni the Conversation Agent (a past moderator here), a great book called Naked Conversations written by Shel Israel (an upcoming moderator) and Robert Scoble and countless other examples. So why is it that companies still market via campaigns and agencies still win business with this approach?

A classic example of movement for the sake of motion? Possibly. Consider all the money and effort that goes into concept, strategy, creative, execution of marketing campaigns. Brands spend all that time creating a pitch to consumers, introducing themselves time and time again, selling stuff to unwilling customers then when it’s done, they see how much product was sold, cut off the pitch to those customers and prospects then rinse and repeat the whole daunting process all over. So where is the conversation part of this we have been talking about now for at least 10 years? Not the cordial, “wave to each other at a cocktail party” conversation but the relationship conversation that lasts for months, years or longer? The conversation where you find out what each other needs and wants (notice I said both), you know, a real relationship not a manufactured one.

So what does that look like and how do marketers break out of the campaign mentality? Think about the impact of this scenario: A company with multiple brands has a consolidated marketing department focused on customer relationships. They are in charge of courting the consumer and understanding how they live, work and play. From that relationship, the company understands what products (Brands) can help that customer and how they add value to that consumer’s life. Then the Brands become stewards for helping those customers buy the things they need (considering people like to buy things yet do not like to be sold). The company pours their monies into acquiring a customer once then facilitating their purchases across the various products. This is very different than what happens today as each Brand pays to acquire the same customers over and over across all brands independently. This may be some utopian dream to many but the speed of communicating and the ubiquity of access to communicate is forever changing the old norms and customers have left that station. Companies need to figure out how to adapt and soon.

We are very happy to have Tom Martin moderating this topic on tuesday. Tom spends a lot of time in this space covering all aspects of branding, marketing and social media and brings a creative approach to his work. He will help us work through this topic and facilitate a great learning opportunity for all of us. The topic and questions will be:

Stop Campaigning and Start Conversing – The New Marketing Paradigm

1) What is the difference between a marketing campaign and a customer conversation?

2) How do agencies have to change in order to create conversations instead of campaigns?

3) What are some examples of brands or agencies that have succeeded in making the jump from campaign to conversation?

The chat will take place Tuesday 11/24 at noon EST. We will use the #sm35 for the event