PM Society Digital Update: digital summary

Last week's PM Society Digital Update meeting, hosted by Janssen-Cilag, showed some of the enthusiasm for digital media within the industry. The event sold out within a week - does that suggest, BrandcastHealth asked on Twitter, that  "UK Pharma is starting to engage in the conversation?"

We'll have a full in-depth report about the event - covering the presentations and discussions in much more detail - online shortly, but to give you a flavour of the evening and some of the issues covered, here are the slides from presentations by speakers Steve Gray, Managing Director, Compliance Hub Ltd. and Alex Butler, Communications Manager at Janssen-Cilag, both also members of the PM Society Digital Marketing Working Group, alongside a selection of tweets from those attending on the night.

Steven Gray's presentation provided an overview of the questions that the PM Society Digital Marketing Working Group had summarized for a report submitted to the PMCPA at the end of January.

Issues addressed by the PM Society Digital Marketing Working Group were clearly important to a lot of attendees, and many of the questions raised on Twitter were about how the Code dealt with user generated content on websites:

haroldbish:        Heather says no to live online chat on their site or (probably) a sponsored site
StuartHehir:        Most popular question relates to user generated conent - as it stands, steer clear of chat rooms!
BrandcastHealth:        Pre-moderation of UGC content on pharma sites recommended in point 23a - but who would bother if not done in real-time?
haroldbish:        Newsfeeds into website should be judged on a case by case basis- depends on content and audience

The points raised on the roles of SEO and advertising on Pharma websites were also discussed:

BrandcastHealth:        Now discussing how banner ads should be regarded under the code - Wow, does anyone actually do these? So Web 1.0 thinking :-)
haroldbish:        Ltd amount of banner ads permited on a site. Does this apply to advertising an edu site on an edu site? Why is a limit? Confused
Dominic_Tyer:        Can seo be used for pharma websites? When does it become disguised promotion?
creativelondon:        How are UK pharma regs proposing to determine if our SEO stategy is too clever?

Speaker Alex Butler's presentation on Health 2.0 appeared to be popular with the audience

BrandcastHealth:        Alex - social media is the greatest change to healthcare for more than a generation 
Garymonk:        @alex_butler great to see such specific examples in ur presentation! Nice work.
haroldbish:        There are risks, & recent notable facebook fail. Strategy & proper thinking in a public forum needed
hackettsimon:        @Alex__Butler got it in one - we have to be genuinely interested in what people have to say and forming long term relationships
StuartHehir:        New approach to adverse events - build online communities to capture events instead of avoiding them
haroldbish:        Great talk @alexbutler. Final point: let's see how we can add value to the industry not focus on what pharma can't do
BrandcastHealth:        @alex_butler gave refreshingly open presentation: is pharma ready to join the community, add value and listen to their customers

The debate continued after the event and well into the next day, too, with discussions about the implications about what had been covered:

Garymonk:        I look forward to stress testing these proposed new pharma digital/social media guidelines :)
fision:        I'm going to be controversial and say there is a lot you can within the code, it's how you read, interpret and justify.
sammielw:        Any thoughts on #pmdigi are pharma in UK going to wake up in the morning and understand they can use digital & social media within the code?
andrewspong:       there's no need to 'steer clear of chatrooms' if you're not saying or doing anything (promo) that breaches the code. #infonotpromo
andrewspong:        @haroldbish If so, are we then in the realms of 'yeah, but then what's in it for pharma?' Answer is: trust, +rep, convo, PROs, ...
haroldbish:        @andrewspong Agreed, Pharma should look to improve h/care in general, BUT, not with UGC -not yet- accord to Heather Simmonds
Alex__Butler:        @haroldbish There is nothing in code against UGC, it depends what is being said! Moderation is not about censorship-we HAVE to do it
Alex__Butler:        @JamesHarper I do understand ur concerns, I believe it is up to pharma to start to process through implementation & not just theory


If you’d like to join the conversation, follow the PM Society on Twitter and use the hashtag #pmdigi. All tweets are published as they appeared on Twitter and remain property of their authors. If you'd like to get started with Twitter, but aren't sure how, Twitter offers this useful guide for business users.

With thanks to speakers Alex Butler, Jonathan Richman, Steve Gray and Heather Simmonds, and to everyone who Twittered during the evening, particularly BrandcastHealth, StuartHehir, hackettsimon, Dominic_Tyer, creativelondon,  haroldbish, andrewspong, sammielw, fision and Garymonk. A full report on this event will be published shortly.