Social Media

Strategy
Workbook

HOW TO BUILD A STRATEGY AND

EVALUATE CURRENT PROGRAMS

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Does Your Social Media Strategy
Need a Reboot?
With weekly changes in the social media landscape,
new channel features to assess, and evolving needs of
the business, pharma marketing professionals are
constantly evaluating and testing new social
strategies, tactics and capabilities.

This social strategy workbook will guide you through

structured question sets to think through as you
organize and outline a plan of action.

DETERMINE WHICH
SCENARIO IS THE BEST FIT.
1. You inherited, or need to evaluate, an existing community or social media program
2. You have had a change in the business that may impact a social media initiative
3. There has been a change in target audience or social media property
4. Your business requires a new program or initiative with a new social media strategy

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Evaluate an Existing Community
or Social Media Program
If you have inherited a social media community or program or need to
re-evaluate one, these are good questions to ask to assess performance and
ensure the program is aligned with current business objectives.

Does the online community or program have

a strategy?

Does it have measures? Do they align to the

current business objectives and measures?
Are they reported regularly?

Are goals set? Are they meeting these goals /

objectives – what is the overall health /
wellness of the community?

Does it have executive visibility? An

executive champion?

Does it match with the current corporate /

product branding, tone, voice?

Is there value in the existing audience? Are

you retaining / growing the audience?

Does the audience take the actions intended

(comment / share or click / consume) Are
there motivators [intrinsic / extrinsic] to
participate?

What are the resources / time needed to

maintain the community or program? Is it
internal resources? Outsourced? Or combo?

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Example
QUATERLY METRICS SCORECARD TIED
TO BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

SCORECARD - FACEBOOK EXAMPLE

GOAL & MEASURE Q3 Q4 QoQ CHANGE COMMENTS

DRIVE AWARENESS

Total Contacts Acquired # # 12%

Facebook Fans # #
CRM Contacts # #

Content Success
Impressions (Reach) # # 5%
Engagement # # 12%

Purchase Behaviors
Loyalty Program Participation # # %
Compliance Monitoring # # %

ACTIVATE HCPS

Content Success
Consumption # # %
Shares # # %

Insights Identified
Number of Insights Shared # # %
Number of Insights Actioned # # %

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Evaluate a Business Change
It’s all too easy to get focused on execution and not take time to pull up and
review your strategy. We recommend quarterly strategy reviews to evaluate
ad programs, content and KPI success, and look for opportunities. You should
review your overall strategy at least once per year.

Did the business objective change?

Did the social media objective change?

Did the product positioning change?

Go global?

Did the product branding or ownership

change?

Did the competitive environment change?

Generics launched? More/less

competitors? Change in their strategy?

Did the executive sponsor change or

leave?

Was there a crisis, FDA letter, activist

focus on the brand / product / social
property?

Did the budget / staffing / resources

change?

Is this a new product or did a new market

open?

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Evaluate a Target Audience
or Social Media Property Change
Change is the constant when it comes to social media. New capabilities and
features are being released weekly, and usage behaviors are rapidly evolving
as well. Think through these questions to ensure you’re still tracking with
your audience.

Did the target audience change, expand or

contract?

Is there still value in the target audience?

Was the product approved for a new

indication or audience?

Did the target audience needs or behaviors

change?

Did the audience or participation move to a

new social media property?

Did a new technology emerge?

Did the platform features, advertising options

or the value of the advertising change?

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Map the Patient Journey across social touchpoints to document motivators,
barriers, behaviors, insights and key opportunities.

TREATMENT RESOLUTION
PATIENT CONDITION SEEK DIAGNOSIS & TREATMENT
CHANGE OR (FOR NON-CHRONIC
JOURNEY EMERGES DIAGNOSIS TREATMENT ABANDONMENT
FAILURE CONDITIONS

WHAT IS PATIENT
GOING THROUGH?
HOW DO THEY
FEEL? WHERE AND
WHAT ARE THEY
SAYING?

Groups
Channel

Social
Networks

FB Condition
PATIENT Groups
PARTICIPATION
MATRIX
Owned
Communities

New
Community

OPPORTUNITIES
TO ADD PATIENT
AID / VALUE

DESIRED
BEHAVIORS

MOTIVATORS
& BARRIERS

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Create a New Social Media Strategy

“Wait - you mean social media marketing costs money?”

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Situation Аnalysis
Describe the current state of your social media presence including supporting
resources, technology, and processes.

1. COMPLIANCE Do you manage adverse events on all

owned channels including mobile and
messaging apps?
Do you have a solution to properly identify,
report, track and manage AEs on social
media?
Do you have the ability to scale AE
management for 24/7 detection with
tagging and routing?
How does this compare to your
competitors social footprint, post and
response frequency?

2. GOVERNANCE Do you have employee social media

guidelines, roles & responsibilities for the
social media team?
How could the process of approving new
social media campaigns and content be
more efficient?
Is there a process to audit regional efforts
with proper business controls?
Is there a documented social brand identity
for the company and / or each product
brand?

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3. COMPETITION Who are your closest competitors?
How large is their following?
How often do they post?
What type of content do they publish?
What’s the level of engagement?

4. TALENT Do you have the right skills required to

participate in social media?
Do you have the right mix of in-house and
agency partner resources?

5. TOOLS Do you have the right software to facilitate

monitoring, engagement and conversations
ensuring patient experience and scale?

6. TONE Are brand mentions positive or negative,

and what are the implications regarding
reaction time and nature of response?

7. TESTING Do you have a process for evaluating and

testing new channels, capabilities?
Have you been able to grow your
engagement in core channels?

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 An effective social strategy is
supported, not defined, by
technology.

FDA compliance is always top of mind when planning social media programs. Ensure your process
includes a hybrid of technology and human agents to guarantee complete coverage.

BEST COMBINATION FOR COMPLIANCE

HUMAN TOUCH

Content is reviewed by agent: Tag content and Escalate as needed

AE? authors for issues and
Reply? insights
Approve?
TECHNOLOGY ENABLED

Simplifies review To ensure compliance, Reduce transmission

process archive source content, error with software
participants, timelines generated AE submission
and actions.

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Goals, Оbjectives & Мetrics
1. Start with your business objectives, and then ensure your social media goals support one or more
of these objectives. Which objectives will this plan impact?

WEBSITE R&D

• Grow trafic • Idea generation

• SEO • Prioritization
• Content creation - marketing • Beta testing / Focus groups
• Product recommendations • Strategic partnering
• Content creation - software

BRAND SALES

• Crisis managment • Product recommendations

• Case studies • Use cases
• Direct communications with customers • Impulse buy
• Find brand advocates • Question & answer- pre-sales
• Personalize the company • Word of mouth marketing
• Corporate or exec branding

SUPPORT INTERNAL COMMUNITY

• Content creation - support • Communication

• Content creation - learning • Knowledge sharing
• Questions and answers • R&D
• New employee education

The single biggest point of failure in social media

programs is not having them tie directly to the
business goals.

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GREAT PROGRAMS DELIVER BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

BUSINESS OBJECTIVES ALIGNED SM OBJECTIVES MEASUREMENTS

BRAND AWARENESS Use SM to contextually insert the • Measure reach, impressions,

brand/product name(s) in front of the engagement on branded content
Increase potential customer strongest group of potential customers • Measure sales lift or traffic to
awareness of brand / product ecommerce pages

• Education & value proposition to • Reach/impressions and engagement

GROW MARKET potential customers on educational content
Create advocates and educate • Share positive reviews • Number & sentiment of reviews
consumers • Coupons for first purchase • Coupon redemption

EXPAND USAGE • Consistent product reminders to • Repurchase sales metrics

incent repurchase • Coupon redemption
Increase repeated use and
• Coupons and incentives for
purchase of product
repurchase

Start with existing business Develop supporting social media Define success metrics
objectives objectives

2. Have you created separate scorecards for stakeholders, partner functions and social tactics with
meaningful metrics for each?

3. Are you trying to define value to your stakeholders in terms they don’t speak? Ex: don’t say
“clicks”, say “leads” to the marketing manager. Don’t say “questions answered” to the customer
service team, say “contacts avoided”.

BUILD A MORE EFFECTIVE SCORECARD

Channel Objective Metric Annual Goal Monthly Goal Monthly Actual Tracking

Positive
Social Media brand Sentiment 90% 80% 83%
perception
Patient Comments,
Engagement shares, likes 35% 25% 29%

Coupon
Conversion redemption 22% 22% 15%

New
Acquisition database 24,000 2,000 1,947
entries

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Target Audience
A successful content strategy starts with defining your target audience, choosing the right
channels, and constructing creative that will ressonnate.

DEFINE DEFINE DEFINE CORRESPONDING

THE CONDITION TOPIC OF INTEREST DEMOGRAPHICS
Such as acid reflux disease Such as acid reduction Most used by middle age,
medication overweight men & women

WHO WHERE LISTENING

is having these are they happening? What conversations can you
conversations? Which channels or networks? find related to the topic?

WHAT WHAT DO THEY NEED? BUILD

are the opportunities How can we help them by personas based on the
to participate or influence? providing information, information you gather
education, support,
resources?

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Strategy & Tactics
There are three key types of social media strategies used by pharma brands: Corporate,
Condition, and Product strategies. Here are example of each:

KEY STRATEGY EXAMPLES

• All products are in a single space or target audience

CORPORATE • Reputational focus such as community giving or thought leadership
• Rebrand of acquired product that was tied to another company

• Raise visibility of a disease journey by an industry leader

CONDITION • Advance your patient journey or shorten diagnosis time
• Social support around the disease

• New product launch

PRODUCT • Well known umbrella brand with lesser known products
• Highly competitive space or high brand recognition of competitor

1. What is your primary social marketing strategy?

Corporate focused
Condition focused
Product focused

2. Broadcast vs. Destination: What is the better approach for your strategy?

Broadcast: Targeted reach in existing communities - go where they already are and become
relevant (push).
Create a new community as a destination to share experiences and gather information (pull).

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Considerations

3. Channel considerations

• Channel strengths and weaknesses

• Limitations of content type, ownership, etc.
• Legal concerns and limitations
• Target audience penetration and access methods
• Cultural brand fit
• Brand resources
• Paid advertising budget
• Social risk level based on content/topic

Social spaces don’t launch themselves; any new social effort

needs advertising and marketing to get off the ground.

4. Content

When broadcasting content,

ensure the copy, creative, tone and calls-to-action fit the channel

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Example campaign creative

Engage to Make Changes & Win

TEST YOUR SMARTS SEE & SOUND OFF CONCENTRATION

Test how well you Watch the “Using My Match the health
understand your health Benefits” video annd insurance terms and
insurance benefits for a share your opinion for a definitions for a chance to
chance to win. chance to win. win.

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Considerations for Destination
Communities
The right content mix will improve participation and engagement rates that result in
increased overall program value.

TYPES OF CONTENT
TYPE DESCRIPTION OBJECTIVE

Content that is about the Engage the audience in further

SOCIAL CONTENT customers, not the brand, designed discussion and create a clear
40%-60% to elicit participation from and reason to continue to
among the participants participate.

Content that refers to the product Drive participants to take

or brand specifically. specific value added actions that
BRAND CONTENT
drive the ROI of the overall
10%-30% program.

Content around the same topical Content that demonstrates

CATEGORY CONTENT area that forms the key value expertise in subject matter and
proposition of the program. extends topics beyond the brand
30%-50% or business objective.

TYPICAL RECOMMENDED
BRAND RATIO BRAND RATIO

}
}
Fewer social & category posts results in
SOCIAL lower number of people engaging with SOCIAL
0%-20% brand posts 40%

CATEGORY
Social & category posts draw more people,
10%-20%
who in turn engage with brand posts

CATEGORY
40%

BRAND
80% BRAND
20%

Source: The CMO’s Social Media Handbook, Peter Friedman 17

 Nobody likes the guy at the party who only talks about himself. Make sure to
balance content topics to keep people engaged.

The brand’s job in social isn’t to create and push the stories. It’s to provide the
framework and rewards that inspire customers to share their own stories.

5. Have you considered using stories (patient, provider, caregiver) to humanize your product or
brand message?

6. Are you planning to monitor only, respond, or engage?

Monitor only
Respond to posts
Engage in conversation

CONTENT MODERATION PROCESS

LiveWorld Platform

Content Pulls in Content is delivered in Moderator reviews

created on SM via API channel streams content in FIFO order
platform

Is content an AE/ Is content a Should the content Does the content

Reportable? Crisis? be removed? require a response?

LW LW LW drafts LW posts
initiates removes response & approved
crisis plan post escalates response

PV Team Brand Teams

Processes the AE and asks Brand reviews response Express approval

any questions needed

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7. How quickly do you respond?

Seconds
Minutes
Hours
Days
Don’t plan to respond (not recommended for engagement programs)

8. Do you plan to respond to negative, positive or all comments?

Negative comments
Positive comments
All comments regardless of sentiment

Determine the right level of conversation

that fits your business need and regulatory True
comfort level. MOST OF Conversations
PHARMA

Approved
Custom
Responses
Brand Scripted
Protection Response
DESCRIPTION

Remove Respond to expected Response is custom Team is able to craft,

unwanted questions with a and personalized to in real time, custom
content scripted response each person but and personalized
approved by manager response

Redirection: Answer includes

EXAMPLE

SPAM General queries person’s name, Custom response

More info context and non-ro- with fastest possible
botic answer response

No matter how many answers you can anticipate, there will always be a need for custom responses.
Creating agreements with your approval teams will vastly improve your response time for custom
responses.

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FAST TRACK / ACCELERATED RESPONSE PROCESS

CONTENT TYPE DEFINITION APPROVERS & PROCESS

• Content that is about the customers, • Approved by the full group of

not the brand, designed to elicit brand, safety and legal team
FULL APPROVAL participation from and among the members
participants • Leverages content approval tool

• Any response that mentions a third • Approved by legal and brand teams.
party of one of the brands or business Select team members have agreed to
FAST TRACK 1 units, or references any public figure, or
includes any PII should be approved by
review via email in set time goals.
• Via email with alert to time
both the Legal and Brand teams. sensitivity alert.

• Responses to questions that don’t • General responses to questions that

have an existing answer, or the answer don’t meet the FT1 or Full approval
needs changes in order to be relevant. can be approved by the brand team.
FAST TRACK 2 This also includes social responses that • Via email with alert to time
do not include direct mention of the sensitivity alert.
brand or a product.

9. What is your crisis / risk mitigation plan?

While we never plan for an increase in negative comments, it’s important to be prepared. Remember
this can range from simple feedback on a piece of content all the way to a full-blown social crisis.

RISK LEVEL DESCRIPTION BENCHMARKS

A series of A single brand mention or A social crisis within • 0-4 a year

complaints or issues issue that has a story with the brand’s industry or • Benchmarks:
LOW: that begins to look significant gravity and product space that has Pharma (Branded,
LEVEL 1 like a trend outrage that it will likely the potencial to spread Disease state and corp),
spread rapidly Lg retail, CPG, banks,
technology

Repetitive posts on a single topic in a set A concern that is gaining • 0-1 a year
MEDIUM: time period and with a certain passion momentum and following on a • Same benchmarks
LEVEL 2 level on a single or on multiple social single or on multiple social
channels channels

Explosive volume of comments on a single or related topics with high passion • 1 every few years
HIGH: levels. The content or audience is aggressively growing. Usually a high risk • Same benchmarks
LEVEL 3 topic with high momentum and high spread often to various channels (FB,
Twitter, Blog, etc.)

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Crises Management Process
To prepare your organization, go through the following steps.

PLANNING

CREATING A PREDICTING PLANNING EARLY ID RESPONSE

RESPONSE TOPICS THE OF EVENTS DRILLS
TEAM LOGISTICS

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Next Steps — Getting to “Yes”

How will you get approval for this

1.
change or new strategy within the
organization?

2. Have you developed a vision that

helps communicate the project
goals and outcomes?

Which people need to contribute,

3.
review, approve and allocate
budget?

4. Which departments need to be

notified before implementation?

5. Do you have sufficient resources to

achieve your stated outcome?

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Where to Start?
Evaluating and planning social marketing
strategies can be challenging. Begin by
DOWNLOAD YOUR
considering the specific outcomes you
FREE COPY OF
want your program to accomplish when

The CMO’s
evaluating social media efforts within the
context of a larger marketing plan.

NEED HELP PLANNING

Social Media
OR EXECUTING YOUR Handbook
VISION?

LiveWorld has helped pharma marketers

navigate social marketing changes to
derive meaningful business value with
compliant programs. We can help you do
the same.

Contact us at
hello@liveworld.com
DM us @LiveWorld

Additional pharma social media Download your free copy of the CMO’s
marketing resources available at Social Media Handbook
www.liveworld.com/reboot www.LiveWorld.com/CMOSMHandbook

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