I’ve been back in the UK for a week now after a very busy and enjoyable two days in Berlin for the EyeforPharma (Twitter hashtag #efp) e-marketing conference. I was representing Nitro Digital so on duty at our stand, but fortunate enough to catch all the talks given by the brave souls willing to talk to the amassed crowd of 200 or so delegates.
I was impressed with the standard of the speeches, but overall I don’t think that the content was a massive departure from the previous year. The tone and enthusiasm from the speakers and those in the audience however, was different. What was interesting for me was that although this was about digital marketing everything seemed to come back to social media, or web2.0 (they’re catch-all phrases really). However, some of the more easily achieved digital marketing tactics are still not really embraced by pharma. It almost feels like a case of trying to run before you being able to walk.
To market around the ‘code’ restrictions using search engine marketing is much, much easier than using social media. Jonathan Richman recently made the case for email marketing in his excellent ‘Dose of Digital’, but I think ‘search’, both natural and paid, in the UK is even better. Build it and they will not come, but sign-post it to them in search engines and they will. The result? Bucket loads of relevant traffic. The hard part is in then providing quality content and engagement, but that’s a whole other issue (and a bit social).
I’m not knocking enthusiasm for social media. Not a bit of it, I love its potential for changing the landscape for communications, but specifically for HCP comm’s and ultimately patient care. It’s a shift for one to one communications, so it’s really important that people understand it and embrace it.
So, what I’d like to know from anyone at the #efp conference is, did the talks or any of the resulting discussion change anyone’s perception of social media in healthcare?
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