Ogilvy report highlights growing role of social media in pharma marketing

Ogilvy Healthworld has published a new study that demonstrates the growing willingness of pharmaceutical companies to incorporate social media into their comms strategy.

The report analysed ten of the most popular networks for 14 pharma companies across six categories, including social presence, social network, community size, engagement and activity.

It was found that the average number of Tweets by pharmaceutical firms has risen by 530 percent since 2013, with the number of Twitter followers increasing by nearly 300 percent.

However, it was also shown that those companies with the largest social communities are not always the most effective at creating genuine engagement with their users and generating interest.

Businesses that posted frequently and engaged their followers continuously were revealed to generate the best results and highest rates of interaction, particularly in terms of those that kept their networks fresh with regular updates.

Rebecca Canvin, social media manager at Ogilvy Healthworld, said: "For companies who want to stand out from the crowd it's time to be brave, get personal, educate and integrate social media into their wider marketing strategy."