social media for patient recruitment

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Social Media for Patient Recruitment

Centerwatch/iiBig Forum onOptimizing Clinical Research Performance

17 October 2013

Mary K.D. D’Rozario

MSCR, CCRP, RAC, CCRA

President / Clinical Research Consultant

Clinical Research Performance, Inc.

mary.drozario@crplink.com

@marydrozario

marydrozario

marykddrozario

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Outcomes

Understand changing landscape.

Understand regulation and legal issues.

Identify engagement.

Evaluate the social sales pitch.

Use tools and channels for social content.

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Pharma and Social Media:Changing Landscape

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2008 – 2012 Change in Social Media Marketing as Percent of Marketing Spending

• USA marketing 9% - 20%

• Pharma Industry 4% - 4%

But it is all about to change…

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Internet Promotion Policy

FDASIA Title XI. Section 1121: Internet Promotion Policy Regulation required by July 2014

Not mandated to give clinical research industry any regulation.

BUT:

Will increase expectations as pharma becomes social media savvy with product marketing.

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Rest of the regulatory landscape… there be dragons:

• Social Companies Internal and shared communication platforms.

• Patient Recruitment

• Communication Deviations, such as: Use of personal communication devices. Use of personal social media contacts.

• Everything Else

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FDA Regulation & Other Legal Issues

*I am not a lawyer. I don’t even play one on TV.

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Social Media Advertising Has Special Issues

• Is your IRB comfortable with social media?

• Is your lawyer on board?

• How will you handle replies? Text and Route Out of business hours

• How will you protect the information of those with whom you interact? Once you create a health data set, you have HIPAA

responsibilities.

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Regulatory Compliance: What requires IRB Review

• No: Financial or business articles or releases. “Dear Doctor” letters. A simple list of the study name. General disease information or practice information. Material generated without the practice’s control.

• Patient comments.

• Yes: Anything about the practice’s research activities. Anything communicating information about a study.

OHRP Guidance on Institutional Review Board Review of Clinical Trial Websites, 20 September 2005http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/policy/clinicaltrials.html

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Regulatory Compliance: Process

• Submit all posts and reply spreadsheet to IRB.

• Document all posts and replies.

What method does your IRB require?

What method does the sponsor require?

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Other Legal Issues

• If you host social media…

…you may have responsibilities as a publisher.

• General liability

How will you reply to disgruntled or slanderous patients?

Do you have a staff social media policy?

• FTC .com Guidelines – online advertising compliance

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It’s All About Engagement

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Engagement is…

Acknowledging that patients are people first and meeting them where they live.

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Social Media is…

Social, with media.

It is not easy.

It is not free.

And…

Not all digital media is social.

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If you post your own media:

• Know your audience. Your audience are “lurkers”

• Know what you are saying means. To your audience, and to the wider world.

• Be prepared for replies.

• Give more than you ask- provide value.

• Your tips?

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Some General Principles of Advertising

• Determine your goal Who do you want to reach? What do you want them to do?

• Find your audience Is your audience segmented? Which segment is the priority? Where do they hang out? Who do they follow?

Social Media:

Show your face!

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Evaluate the Social Media Sales Pitch

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Does it integrate with your patient recruitment and retention plan?

“Social media is an obvious consideration for patient recruitment -- the patients are already there discussing their healthcare options, costs, and concerns. If nothing else, social listening presents a golden opportunity to learn and apply lessons to trial messaging. ” – Lani Hashimoto

Does it involve social listening?

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Is it really social… can it defy Dunbar’s number?

• Symbols

• Signs

• Rules

• Culture

Gossieaux F. & Moran, E.K. (2010.) The hyper-social organization: Eclipse your competition by leveraging social media. New York: McGrawHill

If it isn’t social, it might

“just” be digital- and that

is okay!

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“If your community cannot survive in a bulletin board, it will not survive anywhere.”

-Scott Wilder, Intuit VP of Communities

Gossieaux F. & Moran, E.K. (2010.) The hyper-social organization: Eclipse your competition by leveraging social media. New York: McGrawHill

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Where are the users coming from?

• What is the path from life to this community?

• Would your target patients follow that path?

• Does the path cross a point where you are already visible?

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Tools and Channels for Social Media

(Great for building material for digital media and traditional advertising too.)

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The Heathcare Hashtag Project

http://www.symplur.com/healthcare-hashtags/

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Google Keyword Tool

*Instructions for accessing tool in resources at end of slides.

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Places to Listen (and possibly message)

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Familiar Channels

• YouTube, SlideShare

• Facebook, Google+

• Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr

• Patient Forums

• Craigslist

Use channels

you –-or the person

you hire--

understand.

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Messaging Principles

• Make it simple. One click rule.

• Give them somewhere to go. Website, facebook page, phone number… What do you want them to do?

• Give them a reason to pay attention to you. Consistent stream of information.

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Twitter Case Study: Mayo Clinic

click click

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Facebook Case Study: MD Anderson

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Pinterest Case Study: St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

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YouTube Case Study: UNC Hospitals

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gokYh23d-9w

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Resources

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Social Messaging Content – Further ReadingAnn Handley & C.C. Chapman. (2012). Content Rules: How to create killer blogs, podcasts, videos, ebooks, webinars (and more) that engage customers and ignite your business (New Rules Social Media Series). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Robert W. Bly. (2007). The Copywriter’s Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Copy That Sells. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, LLC

Randy Olson. (2009). Don’t Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style. Washington: Island Press

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Social Media Tools

• Hootsuite.com

• Klout.com – free quick-and-dirty measure of social media impact

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Social Companies – Further Reading

Mark Fidelman. (2013). Socialized!: How the Most Successful Businesses Harness the Power of Social. Brookline, MA: Bibliomotion, Inc.

IMB. (2012). IBM executive brief: social business behavior. [Need to search on google and provide IBM information to access white paper.

Gossieaux F. & Moran, E.K. (2010.) The hyper-social organization: Eclipse your competition by leveraging social media. New York: McGrawHill

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Social Media for Advertising – Further Reading

Jennifer Grappone & Gradiva Couzin, (2010). Search Engine Optimization: An Hour A Day. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing

There are a ton of good books and a ton of good free information, this just happens to be one good book I read.

Cami Gearhart, JD. (December 2012). IRB Review of the Use of Social Media in Research. The Monitor.

Oglivy Washington & The Center for Social Impact Communication at Georgetown University. (November 2010). Using Social Media Platforms to Amplify Public Health Messages. Published at http://smexchange.ogilvypr.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/OW_SM_WhitePaper.pdf

Tip: Follow some SEO experts on Twitter to get advice in manageable chunks.

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Google KeyWord Tool (part 1)

• Have a google account and be signed in.• Go to https://adwords.google.com• If you have not already signed in for adwords, it

will ask you to confirm your location and time zone.  It will then tell you that you can’t buy an ad until after you give them payment information.  (Don’t worry- you won’t “accidentally” buy an ad).

• Now you will be on the adwords dashboard.   On the green bar click on “tools and analysis” and then click on “keyword planner.”

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Google KeyWord Tool (part 2)

• Click on the first choice “search for keyword and ad group ideas”.

• Under “your product or service” try a keyword.  It doesn’t have to be a product or service, just any keyword someone might use that gets to you.  I did “career coach” for an example.  Only do one term at a time- you get WAY more than enough to think about with each term.

• You will see a list of similar “keyword ideas” and “ad group ideas” on two tabs.  Two columns in the middle are how often someone searches that word and a word “high, medium, low” for how many other websites use that word.

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Questions