Pharma brands should take Facebook changes in moderation

Will pharma respond to Facebook's news with the Home Alone face? Or will this be a first step toward pharma accepting social media in moderation? (Photo from mylot.com)

You may have heard the buzz already, but earlier this month, word leaked at the DTC national convention that sometime this summer Facebook is going to take away the ability for regulated industries – specifically pharma – to turn off comments on Facebook fan pages.

What do the new rumored Facebook changes mean for pharma brands?

At the DTC national convention earlier this month, it was announced that Facebook is going to change its policy so no brands, regardless of regulatory conditions, can disable comments on a fan page. The rules will impact all pharma-sponsored pages with the following exceptions:

• Pages that promote, talk about, or support prescription drugs or devices
• Pages that focus on a disease state where there is only one prescribed treatment (even if the page doesn’t mention the treatment)
• Disease-state/therapeutic area pages that have the PI/ISI on the page

Facebook has yet to publicly confirm the announcement. But whether it happens this summer or not, it is likely to happen sometime in the near future. When fan pages have no comments, Facebook loses advertising dollars. Plus, word is Facebook has been deluged with requests for customize fan pages with no comments from brands in regulated industries.

So what does this mean to pharma brands on Facebook? Well, it probably means a lot of communicators in regulated industries are going to make that face Macaulay Culkin made in Home Alone. More than anything, it should mean a new focus on moderation:

• As it relates to tracking online conversation
• And as it relates to the speed with which these brands should expect a change in social media mentality to take place

Moderation and policy creation

People like rules. Actually they crave them. This is counsel we give to our clients all the time. When they ask about the risks of social media, I always ask “Do you have a policy?”

When we help people understand the difference between right and wrong, they’re actually more likely to do what’s right and avoid what’s wrong, no matter how many eye rolls you get.

Since the FDA continues to put off providing pharma companies with social media guidance, both the social networks, as the Facebook news shows, and industry are starting to do it for them. Certain pharma brands like Boehringer Ingelheim have already opened the door and turned fan page comments on, accompanied by a policy announcement asking fans to “help keep us from getting in trouble with our lawyers.”

BI and other pharma brands that haven’t turned comments off are moderating the conversations on their fan pages and most have posted a policy as a custom tab. In addition to sharing a policy, other recent Facebook enhancements make moderation easier that it has been in the past:

• Moderation and profanity blocklist. Fan page admins can access these via their page settings. Enter words you don’t want to appear on your fan page – e.g. name of a drug or treatment, curse words – and this tool will block any comments that contain those words.
• E-mail notifications. Page admins can now receive e-mail notifications whenever a comment is posted to their page. This makes it easier to moderate and see if a comment needs to be addressed or removed based on the policy.

Changing expectations through moderation

If pharma’s hand is going to be forced and the price of admission on Facebook is going to be allowing conversation, then developing a policy and a moderation strategy are going to be essential for these brands. And for many, it’s going to be a scary proposition.

But I remember when I started counseling B2C brands on joining the conversation through social media and it was a scary proposition for them too:

• What if someone posts something negative about our company?
• What if they use inappropriate language?
• How will we know what they said and how to respond?

The answer to all three of those questions as we discussed above, whether it’s a B2C brand or a pharma brand asking them, is 1) your policy and 2) moderation.

• Create a policy that includes a response protocol for negative comments and inappropriate posts.
• And set aside time, resources and money to listen to and moderate the conversation about your brand.

I don’t want to make this sound like embracing the social aspect of social media is going to be a walk in the park for pharma. It’s not. And there will be many legal and regulatory hurdles to jump before some brands feel comfortable even attempting a policy and moderation strategy.

If you try to force your pharma clients/companies from zero to 60 in just a few days, weeks or months, you’re heading for a major crash or at least a caution flag. Change doesn’t happen that quickly in corporate America. It takes time and you’ll need to be patient, come up with a plan that shows your end goal (policy and moderation) but also the steps you suggest to take – in moderation – along the way.

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