Liveworld

When Elon Musk walked into Twitter’s headquarters after buying the social media platform, the world knew changes were coming. Musk’s purchase caused waves within the industry resulting in some users moving to other platforms in the interim. Mastodon, a social media platform started in 2016 which mimics Twitter’s looks and feel, gained 230,000 users following Musk’s takeover. Mastodon now has monthly active users of around 655,000.

Musk’s purchase did not start the wave of social media migrations. For example, Gen Z had already moved on to the vertical video platform TikTok and gaming platform Twitch, while millennials favored Instagram. But, as users look for more authentic digital platforms to connect, share opinions, and be entertained, how are Pharma and Healthcare brands to judge what social networks are worth their time?

I recommend Pharma and Healthcare brand marketers look at the four factors when researching and analyzing social media platforms:

Internal and external compliance: Understand a platform’s risks to your organization. Does its compliance model give you the confidence that you are appropriately managing risk with the proper controls?

Audience identification: Many social media channels have been engineered to help specific audiences gravitate to them, such as Discord, which was built to allow gamers to chat without degrading their systems’ gaming performance. When analyzing platforms, it’s important to know your audience and whether you can reach them in sufficient numbers on a specific platform.

Content creation: Audiences on other alternative channels demand entertaining, engaging, and authentic content that’s highly visual and interactive. Content designed to fit the specs and the sensibility of each distinct platform performs best. One size doesn’t fit all channels. While the existing rules for compelling content still hold; you need to ask yourself if you can create content for multimedia-hungry audiences that demands fresh perspectives and ongoing content.

Internal capabilities: These are the “X” factors when it comes to deciding whether to incorporate a new platform into your social mix. It’s critical to make sure you have the tools required to manage the platform and address any risks that may arise.

These four factors give pharma marketers a nice lens to judge and measure if a new social media platform meets their brand objective while staying compliant with regulations.

Learn more about how to evaluative new social platforms in 2023 – Click here to read – Creating a New Mix of Social Channels and Tactics 2023 A Guide for Pharma and Healthcare.

With 20+ years of social media experience managing 350 social properties for some of the biggest pharma companies, LiveWorld has the skills and resources to help you navigate and succeed in the changing pharma social arena.

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Reach out to the author, Rishi Kadiwar, VP Strategy – DTC, LiveWorld, to learn more about digital and social agency services for the healthcare and pharma industry – rkadiwar@liveworld.com