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December 2016 Vol. 15, No. 5

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Pharma Marketing Network®

Published by: Pharma Marketing Network

Pharma on Instagram How Top Drug Companies Use It Today & May Use It Tomorrow Author: John Mack

PMN1505-03

Pharma Marketing News Vol. 15, No. 5: December 2016 PMN1505-03

© 2016 Pharma Marketing Network. All rights reserved. Pharma Marketing News

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espite the fact that the FDA recently cited Duchesnay for a violative Instagram Diclegis ad that featured celebrity Kim Kardashian (read “Kim Kardashian Instagram post draws

FDA warning”; http://sco.lt/6qD0yX), Instagram may become the social medium of choice for pharma marketers now that it has been purchased by Face-book and has added several new features that allow marketers to potentially thwart FDA regulations.

These new features include:

• Stories • Disappearing Video • Ephemeral Messages

This article reviews these new features and how they may be used by pharma marketers. Included is a review of Big Pharma Instagram accounts.

Instagram Demographics Until now, many marketing experts didn’t think Insta-gram was a good fit for pharma because of the demographics of its users. According to PEW Research (http://pewrsr.ch/2fyN8wG), Instagram use is especially high among younger adults, a group that is not a high priority for most pharma marketers.

Roughly six-in-ten online adults ages 18-29 (59%) use Instagram, nearly double the share among 30- to 49-year-olds (33%) and more than seven times the share among those 65 and older (8%). Facebook users, on the other hand, are the sweet spot for pharma marketers: some 62% of online adults ages 65 and older now use Facebook, a 14-point increase from the 48% who reported doing so in 2015 (see Figure 1, below).

According to eMarketer, now that Instagram is open to all advertisers, by the end of 2016, 48.8% of marketers are expected to use the platform (read “Instagram Set to Rock the Social Media Marketing World”; http://sco.lt/4u92sT). Pharma marketers may join this bandwagon, especially if Instagram demo-graphics shift to an older crowd.

To date pharma marketers have not given social media a warm reception no matter what the platform. This is due to a number of factors such as restrictive FDA regulations, the necessity to expend resources to monitor comments for adverse reactions and off-label comments, lack of expertise in measuring social media ROI, etc. But the new features mention-ed above may make it more appealing to pharma marketers.

Figure 1. Facebook versus Instagram Demographics

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Instagram Stories Patient stories are all the rage these days among pharma marketers (read, for example, "Patient Storytelling Marketing"; http://bit.ly/pmn1307-02pstory). Instagram Stories may just be the ideal social media platform for pharma to tell these stories.

Instagram’s Stories feature is somewhat similar to Snapchat’s (see Figure 2). Using this feature, Instagram users can share multiple photos and videos to a specific story throughout the day, which are displayed in a slideshow format. Users can add text, draw on them, and add links, which opens up a browser window within Instagram.

The photos and videos usually disappear after 24 hours and won’t appear on your profile grid or in the feed. But the stories can also be permanent. You can also easily hide your entire story from anyone you don’t want to see it, even if they follow you. That last option may be of interest to some pharma marketers who wish to post videos that may go un-noticed by FDA regulators.

Figure 2: Instagram versus SnapChat Stories. Source: http://bit.ly/2fETu0L

Disappearing Videos and Ephemeral Messages According to an Instagram announcement, “Live video on Instagram Stories helps you connect with your friends and followers right now. When you’re done, your live story disappears from the app so you can feel more comfortable sharing anything, anytime. While you’re live, you can pin a comment for every-one to see or turn comments off altogether.”

If anyone wants to comment on something they see in a story posted by a pharmaceutical account, they

can send a private message using Instagram Direct. Private messages could be a basis for better patient support by pharma or they can just be ignored and no one would be the wiser. This, of course, is a big deal for pharma due to the fears mentioned at the start of this article.

Verified Accounts Some of these features are only available to Instagram accounts that have been “verified.” In December 2014, Instagram introduced verified badges that help people more easily find authentic brands they want to follow. A verify badge (check mark) appears next to an Instagram account’s name in search and on its profile. It means that Instagram has confirmed that this is the authentic account for the public figure, celebrity or global brand it repre-sents. “Accounts representing well-known figures and brands are verified because they have a high likelihood of being impersonated,” says Instagram.

Some official pharma accounts have not been verified. The official account of Bayer, for example (bayerofficial) is NOT verified. Worse yet, the “bayer” account does not belong to Bayer nor does the “astrazeneca” account belong to Astrazeneca. Since these names are trademarked and/or copyright, perhaps these companies should petition Instagram to hand over these account names to them.

A Gallery of Pharma Instagram Accounts So which pharma companies are using Instagram and what are they posting? The Table below and figures on the following pages offer insights to the content posted to major pharma instagram accounts. You can find an up-to-date review of pharma on Instagram here: http://bit.ly/pharmainstagram

Table 1. Metrics of Top Drug Company Instagram Accounts as of 29 October 2016.

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Figure 2. Share of Instagram Followers of Top Pharma Accounts A Gallery of Pharma Instagram Accounts The figures below and on the following pages offer some insight to the content posted to major pharma instagram accounts. You can find an up-to-date review of here: http://bit.ly/pharmainstagram

Figure 3. Astrazeneca on Instagram (astrazeneca_careers, not verified). Like its username (astrazeneca_careers) says, the AZ Instagram account focuses mostly on careers. Includes comments – all positive. Continues…

“Patients, HCPs and doctors need to know that pharma brands are reliable,” says Couch MedComms (http://bit.ly/2fSSDY4). “Sadly, trust can be undermined with one or two ‘troll’ comments which can be easily missed by human eyes.

“For pharma Instagram users, Comment Moderation is a particularly useful tool (and may even prove to be essential) Instagram offers a new Comment Moderation tool which does the job for you.

“In terms of which content is blocked, the user chooses a list of words (of up to 10,000 characters in total), and comments contain-ing these words will be flagged by the pro-gram. Then, the user can choose to accept or reject the comment, with no-one seeing it besides themselves and the author.”



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Figure 4. Bayer on Instagram (bayerofficial, not “verified”). Bayer posts typical corporate images as well as some whimsical images like unicorns and cats in a basket. It doesn’t appear that Bayer blocks comments like this one that went unanswered: “Ya’ll infected kids with AIDS... Would you like to explain yourselves?”

Figure 5. Boehringer Ingelheim on Instagram (boehringer-ingelheim, not verified). Boehringer posted several patient-oriented diagrams like this one during the 2016 European Society of Cardiologist conference. Interesting, considering conference attendees are physicians, but many patients are on Instagram. Continues…



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Figure 6. Eli Lilly on Instagram (elilillyco, not verified). Lilly posts typical corporate images about its business and employee activities as well disease awareness images. Many include links to other Instagram accounts via hash tags. Some posts include comments, which are all positive, including comments by Lilly.

Figure 7. Genentech on Instagram (Genentech, not verified). Genentech posts many images related to patient stories like this one. It also posts its share of corporate images and employee activities. A few posts include comments, which are mostly positive.

Figure 8. Merck on Instagram (merckinspired, not verified). Mostly about Merck and recruiting. Very few posts. Continues…



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Figure 9. Novatis on Instagram (novartis, verified). Novartis is one of the few pharma companies that post videos on Instagram (Pfizer is another). Many posts have comments from followers and responses. None are negative. There is a link to “Community Guidelines.”

Figure 10. Novo Nordisk on Instagram (novonordisk, verified). Novo posts typical corporate images about its business and employee activities as well disease awareness images and patient stories. Novo allows comments and even engages followers in conversation as shown here. Continues…



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Figure 11. Pfizer on Instagram (pfizerinc, verified). Pfizer’s Instagram posts are mostly science-oriented and include many images of its scientists at work. It also posts videos like the one shown here.

Pharma Marketing News

Further Reading • “Instagram Offers Pharma Marketers Better Tools Than Facebook to Block Those ‘Nasty’

Comments”; http://sco.lt/5tW1Pl • “Now May Be the Time for Pharma to Get Serious About Instagram”; http://sco.lt/79K5JZ • “Should #Pharma Consider Instagram for Promotion & Patient Engagement?”;

http://sco.lt/8CkdfN • “Instagram Set to Rock the Social Media Marketing World”; http://sco.lt/4u92sT

pharma on instagram - pharmaceutical marketing · pharma on instagram how top drug companies use it...

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