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patient influencer

patient groups and patient influencers for #bigpharma

Both patient groups and patient influencers can have an impact on healthcare decisions. However, patient influencers are growing in popularity. How can #bigpharma work with both, patient organizations and patient influencers?

Similarities between patient groups and patient influencers?

  • Both aim to raise awareness
  • Both have the knowledge or experience the condition and can provide information on what it is like to live with that condition
  • Both can present patient challenges
  • Both exchange insight for future research
  • Both address unmet needs of patients
  • Both are looked to as a most trusted source of information

Difference between patient groups and patient influencers?

Patient groups:

  • Patient groups are well known non-profit organizations or NGOs experts in their field
  • Have an excellent grassroots approach
  • Networking is through face to face approach
  • Have a more structured hierarchy of an organization, for example, president and board members and approval processes in place

Patient influencer:

  • Is a person
  • Has a lot of followers and engages online
  • Creates and shares content on social media platforms
  • Provides information and insights online
  • Has a broader reach of audience

Why the growing popularity of patient influencers?

  • People are online
  • Mobile technology
  • The internet and social media
  • Social media has made it easy to find and research information

How to better connect and reach audiences through both patient organizations and patient influencers?

  • Find patient organizations and patient influencers and build a relationship with both
  • For patient influencers know which platforms they are on and learn more about their audiences
  • Define expectations – both can be involved in different sectors of your marketing or research plan
  • Integrate and coordinate offline and online strategies that link both

patient influencers and #bigpharma

Once referred to as e-patients. Today is known as patient leaders or patient influencers.  The internet is making it easy for people to share information. This means patients can easily reach out to other patients. Is #bigpharma working with patient influencers?

Who are the patient influencers?

  • They are educated, aware and engaged patients
  • They are real people
  • They are trusted by their followers
  • They deliver value to their followers
  • They are influential with their followers
  • They are considered a credible and reliable source
  • Patient influencers build relationships with followers through engagement, providing information, sharing information

Where can you find patient influencers?

  • They can be found on different social media platforms
  • Most patient influencers are active on Twitter and Facebook
  • Patient influencers also blog
  • Great resource to find patient influencers is symplur
  • What kind of information do they share?
  • Information about their condition
  • Coping and support with illnesses
  • Conference updates
  • Clinical trial updates
  • Treatment options
  • Experiences
  • Resources

Do they drive conversations with other patients and healthcare professionals?

  • Yes
  • Tweet chats are an excellent means of bringing together patients, physicians and other healthcare professionals discussing important topics (check out symplur healthcare hashtags tweet chats)

How can #bigpharma work with patient influencers?

  • First and foremost you need to build a relationship with them
  • Treat patient influencers as real people with real value
  • Identify those where you can find a shared value
  • Listening to what patient influencers are saying online
  • Invite patient influencers to your events
  • Create patient influencer-generated content
  • Do not treat patient influencers like testimonials – this not about advertising