Social listening is an essential tool pharmaceutical and healthcare companies should tap into to gain a deeper understanding of key topics, emerging trends and sentiment discussed within social conversations through real-time data insights.

One area where social listening tools have excelled is in providing spike alerts, allowing companies to cut through the noise and stay ahead of emerging trends or crises. These alerts, delivered through app notifications or team channels, enable timely responses and proactive measures. This functionality is particularly valuable for communication teams, who can quickly share relevant insights with innovation teams to inform product development and strategy.  

For example, a pharmaceutical company specialising in a particular therapy area has successfully used Meltwater’s social listening tool to identify advocacy groups or leaders in that space, gathering valuable feedback and engaging with patients in real-time to enhance their understanding of patient needs and preferences. This has not only helped inform their marketing strategies, but it has also contributed to the development of improved treatments.  

While social listening tools have been instrumental in these areas, there are still opportunities to further enhance their use and value in the pharmaceutical industry. For instance, integrating sentiment analysis capabilities could provide deeper insights into patient attitudes and perceptions towards medications. Leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms can also help companies uncover hidden patterns and trends in social data, enabling more precise targeting and strategy development.

The pharmaceutical industry presents unique challenges in implementing social listening due to heightened sensitivities and regulatory risks compared to other industries.  

Given these complexities, pharmaceutical companies need to be more strategic and take note of how they can amplify their messages by collaborating with key influencers in their industry. It’s imperative for them to have a comprehensive understanding of the influencers they would engage with to ensure alignment with their brand values and objectives. Through tools such as Meltwater’s Klear, they can now swiftly identify these influencers in key areas they want to own the conversation in. Social media intelligence tools like Klear can gather insights on influencers within seconds, facilitating informed decisions and mitigating potential risks that could impact their reputation.

These tools also enable companies to actively participate or join conversations in real-time. Speed is of the essence across any industry - companies must be able to react within hours, if not minutes to make a valuable impact on how the conversation is shaping.

While social listening can truly be a game-changer for pharmaceutical companies, many established pharmaceutical players aren't always quick to adapt to the fast-paced world of social media. With platforms constantly changing and new trends emerging, staying ahead of the curve can be challenging without these tools in place. That's why investing in ongoing training for teams is crucial to ensure they're equipped to navigate the ever-evolving landscape effectively.  

Additionally, companies must broaden their news sources beyond mainstream media to capture insights from social media platforms where discussions increasingly occur. To truly connect with the consumers of future generations, companies need to shift their mindset and adapt their marketing and communications strategy to meet them where they are. This should be especially top of mind now that Meta has announced it will pull out of mainstream news media. Companies will need to specify exactly which pages or groups they want to listen to through social listening on Instagram and Facebook. If they don't, they risk missing out on valuable insights or getting an incomplete picture of online conversations. That's why it's so important to regularly review and update monitoring parameters to ensure they're capturing the right data, as well as be aware of these platform changes and limitations.  

Finally, social listening tools must have robust reporting capabilities to address and document insights gathered through these tools, as well as being able to distribute these insights efficiently to relevant people within their organisation. Whether it’s the R&D, innovation or compliance team, everyone needs access to timely information to make informed decisions or act promptly as needed to maximise the benefits of real-time data.