Because of a vast majority of acceptance among marketers in the past year, more leading pharmaceutical firms are making waves in social media.

Greg Signh from Marketing: Health wrote an article about how more pharma firms are entering deeper in social waters with confidence. Below is a summary of key points within this article.

Pharmaceutical firms have been less interested in social media due to concerns about liability, and also a basic fear of the unknown digital world. In the past year however, there has been a significant jump in pharma firms embracing the social media scene. Social media represents a powerful marketing opportunity, helping biotech brands build strong relationships with existing customers as well as prospectives. Social channels offer new engagement opportunities and can ultimately help you serve your industry’s patients better.

Here are a few notable examples of companies embracing social media:

• Bio-pharmaceutical firm UCB, Inc., and PatientsLikeMe, an online community for people with life-changing conditions, collaborated together to create an open online community about epilepsy to document real-world experiences of people living with epilepsy in the United States.

• Johnson & Johnson has expanded itself socially by starting a YouTube channel, several Twitter accounts, a corporate blog, as well as Facebook applications such as the Acuvue Acuminder -which reminds people when it’s time to change their contacts.

• GSK was one of the first pharmaceutical companies to integrate social elements to reach consumers. They began a blog named “More than Medicine” which was designed to encourage a more positive and productive dialogue with consumers. It’s used to share news about the company – it’s innovations, developments within the healthcare reform, corporate social efforts, as well as viable information about chronic diseases and much more.

• By using Twitter and Facebook, pharmaceutical mogul Pfizer reached out to audiences across Europe in 2011 with a Quit Smoking Campaign. This included “Serious Quitters’ Arcade” games site through Twitter activity, as well as a Pac-Man-inspired Facebook app. Pfizer earned the number-one spot in a recent study by Paris-based Cegedim Strategic Data – comparing pharmaceutical companies’ efforts on traditional promotional vehicles and their presence on the leading social media channels, Facebook and Twitter.

Click the following link to read the complete article: More Pharma Firms are Entering Deeper in Social Waters With Confidence