I have been spending quite a bit of time in the world of the doctor. Whether it has been actually getting medication or researching for a marketing report, I have been learning a lot about the medical world. I was perusing some content through Google Alerts and came across an article by George Koroneos at PharmExec. The article referenced a study release by Manhattan Research detailing the use of social media spiking about doctors by 60%.
60%!!!! Holy crap.
Apparently the users tend to be female, primary care doctors, and smart phone owners. It made me think about the concept of pharma-marketing and an overall direct marketing strategy to medical offices and doctors. According to the study, physicians that use social media prescribe an average of 24 more scrips each week.
We are talking 1,248 more scrips a year because of recommendations and the use of chat rooms and forum boards.
What does that tell us?
Viral marketing and word-of-mouth is working among primary care physicians. Now, this is interesting news for the pharma companies. The question is how can the utilize the information from the study by Manhattan Research? Answering that question will be for another blog post.
The importance of this study is that it shows a reasonable increase in the use of social media as a viral marketing tool. Doesn’t it change your perspective if you can see tangible numbers?
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Unfortunately, this looks like yet another study that twists the truth just a bit to make a point. It’s great that more doctors are using social networking sites, but the stat about them writing 24 more scripts BECAUSE they use social networks is a bit much. I’m willing to bet there’s no control group here that accounts for physician age, practice size, specialty, etc. In other words, the real answer could be that doctors who use social networks have bigger practices and thus write more prescriptions. Social networking didn’t cause this, but rather is just another demographic point. It could be that older doctors, who practices are smaller, don’t use social networking and this accounts for the difference.
I find it hard to believe that using a social network makes you write more prescriptions unless they are suddenly now giving drugs to patients when they hadn’t before. I doubt this is the case.
Anyway…good summary. I think the study is lousy and extends the truth a bit so I’m not criticizing you, but rather another shoddy marketing “study.”
Thanks for posting and also for the comment – just wanted to respond to the above to clarify a few points. We also think it’s great that physicians are becoming more receptive to physician-only communities, but the 60% refers to the number of U.S. physicians who report to be either currently using OR interested in using these types of networks (see press release here: http://tinyurl.com/7qcrsk) Also, the analysis did not say that physician social networkers have a higher prescribing rate BECAUSE they use physician online communities, but merely that this group should be of particular interest to pharmaceutical companies because they write scripts at a higher rate than doctors not interested in physician online communities. Some potential reasons for this correlation is that PCPs are one of the physicians groups most active on physician online communities and they are known for their higher prescription rates than other physician groups. Also, doctors writing more scripts tend to have higher patient loads. These busy doctors tend to look to technology and online applications as practice support tools and are more attuned to resource like online communities.
In response to Jonathan’s statement about the study’s methodology, Taking the Pulse(r) v8.0 was conducted by RDD (random digit dial) telephone and online survey among 1,832 practicing U.S physicians (data weighted to key population demographics including age, gender, specialty, and region) in Q1 2008. The data is statistically significant, with the margin of error being +/- 3.1% at the 95% confidence interval.
Thanks for your interest in the study and if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at media@manhattanresearch.com!
Actually, Pharmaceutical Executive may have misinterpreted the study. I spoke with Manhattan Research about the study and they said the results don’t support the thesis that social networks influence physician prescribing behavior. To view my blog post, please click here.
@Maureen Thanks for following up on the post. I was taking my information from a secondary source.
I do think that this sheds some light on the beauty of the Internet for use in a viral marketing strategy. There is a difference. It may not be the tool but it is helping with a discussion.
Thx for the post – I like the debate it’s sparking and it’s great that MR took the time to respond to your post.
I would agree with Fard’s comment and blog post. I think there are issues with the PharmExec article and the way they interpreted/presented the “Taking the Pulse v8″ data.
For example, perhaps the reason that PCPs may be the most active group on physician only social networks is because PCPs constitute the largest percentage of specialty types. Also, since they seek the widest range of info compared to specialists, they are probably more inclined to engage in a wider range of discussions.
Furthermore, I don’t think the study was designed to look at the influence of social networks on prescribing behavior. Rather, it is more of an observation that higher prescribers tend to be more likely to be part of a social network.
There are other inconsistencies that I question, but without seeing the actual data and speaking to MR, it would not be fair to comment.
As a marketeer with a medical background it still astounds me how people confuse causality and correlation.
That is all.
(nice to see how this specific article has been picked up across Twitter and other social media channels – good example of the power of the medium)
@arthur_alston
I suppose that I don’t take issue with the study and how the research was conducted. I take issue with how it’s been reported. Manhattan Research has done some great work in the past, so I don’t place the blame with them completely. Pharmaceutical Executive may have interpreted the results quite a bit more than what was justified (i.e., online networks lead to more prescriptions).
I realized the study wasn’t designed to show this (and it didn’t), but here’s where Manhattan Research shares some blame. This is a direct quote from the Pharma Exec article:
“Although most of the data from the survey isn’t unexpected (users tend to be younger, female, primary care doctors, or smart phone owners), item of interest is that physicians that troll online forums prescribe an average of 24 more scrips each week than their unwired peers.
According to Fishman, this prescribing trend could be due to the almost “viral” nature of chat forums and bulletin boards. If one doctor talks about a positive reaction his or her patient had with a treatment option, other physicians could be more apt to prescribe it.”
Fishman is Erika Fishman, director of research and client services, at Manhattan Research. So, it appears, unless her quote was taken wildly out of context by Pharma Exec, that she’s backing up the story that online social networks cause more prescriptions to be written. Isn’t this what this quote suggests? Is it me? There’s nothing about what’s included in Maureen’s comment above and what I suggested in my comment, which is that this is a correlation and not causal.
Sorry, forgot to include a link to my blog post about this: http://www.doseofdigital.com/2009/01/social-networking-doctors-overprescribe/
To conclude from this data that physicians write more scripts because of their social networking experience is like saying that cold weather causes snow because every time it snows it’s cold outside!
It’s not that there is no control group. There’s no evidence of a cause and effect relationship, as Maureen points out.
Pharma pubs, it appears, need to screen editors based on SAT math scores.
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