(1339) Evaluating the Activity Level of Corporate and Medical Social Media Accounts of Pharmaceutical Companies

Objectives: Almost half of all Americans reported sourcing news from social media platforms “sometimes” or “often”. Additionally, healthcare providers have also reported utilizing social media platforms to obtain medical information. Previous research has shown a gap in the presence of medical social media accounts compared to corporate social media accounts for pharmaceutical companies. Sixty-four percent of the companies reviewed did not have a medical social media account across 7 platforms. This research seeks to evaluate the activity level of the social media accounts previously identified for 33 pharmaceutical companies that were members of PhactMI as of August 1, 2023.

Methods: This research was conducted independent of PhactMI. All data was accessed from publicly available websites, thus approval through the Investigational Review Board was not required. Each company’s corporate website was accessed to assess which social media platforms were displayed. Corporate and medical accounts not displayed on each corporate website were identified by two web searches using Google as a search engine. The following key terms were used: “company name” + “social media platform” for the primary search and “company name” + “social media platform” + “medical” for the secondary search. Seven social media platforms, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, YouTube, and TikTok, were included in the study. The study period was August 1 - August 11, 2023. Each social media platform was accessed to determine the posting frequency from January 1, 2023 – August 11, 2023, assessed as: daily (4 times a week), weekly (3-4 times a month), monthly (1 time per month), or scattered (frequency that could not be defined as daily, weekly, or monthly).

Results: Out of 172 total social media accounts identified, 157 were corporate and 15 were medical. In addition, only 149 of the 157 corporate accounts were included in our analysis, excluding 8 accounts with no activity level. Of the 23 corporate Instagram accounts: 7 (30%), 11 (48%), 3 (13%), 2 (9%) posted daily, weekly, monthly, and scattered, respectively. Of the 32 corporate Twitter accounts: 14 (44%), 12 (37%), 2 (6%), and 4 (13%) posted daily, weekly, monthly, and scattered, respectively. Of the 5 corporate TikTok accounts: 0 (0%), 1 (20%), 3 (60%), and 1 (20%) posted daily, weekly, monthly, and scattered, respectively. Of the 33 corporate LinkedIn accounts: 16 (49%), 15 (45%), 2 (6%), and 0 (0%) posted daily, weekly, monthly, and scattered, respectively. Of the 26 corporate Facebook accounts: 8 (31%), 11 (42%), 3 (12%), and 4 (15%) posted daily, weekly, monthly, and scattered, respectively. Of the 30 corporate YouTube accounts: 0 (0%), 11 (36.5%), 11 (36.5%), and 8 (27%) posted daily, weekly, monthly, and scattered, respectively. Snapchat was excluded due to inability to assess activity level. Of the 11 medical Twitter accounts: 1 (9%), 5 (46%), 2 (18%), and 3 (27%) posted daily, weekly, monthly, and scattered, respectively. Of the 4 medical LinkedIn accounts: 1 (25%), 2 (50%), 1 (25), 0 (0%) posted daily, weekly, monthly, and scattered, respectively.

Conclusions: Results of this research show that 71% (106/149) of corporate accounts and 60% (9/15) of medical accounts post either daily or weekly. This data suggests that a higher percentage of corporate accounts post more frequently than medical accounts. However, this itself could be a result of a substantial difference in the number of corporate accounts compared to medical accounts. Medical departments may consider a higher utilization of social media platforms as a potential strategy to expand educational information to a wider audience.