Ogilvy Health Develops Unique Scoring System to Rate Social Practice

Ogilvy Health, an expert health communications agency, has today announced the launch of the 2020 Social Check-up, sharing the latest trends and best practice in the world of pharma social media.

The Social Check-up 2020 involved a review of the global corporate social media channels of 15 leading pharma companies. This included the Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube channels for each company. In order to assess the ‘social health’ of the pharma social channels Ogilvy Health developed a unique scoring system based on guidance direct from the social networks, as well as the organisation’s own experience, across five different categories: corporate identity, content, community management, tech optimisation, and paid social.

The report reviewed 15 leading pharmaceutical companies for their ‘social health’ across five different categories. Analysis found that just under half of companies were following best practice recommendations for social media. 

Key takeaways include:

• Boehringer Ingelheim, AbbVie, and GSK have come out on top, set apart by their proficiency in all five categories

• The majority of companies (80%) are getting corporate identity right, through a consistent tonal and visual presence from platform to platform

• Both content and paid social have room for improvement: only 25% of companies retweeted or shared content from other sources – a tactic widely used across other industries to bolster community engagement and help make connections with relevant influencers and leaders – and less than 50% of companies used paid media across all platforms

“This year’s report focused on the ‘social health’ of 15 pharma companies – which analysed if companies were following best practice recommendations for social media – and found that just under half were operating at good social health,” said Rebecca Canvin, director of social media at Ogilvy Health. She continued: “Using our proprietary methodology, and extensive experience in the pharma social media space, we can assess brands’ social health and provide tailored solutions to social media challenges. For example, one of the most interesting insights uncovered in this year’s report is that paid social was one of the weakest areasfor pharma companies. While there will always be a role for organic posts, especially in community management, it’s important that pharma place more emphasis on paid social in order to stand out and be seen in the crowded social media arena.”

“In the two years since we’ve published the last Social Check-Up, social media has evolved greatly – it’s no longer as simple as evaluating likes, followers, or favourites,” said Rick Evans, senior digital strategist at Ogilvy Health. “We hope this year’s report will be useful for all companies wishing to follow best practice and maximise opportunities to meaningfully engage with their communities.”

The Social Check-up 2020 involved a review of the global corporate social media channels of 15 leading pharma companies. This included the Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube channels for each company if they existed in January 2020. This review focused on social media content posted between August 2019 and January 2020. In order to assess the social health of the pharma social channels, Ogilvy Health developed a unique scoring system based on guidance direct from the social networks, as well as the organisation’s own experience, across five different categories:

• Corporate identity

• Content

• Community management

• Tech optimisation

• Paid social

Each company received a score out of a possible 20 points for its social media efforts. Four points were available for each of the five categories.

Companies that achieved an overall score greater than 15 were operating at good social health meaning that they were following recognised best practice for businesses on social media. Companies that scored less than 15 were not currently following all best practice recommendations, but in many cases would only need to make small changes to improve their standing. For each individual category, a score of less than 3 suggests a key area in which the company could do better to improve the success of its efforts on social media, and consequently its overall social health.

The Social Check-Up is available by emailing thesocialcheckup@ogilvy.com. There is also a public webinar on 23rd April – registration can be accessed here.