By Natalie Verghese 
Since the launch of Creation Pinpoint® we have constantly refined our methodologies to help our clients identify healthcare professionals with relevant digital behaviours and create Digital Healthcare Personas. Understanding the online lives of HCPs and the Digital Opinion Leaders (DOLs) influencing the online conversation can help clients cater to their needs in an effective manner and build strong relationships with them.
In a recent webinar, we observed the digital day of online HCPs in Australia, Asia and Europe based on the timezones of the HCPs in their respective countries. Our research showed many similarities but also differences in how their interactions developed online throughout the course of the day.
HCPs in Australia were amongst the first to begin their day online around 8am where they engaged in conversation with others about disease prevention. Soon after HCPs in Europe began their conversation online around current affairs and upcoming events.
By 10am, HCPs in Australia and Europe began to post their own findings around disease awareness.
We observed that the Asian HCPs, unlike Europeans and Australians, started later in the day, around 12pm where they began their day by engaging with people on the topic of disease prevention using computers as their device of choice. Australians however, progressed to posting links to popular news articles like The Guardian, through their computers as well. During the middle of the day, European HCPs started to post patient facing information and links to videos usually using Android devices.
As the day continued we saw HCPs continue to engage online in different capacities. Those in Asia started to reshare content from their local peers discussing medical content while those in Australia shared medical related articles from publications such as, The Lancet.
By early evening, HCPs in Europe presented their latest findings from their educational sessions. HCPs in Asia however, started to share medical advice on Facebook by 5pm whereas those in Australia start to discuss politics and current affairs which is comparatively different from HCPs in Europe who started their day at 9am doing the same. Nonetheless, by evening European HCPs were seen engaging with their peers by 7pm, while those in Asia an hour later began to post on their iPads about their personal experiences during the day at work.
As the day drew to a close those in Europe switched to using their iPhones to go through social media to share content whilst those in Australia reshared content encouraging disease prevention. Interestingly at 10pm HCPs in Australia began to scroll through their news feeds on social media while those in Europe shared links to medical journal articles.
Finally at midnight, HCPs in Asia used their Iphones to share news articles and links from their social media feeds.
Drawing attention to the attributes and behaviours of HCPs, such as their preferred social media channels, device of choice, the topic of their conversation and what time they are the most active, gives companies greater insight into how to structure their projects, marketing campaigns, and product launches.
Using Creation Pinpoint® you are able to gather deeper insight into the digital personas of HCPs and with our consultative approach we can assist you to better understand and target your audiences. To see examples of this in practice and to hear from a Pfizer expert on their experiences you may be interested in watching our webinar: The New Digital Normal for HCP Relationships.
