By Katie Kennedy 
We recently used Creation Pinpoint to do a study into how doctors are talking about non small cell lung cancer on public social media. As we know healthcare professionals are increasing using public social media to discuss news, give opinions, get advice and voice concerns about many different therapy areas. Oncology is a therapy area we regularly see healthcare professionals discussing online.
Using Creation Pinpoint we had a look at what doctors in France, Germany, UK, Italy, Spain and the USA have been saying over the last 12 months around non small cell lung cancer.
Online conversation by doctors around non small cell lung cancer
On this graph we can see the amount of conversation by HCPs in the European countries we were studying broken down into a monthly analysis. It is interesting to note the peak in volume in September/October mainly due to the increase in conversation within Italy. To take this one step further we could use Creation Pinpoint to look at exactly what Italian HCPs were saying to allow us to understand what caused this peak. Were they responding to a news story, was there a conference taking place on oncology that they were tweeting from, were they discussing a particular product in oncology?
As part of our online market research we thought it would be interesting to break down this conversation further and look at mentions of individual pharma manufacturers to see who has the biggest share of voice online in non small cell lung cancer. As you can see there are significantly more mentions of Roche than the other manufactures.
Doctors conversation around non small cell lung cancer related to drug manufacturers
It is important to remember with this analysis that, in order to add value to the insight, we would benefit from using Creation Pinpoint to look in more detail at the conversation in order to answer questions like; What exactly were the HCPs discussing, is the conversation about Roche positive or negative, are there any concerns that Roche needs to address, can the other pharma companies learn anything from Roche in order to encourage more conversation about them and their products?
I hope this has got you thinking about the sorts of conversation doctors are having on public social media and how analysing this conversation can really bring you invaluable insights. I will be looking at some individual mentions in more detail on the next blog post so be sure to have a read.
Free webinar on how doctors in the UK are discussing oncology online
In the meantime we are hosting a free webinar for those in pharma called: The Oncology Market: Insights from online healthcare professionals in the UK.
At the webinar we will present the findings from a study which monitored thousands of online conversations about oncology by healthcare professionals in the UK. We will discuss:
– What are the primary concerns and information needs in oncology?
– Who are the most influential online HCPs, or ‘Digital Opinion Leaders’?
– What views do UK HCPs share online about leading oncology drugs?
– Which public social media channels are HCPs using to discuss oncology?
– Which sources of information do HCPs share the most?
– What can companies do to develop HCPs as online advocates in oncology?
The webinar will take place on February 14th 2014 at 10am with a repeat on the 26th February 2014 at 10am.
