Transforming your pharma brand strategy: Digital Opinion Leaders

If you could learn which HCPs are influential online and why, and understand their digital behaviours, you could build relationships to support their passions and needs that also support your own goals. 

The fourth tactical opportunity when you are brand planning is to think of the role of Digital Opinion Leaders (DOLs), the HCPs who are significantly influencing the online conversation and views of their peers and the public.

We profiled the five most influential HCPs in the US pancreatic cancer conversation. These five HCPs were being followed by more than 25,000 other people on Twitter, and nearly 5,500 thousand of those were other HCPs. You can see below the individual DOLs have a significant HCP following not just in North America but globally across Europe, Asia, Africa and South America.

When looking at influence metrics it is not simply about measuring who is talking the most. The five DOLs we profiled in the pancreatic cancer conversation are not all talking excessively. Metrics you might consider when identifying a DOL include: Do they post relevant content? Do they have a high peer or public following? Are they trusted among online HCP peers? Do they carry influence offline? Are they in an existing relationship with you?

In Dr Anirban Maitra’s CREATION Pinpoint DOL profile you can learn about his role, the kind of platforms he is using, and the sites or social media environments he is interested in. We see that this particular Gastrointestinal Pathologist is classified as a ‘content creator’ due to the high volume of original posts he produced. In this particular study, he was the most active author with the most original posts. He was highly engaged by his peers who mentioned him and retweeted his content. Other DOLs in the conversation were patient advocates or HCP influencers.

Identifying and learning about the individual behaviours of your DOLs allows you to explore potential partnership opportunities. By listening to their online conversations and understanding their individual behaviours, you can leverage insights from the HCPs shaping the views on any topic, in any country.

Read the first article in the series:

Transforming your pharma brand strategy: Content planning

Read article

To understand how HCP insights could support your brand, download the complete white paper or get in touch. For an easy way to find out which HCPs are the right Digital Opinion Leaders for you check out the demo of our new DOL Finder tool.