Hey, guys. Welcome to the podcast. I have a very special guest. My our own Sarah Snyder is back on the show. Guys, I love when Sarah comes on, but someone told me recently I asked him. I said, what, you know, what are your favorite episodes, or what do you like to hear about the most? And, honestly, I'm not just saying this because Sarah's on. Like, they literally said, I love when it's you and Sarah on. Like, you guys are so great together. So, Sarah, welcome back.
You. Thanks for having me, and that's such a kind comment. Thanks for sharing. Yeah. And it just happened. Like, literally, someone just told me that. So so Sarah and I are gonna talk about like, this topic's awesome. We're gonna talk about how should medical affairs engage on social media, which actually ties in really, really well to our sponsor. So this week's sponsor is our friends at Medical Watch.
And Medical Watch helps you understand helps MSLs and medical affairs professionals understand what HCPs are saying about your products and diseases on social media. So they are the go to tool for social listening. And a lot of people say to me, like, hey. I feel like I'm falling behind when it comes to, like, digital and social and AI and all this stuff. Like, this is exactly what you need to start to use. So the it's free to sign up. So you could check them out at medical.watch, and it's free.
Check it out. People love it. I love it, and they're a a great partner of ours. So Medical Watch, check them out. So let's jump into it and get into this conversation. So I guess we'll start with when it comes to, social media and social engagement, like that topic, why is it important for MSLs Mhmm. And medical affairs professionals to consider or know how to engage on social media in today's environment? I saw this question, and I have to tell you, I'm in the market for a car. Okay?
And so when I was thinking about this question, I was thinking about myself going to buy this car. And I promise this story will tie back around to the actual topic, but I didn't go to a car magazine. I didn't even go I I went on the website a little bit of the model and the make of the car that I wanted. But, honestly, I went to this forum on Facebook.
It's a Facebook group of people that are around my age, and I did a keyword search for the model of the car that I was looking for, and I looked for comments. And I thought to myself, wow. Like, this is the group that I trust, and this is what I did to go look and see what kind of car other people liked. They're not the people that live in my area. They're not my neighbors. I probably would ask them to.
But, like, this is, like, an external social media group that has a lot of people that I've never even talked to, but I'm trusting them with my car decision. And I thought, most people are like this. We're living in this digital world, yet we're light years behind in medical affairs as MSLs. Like, we're and and there's some compliance reasons why that we're gonna get into. Like, I'm not saying go all gangbusters and do everything on social and be posting. Absolutely not.
But the reason we should be engaging on social media or at least thinking about it and checking to see where our thought leaders are is that's where people are. And we have to go where people are and where decisions are being made and where the comments and engagement is, or we're in the dark ages. Yeah. And and it the crazy thing is, like, this seems like a new topic, but it's not really a new topic. I did a podcast.
Jeez. I've done a couple of podcasts on, like, social media and medical affairs. Like, it's been, like, two years that this has kind of been building up, and we've seen so much progress over those years Yeah. That it just it's becoming more and more important. So as it relates to that, like, what platforms do you think are most effective for MSLs and medical affairs professionals to to build their professional presence?
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's funny that you mentioned that that this is not a new topic because the very first episode of MSL talk that I ever listened to was the episode episode you did about Twitter. So related to this specific question, it's still and now it has a new name. Right? X? But a lot of specialists still hang out on Twitter or x and share their thoughts there.
So that's one place where if you just wanna dip your toes a little bit, my goodness, you could go back to that episode from, what, five years ago whenever you did it. It hasn't been By three? Yeah. Probably. So, yeah. Probably. You'd wanna listen to that, and you'd also wanna dip your toes in and get on Twitter x and at least follow. It doesn't mean that you ever have to post anything. One of the things I think people are worried about with regards to social media is just compliance in general.
And so I think the point of this podcast, if you don't take anything else away, is you don't ever have to post. You can just be social listening and following and getting the trends. Ideally, if your company allows it, you you can like and you can comment. But with compliance issues, a lot of that is a gray area, so you gotta figure out what your company allows you to do. So Twitter x for sure.
The other one that's really grown, and we've seen this with some of the MSL teams we've trained recently, is YouTube. A lot of people are out there sharing some good short videos on YouTube, whether they're growing their own professional presence as a KOL or they're doing interviews or some of their grand rounds might be broadcasted, that kind of thing. So YouTube would be another one. And then, obviously, you and I hang out on LinkedIn. So LinkedIn is a great one to be a part of too.
And, you know, and so the episode that you were referring to was with Jason DeMuth, I believe. Mhmm. And I have to think of the name of the episode, but that episode is it's it was definitely Jason. We talked about Twitter. And the idea what Jason said was you have to meet them where they live. And what he meant was yeah. Like, if somebody for example, if you have an HCP or a KOL and they're all over Twitter or now x, well, that's where they live.
They've accepted that Mhmm. As their social media Mhmm. Platform of choice. Some people, like you said, might be on YouTube. They might be on LinkedIn, and they're communicating and they're sharing information or that's their platform. Yeah. So I learned in that episode how important it is to just have an understanding of where your your HCPs and KOLs hang out Yes. And then pay attention. You don't necessarily have to engage Mhmm. But pay attention.
Now what he would say what he said was he would he would just, like, see what they were posting, and then every once in a while, he might answer a question if there was a question posed or make a comment or or, you know, a share or a like as a form of engagement. And I think he was able to do that. Yes. So that that now that's a couple of years ago, we've evolved. And now we have a term for it. It's called social listening.
And that's actually that's why I think this episode is so perfect because medical watch is a is a tool for social listening. Yeah. So this this has really evolved. But can you share and it sounds like it's obvious, but what are the key benefits to using social media for the understanding of and developing relationships with your KOLs and HCPs and even for networking purposes.
Yeah. I think the number one thing that it does is it speeds up relationship building because you can learn more about the particular key opinion leader, digital opinion leader, whatever you wanna call them, experts. You can learn more about them and what's their style, what's their tone, what do they care about before that first visit or before that second visit.
So you can really do your homework and tailor whatever questions you have, whatever conversation, your direction that you're gonna go based on your homework that you found via social listening. So it's the speed of relationship building. I think it's funny because people might think that it's gonna slow down relationship building because it's virtual and things like that, but you can learn so much if you watch a YouTube video or you listen to someone on a podcast.
Tom, you always say people see you at conferences, and they feel like they what? Yeah. They know me. They knew you. Yes. They saw you. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. I had someone come up to me recently. I swear. This was at Ash just a couple of months ago. And someone they they literally, like, pulled me aside, like, you know, grabbed me, and they were like, I don't know who you are, but I've seen you before. And I was like, maybe on LinkedIn. They're like, yes.
Yes. They're like, I've seen you on LinkedIn. I don't know. I have no idea who you are. And, like, I don't know what like, where that came from. But and so it's it's kind of like I think there's a risk if you choose not to participate. Would you say that that's accurate? Like, are there is it would it be a risk for MSLs to not be involved in social media and, you know, be a part of this?
Mhmm. I think that I mean, that's a tough question because I think some MSLs, if you're really experienced and you have other ways of getting the information, fine. But I think that we're not this isn't going away. This is only going to continue, and these rising stars, especially these more junior physicians that are growing, they're growing up with this, and this is the way they communicate. So you said it earlier.
If we're not meeting them where they're at, I'm not sure that we can adequately be the medical affairs or be the MSL that we truly could be. Yeah. Mhmm. And I've seen yours your LinkedIn and social presence over the course of the you know, these past few years and, you know, how amazing your your content is and how you've grown your network. But when it comes to and you're coming from being an MSL to now being a recruiter and an MSL trainer.
So, like, how can MSLs Mhmm. Balance their personal brand and their professional brand on platforms like LinkedIn or Twitter? Because that seems like it would be challenging. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny because Twitter you know, I'm not on Twitter anymore, but I was on Twitter as an MSL. And that was because rheumatologists and orthopedics were on Twitter.
So for me, I set up an account that was only for social listening purposes, and I did have I don't I might have tweeted a couple times in my life, but very, very few. So it was more to follow, but I knew that a lot of my KOLs were also in the sports medicine arena. So I took the idea that my Twitter handle or whatever you call it, you can tell I'm not on Twitter, like, to tweet. Mhmm. But it was related to running.
And so that way, when I did, like, something, it just gave them a little bit more. And I was able to, people's posts or tweets where I was at in my last company. I know not everyone can. But my point here is that it didn't look formal necessarily. It just looked like someone that would be following them. And that way, it wasn't intrusive, but I also wasn't posting anything personal on there. Right. So I I think that it's gonna be hard if you wanted to mix the two.
I would if I was gonna be an MSO in today's world, I would have a separate account just for the social listening purposes on Twitter or X. Now on LinkedIn, it's different. If your physicians are on LinkedIn, which I know not all are, but there are some subspecialties that hang out there Mhmm. You know, then they're probably gonna be looking at your profile before you meet them if that's where they hang out. I know that when we were training it in Ocular MSL team, she said, oh my gosh.
I was so surprised because I saw where he had viewed my LinkedIn profile. And, luckily, she had a really professional one, but I think that's starting to happen more as well. So to answer your question, I'd separate them, and I would certainly not try to mix my Facebook and my Instagram and things like that with professional. I think that just gets messy. That's my own opinion. You know, people can make the best decision for them.
Yeah. Think a lot of it has to do with common sense too and and understanding, like Mhmm. You know, if it feels it feels awkward, then it probably is awkward. Like you know? So have your own internal kind of barometer as to, how you go about the two, I think. Mhmm. When it comes to on the professional side Yeah. Can you share some best practices for engaging with HCPs and KOLs through social media? What are some tips and tricks? So the best tip and trick is gonna be related to conferences.
So find the hashtag, whatever that particular conference, the next one that you're going to, and follow that hashtag and set a timer and you know, whether it's ten minutes or whatever it is. And a lot of you guys are gonna have software that does this for you, but doing it yourself too, you might find some things that your software didn't pick up. So I think it's good to understand how it's done.
Mhmm. But set a timer and go through that, you know, two weeks before the conference all the way through the conference. This is the biggest change, I think, that I see in MSL ing is it used to be this is gonna age me a little bit, but it was a big deal for us to be able to go share conference information post conference. That was we we were giving a lot of value to KOLs by sharing what had happened. Not gonna happen anymore. These KOLs and these social media ambassadors are tweeting.
They're sharing it while they're at the conference. It's live. It's happening. So you gotta hear, like, what people are saying and what the sentiments are so you can better share if somebody asks you, you know, how was it received? And then you can share with your internal team, things like that, what's happening, and use the words and the actual language that the KOLs were.
So I think I don't I went off a tangent a little bit, Tom, with this particular question, but I think if you don't do anything else, if you don't wanna follow your KOLs, at least follow the conference hashtags and use this during those, and you'll be surprised, the information that you glean. I think I think that's a great tip, and I think it's a safe tip. I think that, you know, you're not putting yourself in any type of risk or danger by doing that.
But what about, how can MSLs use social media to just stay informed on, like, you know, the latest medical and scientific advancements? Yeah. Yeah. Same thing here. Follow the conferences. Follow the societies. This is often a missed opportunity, I think, that people don't do. And if you follow the societies, see what kind of events they have. You might even find an event that's coming up or a recap of an event, or you can see who's commenting on their stuff.
So it's not always, you know, people compliance wise, I can't comment. I can't even like. You can still see who else is commenting, and you can see what's important to people based on that. And if they're commenting on a society or on a particular new set of guidelines, things like that, you can start to identify trends and have a better view of what might be important to certain KOLs or rising KOLs, things like that.
So that would be one way that as an MSL, you can use social media in an efficient way too. I think we all worry, and we do not wanna doom scroll. This is not the purpose of this episode. It's to get people on their phones. We you should be out there talking to KOLs, engaging. This is gonna make you a better MSL, not slow you down if you do it right.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's I think it's just one of those things where we most of us use social media for for the doom scroll, for entertainment purposes, for that dopamine rush. But if we're also trying to stay informed and we're searching on, let's say, certain therapeutic information, scientific information, our feed is gonna pump that to us. Yes. So as new things come out, we'll get that in addition to the funny videos of, you know, old people falling and us laughing at their expense.
Like, that kind of thing. But what about you know, I'm sure that there's definitely some pitfalls or mistakes and some of the things that maybe MSL should be warned about and medical affairs professionals. Like, what would you say people should avoid doing when they're engaging on social media?
Yeah. Yeah. Well, the number one thing that you never wanna do is if you see misinformation out there or you see a comment that's incorrect about your product or your disease information or you disagree, you absolutely do not. No matter what your compliance guidelines are, you don't wanna comment and start any kind of argument. Or if you see people debating, don't get into that.
That's never gonna end well, and your company representative even if you're not working in a company, that's just never gonna end well. You can read it, and you can see what the debate's like, but you can't engage like that. That's not compliant. And then I think the other thing is just gonna be making sure you're within your own compliance guidelines. There's no problem.
You can usually follow people with absolute no issue at all, so you can follow them Whether or not you can connect with people or whether or not you can like or comment on their information, that's where you've gotta go with your company guidelines.
And then I guess the third thing as far as what you should do socially is just anything that you put out there, remember that not just your little it's not, you know, running outside and saying something in your neighborhood is one thing, but now this is global. Right? So anything you can say will be all over. So you need to be very, very careful. And that that goes for medical or anything else too.
I mean, if you're applying for jobs and your Facebook is unprofessional, people can find that on a Google search too. Yeah. You gotta be careful because you kinda can't take it back. Like, once it's out there, I mean, you can delete posts and stuff like that. But Sure. Sure. Sometimes it's too late. Yeah. The damage is already done.
So you do have to be careful and make sure that you really kinda second guess yourself on, you know, is this cool to post or is this cool to, you know, to to engage, whatever whatever the situation might be. Right. You know? And and, you know, I thought about you and how you've developed thought leadership. You've developed an influence. You're an influencer on LinkedIn, and people follow you. You have, like, 35,000 followers. Your content's amazing. Thank you.
Now what would your advice be for MSLs on how they can leverage social media to potentially be a you know, for thought leadership, for influence, to establish credibility, maybe in a therapeutic area. Is there advice that you might have on that? Yeah. Let's go back to the MSL that I mentioned. So she was in she's an optometrist, actually, and her profile was really well done. So I think people worry, and they think I've got a post every day or I gotta post once a week.
Just take that out of your head and get a really good profile. Get a good profile picture. Write a nice about section. So if someone clicks on you, they can quickly see that you are a therapeutic expert. This is where you can share, you know, your PhD, and you did this research. Or in her case, like I said, she's an optometrist. She had ten years of experience in clinic. The KOL sees that, hey. He might be more apt to meet with her. It's like, oh, this is truly peer to peer.
So that's your opportunity. You don't have to go start posting and sharing things like that. You know, you can if you want to, if you're allowed to based on your company. But commenting is a great way to get your name out there too. I actually have a good story. I saw a person that was commenting on my post yesterday, and I'm like, oh, wait. That's a candidate that I I spoke with her, like, three weeks ago. She commented, and she it came back in my brain.
I hadn't checked my big list yet, and I submitted her for a job. So it's sometimes it's just keeping top of mind, whether it's to a recruiter or it's to a KOL, things like that. Commenting can get you a long way. And in general, when you're thinking about what you would comment, it's not that hard. Think about what you would say to someone in real life, and that way you can gauge what you should and you shouldn't say.
If you wouldn't say it out loud to them, you shouldn't say it, but you don't have to put all kinds of time into it either. It's just a comment. Just do it. Yeah. Yeah. And I like, you know, that advice that you started with, which is to just clean up your profile on LinkedIn as a start. Because so many people, we see, like, they're like, having a profile is important, but having a really good profile in this day and age is even more important.
If you don't have a photo or if you have a bad photo, people notice it. That's your brand. That that that goes a long way. If you don't have a profile at all, you're not even in the game. You're not even a part of this whole thing. Right. So I think that at the very, very least is to make sure that you have start with a with a good social presence, especially on LinkedIn because it's professional and because people are gonna go on there.
Mhmm. And then from there, you can if you if, like, literally, if you're totally starting out, as you said, you could start to get involved in the game a little bit when it comes to likes and shares and comments and that sort of thing. You just get better at it as you go, you get more comfortable, and then you become part of this, you know, whole social experience. So Yeah. A %. Let's talk about I haven't been avoiding this question because it is an important question.
But let's talk about the compliance and regulatory considerations. And I know that it it's tricky when it comes to engaging on social media. There's a lot of rules, and there's a lot of compliance, and there's a lot of risks. So can you talk about that? Yeah. Well, I think that whether or not you're you have compliant everybody probably has compliance guidelines.
But one general rule of thought is you're never gonna put anything product specific out there, and you're not gonna comment on anything product specific. Obviously, if someone posts something about a side effect of your product, no. You're not gonna comment anything like that. The things that we're talking about commenting on for a health care professional would be more so a key opinion leader puts a picture from a medical conference or shares that, hey.
Our publication just got put out there in the New England Journal of Medicine. A nice congratulations. This is really insightful, and it's gonna move along medicine. Those are the kind of comments that, generally speaking, aren't gonna get you in any trouble. Again, you gotta make sure that it's allowed, but those are the ones that you can do. As you you want to know what they're saying about your product. Okay? But it's not gonna be your job to be the one to police that.
It's good to keep an eye out for, but it's not ever gonna be something where you comment and say, oh, this isn't true. Package insert says this. That's not the kind of game that you wanna play on social media. Mhmm. Mhmm. No. That's good advice. That's good advice. And and I think it's just really important to be to stay on the safe side of the equation, understand what your company's parameters are and what their compliance guidelines are. I think that's really important.
So what about using social media to enhance collaboration, and knowledge sharing between MSLs and just different parts of the organization or even different regions? Well, I think that if your company posts and allows you to share posts, I mean, that's a great thing to do to share your own companies. And it doesn't have to be, again, anything drug specific. It might just be that you had lately the International Women's Day, and I saw some companies post and then some MSLs share that.
That's showing that you're proud of where you work and that your company values the people and the organization, and then you're excited about it. So those are the kind of things that light up people's feed. We all have enough negative things, so I think that's a no brainer.
I think that if there are other people on your team that are posting or your marketing team is posting and you're allowed to do anything with that, engaging in other people's stuff is always the best way to just boost the relationship. Nobody's gonna ever get upset with you or dislike you because you liked their post or comment. It's a great way to start building that relationship.
And then as far as MSLs, I mean, that's the whole idea of LinkedIn is that you're no longer siloed wherever you are geographically. You can literally connect with other MSLs. It might feel a little bit awkward at first, but it's a new way of networking where if you can't I know maps is coming up. If you can't travel to that meeting, maybe you can network with a couple people who did and ask them, hey. Do you think this is something I should do in my future? It's a little expensive.
I gotta pay for it myself. Is it worth it? Ask him for advice, and that's always gonna be a way to build relationships. So it's just a tool, Tom. It's a it's a tool to further relationships. Yeah. No. I agree. And I think that they're the the people that I see that are really good at this are just creative. And they think about how to use these tools or how they can insert themselves or share something. It's just it becomes a part of your day Yeah. If once you become good at it.
Because you just think about, oh, wow. This is a great and I'm I'm talking more from from looking at this not just as MSLs, professionals, as medical affairs professionals or anybody that's in the the industry. Like Yes. You just have to start thinking about, you know, is there something I can share, post, comment, like, and and just make it a practice. Definitely. Looking at the future now, everything's changing. So we have AI, digital this. Like, things are changing so fast.
There's all these tools. There's different things coming out. So where do you see things going? Like, where do how do you see this evolve? And I know that this is a very difficult question because it's hard to say. But where do you think things might be going? Yeah. When when I saw this question, I thought about if anybody remembers Clubhouse. Clubhouse came about a couple years ago and then went. You know?
Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter X, you know, their YouTube, I mean, these are all appearing to stand the test of time for now anyway. I'm sure there's gonna be something else, but I feel like in the near future, that's gonna really be it. I think that the future, though, is gonna be medical affairs realizing, like, we gotta pay a little bit closer to these digital opinion leaders. We have this new generation coming out of fellowship, coming out the first couple years of training.
They're they're not gonna be speaking and doing things the way that some of the traditional KOLs were or are. So we gotta evolve and be able to talk their language and know how they want to share information. When I was in MSL, I remember it was a big deal that you had the speaker programs. Right? And you got 10 people in the room, and, you know, you fly in somebody and they do this speaker thing. I think that we we've shifted a little bit.
You know, we went COVID, everything digital, and now it's a little bit more in person. But I think it's gonna be more of a hybrid, and that speaker is gonna be able to do more on a global level and engage via Webexes and things like that that are gonna go back. I think it's just gonna continue to be a hybrid. Nothing's gonna replace in person, and I believe I'm talking to hiring managers all the time. Nothing beats the in person, but I think I think we can use all of it if we do it well.
I agree. I mean, I think you know? And I when I asked that question, I didn't expect you to say, oh, we're all gonna be replaced by robots. That at least I hope that wasn't what I was gonna hear. But no. No. No. I don't think any of us necessarily think that or believe that. But I do see that the the machine learning and the ability to have our jobs assisted by machines is going to continue. I don't think that's going to stop.
And I I say this with certain not not certainty, but sincerity in that I truly hope that, you know, no one loses their jobs because of it. But I do think we all need to evolve Me too. And get comfortable with digital tools, social media, engagement, you know, working on our presence as it relates to the to the digital brand, not just what we might be used to in how we conduct business, how we go about our normal professional life. I just think it's gonna be important as we move forward.
Mhmm. Agree. Yeah. And reminder, as it relates to that, don't forget to go to Medical Watch and check that out and sign up. It's free. Gotta check out that tool. Sarah, you're awesome as always. Thank you. This was great. This was fun. It was a good topic. This was I could talk about this stuff all day. We didn't even get into medical podcasts. So, I mean, that would be a whole another thing. So Shit. Well, you know, we'll have to come back and do that. That that'll be next time.
We'll talk about medical podcasts. Awesome. You're the best. Guys, thank you for all of your support. Thank you for all of your comments. Thank you for sharing, and thank you, as always, for your support of this show. See you next time.