Social Listening

Hi, I'm Sam Hocine. I'm from the BGB Medical Team and I'm joined here by my colleague also from the Medical Department. And we're here to talk about the use of social listening as an exercise to really mine insights in a novel way. It's something that we've heard a lot come up with our clients recently and something that we're really digging into as an agency. Yeah, great question. Social listening, it's essentially tapping into the online world, right? It's an opportunity to listen to what HCPs are discussing with their peers across the platforms that they're using. It really does provide us with an opportunity to gauge HCP attitudes about a disease state, about a therapeutic landscape, etc. You know, when we think about more traditional medical insights gathering approaches like ad boards, social listening is a nice way to complement that. I like that analogy. I think we kind of think of it as the world's largest advisory board, but it's really unique in one key way, which is that you're not really prompting a reaction. These are genuine, unprompted perceptions that are playing out as people naturally have them, and they reflect kind of a really genuine way to gather insights. There are so many applications, honestly. Thought leader identification, understanding unmet needs, informing medical strategy, brand planning. Not only that, but like Sam was mentioning, it really does allow us to understand in real time some of the nuances, right? The audience language, topics that resonate with them, content that they are actively engaging with. It is valuable across therapeutic areas, but it's interesting that the use and activity does vary by HCP specialty. So in the work that we've done so far, we've noticed that oncologists, for example, tend to be particularly active on X, whereas dermatologists tend to be more active on platforms that are a bit more visual in nature, like Instagram, for example. Yeah, totally agree. You can also imagine that in something like social media, there's just a ton of noise that we need to cut through and focus really on those key themes, those recurring topics or concepts that really reflect truths that we can act on. Where is that share of voice? What is being represented the most by folks who are interested in targeting? So we have to be judicious. We have to really focus on what conversations get the most engagement, get the most hits. And to Angela's point, we have to filter these. What are the regions that we're interested in understanding better? What are the specific stakeholders whose perceptions we really want to glean? How does that differ by specialty or for example, by an MD versus a APP? It's true that Congresses really represent key milestones for engaging in activities like social listening. You can do it year round, but it's really important at these Congresses because there's often a ton of data being released, especially in areas where the emergence of data is so rapid, such as oncology. It's critical to listen in and really mine those perspectives as they're occurring in relation to the new data, understand where certain data are generating a lot of excitement, understand where there's perhaps objections or concerns about other data. The competitive context comes across extremely well in the conversations that are happening online. So this represents a key milestone that we oftentimes support our clients in social listening. Yeah, and one really great example of how that really came to life in a real life example of how we worked on this with our clients was earlier this year around the 2024 annual meeting for the American Academy of Dermatology. You could imagine that the online space, social media is an extension of the conversations that are happening at the Congress floor. We were working with a client who had their eye on an emerging new entrant into the space. This was a new mechanism of action, new route of administration with the potential to really shake up the existing treatment landscape for this particular therapeutic area of interest. And so what we were sort of aiming to do was to listen in to the conversations and the perceptions around that data. And even though, you know, nascent, very early, very fresh, right, understanding the perceptions and attitudes of HCPs towards that emerging data really allowed us to formulate insights and recommendations for our clients to help them with potential new data generation efforts and brand positioning in, again, this rapidly evolving landscape. And so with that, you know, I think the take home is that, you know, the data itself is always important, but it's not just that. It's about the perception of that data that can be super informative. And it's that type of approach that helps us and our clients stay future forward. Yeah, and this is particularly top of mind for us right now as we head into ESMO, one of the world's largest oncology congresses. We're gearing up here as a medical team to collaborate with other functions within BGB, such as our Innovation and Intelligence Group, to really set up the proper social listening cues, the search terms, understand which particular tumor types we want to follow closely and come up with a plan of action that's going to make sure that we're following the conversations and extracting the insights that matter most for our clients. Applications of social listening really do span therapeutic areas. One other really cool example that we worked on with clients within the past year was in the migraine space. We helped them execute an ad board that was really focused on understanding the behaviors and the engagement activities of digital opinion leaders or DOLs who are particularly active in the digital migraine community. And that really allowed us an opportunity to understand what some of the unmet needs in the digital migraine space are and work with our clients and those DOLs to brainstorm digital tactics, including things like identifying optimal target audiences and preferred channels really to help them address those priority digital gaps. So again, just another example of how social listening can be brought to life to help our clients in the medical affairs space really bridge gaps and move the needle forward. Totally agree, Angelo. And I think, you know, the primary objective with that advisory board was to mine the insights of these folks that are driving the conversations in the migraine space. But secondarily, we also are building relationships with these folks and their presence, their partnerships represent an actual channel. Can they disseminate content on our behalf? Can they get out key messages that move the brand forward or the clinical data forward in terms of addressing specific unmet needs? Beyond this, I think we're just starting to scratch the surface in terms of how to apply social listening across medical communications. Of course, what comes to mind is the application of AI. So how can we generate and leverage AI solutions that really integrate all the conversations that are happening as they're happening? It's a ton of data. And how do we deploy that in a way that can synthesize the data and lead to really smart actions and communication plans that move the needle in terms of HCP understanding? Awesome. Well, thank you, Sam. And thank you, everybody, for listening in to us today. I know we shared a lot of information, but hopefully stuff that was insightful and informative. You know, this is obviously a space that is rapidly evolving with emerging technologies and capabilities. And we are going to continue to keep our finger on the pulse of HCP conversations in the digital space and how we can use those to continue to help our medical clients. So stay tuned for more. Thanks.