Editor's note: This is the second in a series on biopharma best practices in using social media. The next article will look at disease awareness pages.

When it comes to getting social, biopharma has to get over itself, because being social is not about building a brand, promoting a drug or lecturing to the masses.

Rather, social media is all about the patient and his or her experience, said Mike Myers, president of Palio Communications. That's just as true with YouTube, with its controlled messages, as it is with Facebook, which thrives on interaction.

While Facebook and Twitter are great for stimulating the conversation, YouTube is more about providing information. It is a "tremendous opportunity for pharma," Myers told companies participating in a Thompson Media webinar on effective use of social media. (See BioWorld Today, Dec. 12, 2011.)

Of all the social media communities, YouTube is the safest for a regulated industry because companies have more control over the message, he added. However, companies shouldn't use it as just another venue for running drug ads. After all, 90 percent of people who can skip television ads do so. Ads on YouTube are likely to meet the same fate.

Like other social media, YouTube is about communicating, not broadcasting. And, as the No. 2 most searched site on the Internet, it's a busy place. Although YouTube doesn't release its numbers, it's been estimated that it has more than 400 million unique viewers, with about 800 million user visits per month and more than 3 billion videos viewed each day, Myers said.

As for demographics, YouTube has broad appeal, attracting viewers age 18 to 54; about 70 percent of YouTube traffic comes from outside the U.S.

Besides allowing biopharma to control the message, YouTube is a strong medium for presenting fair balance as it permits companies to share a lot of content, Myers said. As a result, YouTube is safer and potentially more effective for biopharma than Facebook and Twitter.

YouTube also allows drugmakers to have a dialogue or a monologue "in a way that facilitates people out in the social media space taking the information and sharing it with others," Myers said. This sharing, often through Facebook and Twitter, repurposes YouTube content and circulates it on the Internet quickly.

Despite the advantages, many biopharma companies, although engaged in social media, have shied away from YouTube. In an informal BioWorld Today survey last year, only 24 percent of the respondents were on YouTube, while 71 percent were on LinkedIn, 56 percent were on Facebook and 48 percent tweeted. (See BioWorld Today, July 5, 2011.)

Biopharma's Growing Presence

But thanks to some big pharma companies that have figured out how to create holistic YouTube channels, biopharma's presence on YouTube is growing, both in content and subscribers. For smaller companies looking to create their own YouTube channels, Myers recommended that they use the successful big pharma channels as a model.

In the absence of FDA guidance for social media, Myers said, "the way that people are learning is by learning from each other and seeing what is working, what is not working, and what is coming under regulatory scrutiny and the ire of the FDA." (See BioWorld Today, Jan. 10, 2012.)

One of the strongest and most prolific biopharma channels on YouTube is the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) Health Channel, he said. It includes discussions about different disease states such as HIV and AIDS, and profiles of health care providers and some of the company's staff. J&J dove into the medium early on. "Their viewership and ability to use YouTube as a promotional and education tool has benefited as a result of their commitment to it," Myers said.

Other channels he recommended include:

• The Novartis Channel. It provides videos dedicated to various disease states. While Novartis has drugs approved for the diseases, the videos aren't ads for the product. Instead, they discuss the disease, overall treatment, patient lifestyle and patient care. The channel isn't about brand. "It's about patient experience; it's about overall health; it's about improving outcomes," Myers said.

• AbbottChannel. Besides discussing disease states, the channel talks about the things Abbott does in the community. Instead of a one-dimensional advertising message, Abbott provides a complete picture of what it's doing. Subsequently, "it doesn't come off as big, bad pharma with one more drug that many people think is overpriced," Myers said. "It comes off as a firm that's very committed to community, committed to patient care, committed to truly beneficial outcomes."

• AstraZeneca. Like AbbottChannel, this channel provides a "holistic story about [the] firm, and ultimately the halo effect transfers over the brands themselves," Myers said.

• Boehringer Ingelheim. Some of the videos on this channel use a lot of advanced technology and graphics to explain complex concepts, so they can be used as educational tools. Boehringer also has done a great job in syncing all its social media sites, Myers said. For instance, its YouTube channel includes links to its Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Web and news sites. The company's latest social media foray is gaming, "which is a huge growth area for promotion in general and it's absolutely going to be hitting pharma," he added.