Raise your hand if you spend way too much time on social media.

Healthcare providers (HCPs) are no different. They maintain a social media presence on various platforms for blue jeans moments, like doom scrolling at home, and white coat moments for professional networking via practice promotion, patient education, and more. This provides ample opportunity for healthcare marketers to reach HCPs where they spend a lot of their free time and work time.

The Need for Specialized Social Media Marketing in Healthcare

Identifying and reaching the right healthcare professionals has always been challenging for healthcare marketers. HCPs have busy and sometimes inconsistent schedules and can be selective of the media and content they engage with. They also work in local or, at most, regional capacities, further emphasizing the need for “right place, right time” marketing. For example, the incidence of the flu is low in the western part of the US right now but still high in the eastern part. Therefore, healthcare marketers wouldn’t advertise Tamiflu to doctors in a western state like Arizona, where flu cases remain low.

For these reasons, pharma companies must pursue hyper-targeted, hyperlocal omnichannel approaches to create impactful HCP campaigns across multiple channels, including social media. 

The Power of Social Media Platforms in the HCP Omnichannel Journey

Integrating social media marketing within an omnichannel campaign strategy allows pharma companies to reach engaged HCPs during free and work time by reinforcing key brand messages across the health journey via programmatic campaigns. Recent studies have found that 90% of HCPs are on social media platforms for personal use, and 65% use them for professional reasons, such as networking, event participation, and patient education and outreach. The most used platform likely comes as no surprise. Sixty-seven percent of healthcare professionals regularly use Facebook. This positions Meta as a valuable and relevant HCP social media marketing channel. 

Why All HCP Social Media Marketing and Activation Solutions Are Not Created Equal

HCPs may have a solid social media presence on Meta. However, this platform has a significant disadvantage: Meta’s Campaign Manager is not tailored to targeting healthcare professionals and cannot provide the granular targeting and measurement capabilities that a health-focused programmatic ad platform can. While many lifestyle-related targeting options are available on platforms like Meta, none are as granular as targeting HCPs based on their diagnoses, prescribed drugs, medical procedures, or recent engagement on a brand website or search campaign. 

In addition, using social media platforms like Meta comes with the caveat that they need to get smarter over time. So, if using Meta’s Audience builder directly, pharma marketers must know who they want to see their ads and build an audience around attributes not specific to health-focused needs. Once the ads start running, the system will learn who is engaging and, over time, narrow the audience to reach more of the right people.

What to Look for in an HCP Social Media Marketing and Activation Solution

Effective HCP social media marketing requires the data to know the right target audiences to engage on these platforms, starting with health-centric attributes at the forefront of audience building. This means that pharma companies must find an HCP social media marketing and activation solution that does three things: 

1. Verifies and matches NPIs to social accounts: This helps marketers build lists of HCP audiences based on verified NPI numbers, enabling more accurate targeting and measurement on social media platforms.
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2. Builds NPI target lists using real-time, brand-relevant behaviors: Marketers can target HCPs who’ve recently engaged with their brand clinically and/or digitally, such as through prescriptions written or relevant brand site visits.
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3. Reports on NPI-level insights: Brands can measure performance via campaign-related clicks leading to their website, traced back to each applicable social platform.

Partnering with PulsePoint for HCP Social Media Marketing and Activation

To effectively reach HCPs on social media platforms like Facebook, healthcare marketers need a reliable segmentation tool that refines targeting beyond the platform’s inherent capabilities. This helps ensure marketers only invest dollars in reaching HCPs most relevant to a brand. PulsePoint’s solution delivers on this need through HCP Social activation on Facebook and Instagram. 

Pre-campaign launch, healthcare marketers can build target audiences for social activation based on brand-provided NPI lists. They can also leverage PulsePoint’s Authenticated NPI™ data via Smart Lists curation to target 100%-verified HCPs based on their real-time clinical and digital behaviors.

Direct Match is the technology behind our ability to address 100%-verified HCPs. It powers our HCP targeting capabilities with an average 95% match rate, giving pharma brands the ability to deploy HCP campaigns with the confidence to reach their intended target audience. A pharmaceutical brand working with CMI Media Group leveraged PulsePoint's Direct Match technology to reach target HCPs across Meta/Facebook via NPI lists and attributes, like specialty and prior prescription behavior. The results highlighted how social targeting drove an 8% increase in first-time prescriptions written by engaged HCPs.

When it comes to measuring campaign results, marketers can access NPI-level click reporting directly in PulsePoint’s platform, if the brand adds a Smart Pixel to their website pre-campaign launch. Campaign metrics like impressions are also available, but only directly within the social platform where media activation occurs. Suppose marketers desire richer, daily NPI-level insights like NPI reach by profession/specialty and affiliated facility or the top 10 prescriptions, procedures, and diagnoses of engaged HCPs. In that case, PulsePoint would recommend HCP365, its Marketing Analytics tool.

PulsePoint’s platform can also target and report on HCPs at a granular level throughout their omnichannel healthcare journey across multiple channels, including EHR, CTV, display advertising, and more. In a TechValidate survey of over 1,500 PulsePoint users, 97% said PulsePoint’s HCP targeting is better than other platforms.

By integrating HCP Social activation as a foundational touchpoint within an omnichannel campaign strategy, healthcare marketers can extend their messaging and improve experiences with HCPs who engage with brand media across multiple channels. 

Conclusion 

In an omnichannel journey, it’s all about meeting a brand’s target audiences where they are. And the engaged HCPs are on the major social media platforms. Now, brands can reach with the granular targeting and measurement capabilities only a health-focused programmatic ad platform can provide. PulsePoint provides everything needed to plan, activate, analyze, and optimize digital healthcare marketing campaigns in one system across multiple channels, including social media platforms. Contact us today to learn more about HCP Social activation with PulsePoint.
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FAQ

What is HCP Social Activation?

HCP Social Activation leverages PulsePoint's market-leading technology, Direct Match, to power HCP targeting capabilities with an average 95% match rate. This gives pharma brands the ability to deploy HCP campaigns with the confidence to reach their intended target audience.

Why is PulsePoint’s Social Targeting Solution Effective for Engaging HCPs?

It’s well known that HCPs use social media during personal and professional moments, for networking at medical conferences, or patient education and practice promotional opportunities. By integrating Social Activation as a foundational touchpoint within an omnichannel campaign strategy, marketers can improve engagement with HCPs by reinforcing key messages seen during both white coat moments at the hospital and blue jeans moments at home. This, in turn, strengthens brand recall and creates a more impactful health journey across channels.

What Is the Most Common Targeting Criteria for HCP Social Campaigns?

Health marketers can build HCP audiences for targeting via social activation based on:

• Brand-provided NPI Lists
• Custom NPI lists created by PulsePoint on behalf of the brand
• PulsePoint’s NPI Smart Lists curated based on real-time HCP clinical and/or digital activity

What Are the Best Practices for Targeting HCPs on Social Media?

Effective HCP social media marketing requires the right data to effectively reach HCPs on platforms like Facebook, starting with health-centric attributes at the forefront of audience building. This means that healthcare companies must find an HCP social media marketing and activation solution that does three things:

1. It verifies and matches NPIs to social accounts so marketers can build lists of HCP audiences based on verified NPI numbers. This enables more accurate targeting and measurement on social media platforms.


2. It builds NPI target lists using real-time, brand-relevant behaviors. This enables marketers to target HCPs recently engaged with their brand clinically and/or digitally, such as through prescriptions written or relevant brand site visits.


3. It reports on NPI-level insights. Brands can measure performance via campaign-related clicks leading to their website, traced back to each applicable social platform.

How Can I Measure the Success of My HCP Social Campaigns?

Post-campaign launch, marketers will receive trigger email reporting on metrics like unique NPIs reached, total opens and clicks, delivery rate, emails sent, and unsubscribes.

Marketers can access NPI-level click reporting directly in PulsePoint’s platform if they have added a Smart Pixel to their website pre-campaign launch. Campaign metrics like impressions are available directly within the social platform where media activation occurs. If marketers desire richer, daily NPI-level insights like NPI reach by profession/specialty and affiliated facility, PulsePoint recommends HCP365, its Marketing Analytics tool.

Can HCP Social Campaigns Integrate with Other Marketing Channels?

Yes they can, and we recommend they do. Integrating social media marketing within an omnichannel campaign strategy allows healthcare companies to reinforce key brand messages across multiple channels. The ability to reach and analyze HCP engagement across channels offers healthcare marketers enhanced opportunities to optimize campaigns mid-flight and improve engagement through better overall health journey orchestration.