A new report from Sermo looks at physicians' personal and professional usage of social media. The company gathered insight from member physicians using their on-platform polls and RealTime surveys. The results were from 13 countries globally and the numbers vary by question (see the report for "n" values).

Wire readers will see the issue here immediately. This report suffers somewhat from selection bias as all the respondents are on Sermo. Still, it's valuable to see what these HCPs say about social media.

Respondents to the Sermo questions pretty much were all using social platforms for personal reasons. These physicians are on for reasonably substantive amounts of time with 60% over an hour or more. The US data were:

This highlights a huge opportunity for marketers who can target HCPs on public social platforms to get content in front of them.

When asked if they post in "private specialty groups" most respondents were fairly active which shows a high level of engagement. We interpret this as part of the public social questions rather than professional use.

Looks like physicians in the US are similar to the population in general. They use Facebook the most. On this chart Sermo makes a strong showing but we do need to remind readers of the selection bias in this data.

When asked what data they want from pharma, relevant respondents say data and education first. 

This report from Sermo has interesting data on every page and gets the much-coveted "Must Download" rating from the Klick Wire (maybe we should just make that a thing -Ed.). Grab your own copy for more insights such as the credibility of professional platforms (spoiler: it's high).

The "Instagram for Doctors" has hit 100,000 cases and we reached out to the folks there for some insights into how these cases are working for members.

Two of the top five cases for engagement were sponsored content. It looks like the HCPs on Figure 1 are welcoming of pharma materials.

Case based quizzes help HCPs get more knowledge about a topic. The knowledge lift seen across a few examples is impressive:

It would be great to get some more audience and engagement data but you can always head over to Figure1 and reach out. A final finding from the good folks there:

DeepIntent worked with LG on a study that looked at how connected TV viewers perceive pharma ads. 

First, it seems that the American public doesn't really understand when they are using CTV. When asked where they watched their favorite shows, 96% said cable or satellite but LG data from its TVs showed a much lower number:

Other data in the press release shows that the audience does seem to take action on pharma ads:

IQVIA asked HCPs about their connected TV experiences. 31% had only paid (no ads) services but 63% had at least some platforms with ads.

The most popular platforms are both paid but there are a plethora of others:

The folks over at SortList, which seems to be a small digital shop in the UK, posted a blog about Meta advertising. They gathered data from the Meta Ads Library Reporting tool and got this list of top "industries" from the US: 

They clearly position this as all advertising:

Unfortunately for them, and MediaPost who repeated the information, the Meta Ads Library reports on only a subset of all ads:

So, you see the issue. Government didn't spend the most with a measly $517 million, they would be dwarfed by CPG led by P&G. The "pharmaceutical" line is mainly PhRMA as it runs political and social content. Some pharma companies are in the database for social posts as well but at very low numbers compared to their brand spends.

The moral of the story? Know where your data comes from and the limitations on said data. Otherwise your analysis could be wildly inaccurate. (This story is a bit salty, but accurate so I'll allow it -Ed.)

MM+M compiled the list of the top 10 mental health influencers on TikTok so you don't have to. Makes a great starting point for a mental health awareness campaign.

See the MM+M story for links to each one.

That headline is a bit salty, so let's explain it. A recent influencer marketing report said this:

A range of over 10x low to high. If you don't know, just say so. 

This estimate highlights how specialized marketers need to be to take advantage of influencer voices. There are most certainly influential voices for any given health condition, but the number and volume of these voices will vary greatly. 

This report also talks about Clubhouse as if it is still a thing. The app still runs but according to Wired the launch (when invites were no longer needed) didn't spark much excitement.

The other platforms initially rushed to develop their own live audio platforms. Facebook for one added podcasting and live audio but has since reduced and consolidated its offerings.

So, for the metaverse, games, live group chats, and other interactive offerings marketers should adopt the experiential mindset. These more transient experiences are different from traditional social media that has a much longer tail.

This story is based on a webinar put on YouTube on voice and text chatbots. Mainly voice since this is from Voicebot.ai. 

Chatbots are seen as a blockage rather than a help in many if not most cases. When asked about the top frustrations with these technologies. Notice that the top three items are about the quality (or lack thereof) of the information coming back from the chatbot:

When asked if voice interfaces are expected, the vast majority said yes, at least in some apps.

The most counterintuitive finding in the webinar is that older users are more likely to want voice interfaces. The presenters posit that perhaps it is because the younger users are more comfortable with their phones' keyboards etc. 

When asked if they were for or against voice interfaces, here's what different age groups said:

If you're interested in voice interfaces or chatbots put this webinar on over lunch and tune in.

Wondering what the Metaverse will be used for? The thing most generations agree on is TV and movies:

Well, at least all that VR equipment will get some use watching M*A*S*H reruns.

The top two media planning tactics are all about research:

This story is really about crypto's rise in the rankings of industry political donations. Pharma is relatively low compared to the other industries on the chart.

Influencers have an effect on ecommerce around the world. Here in the US we're middle of the pack: