The Social Studies Group used Brandwatch to better engage with online communities discussing a specific genetic disorder. More info here: http://www.brandwatch.com/2013/08/case-study-the-social-studies-group-pharmaceutical-research/

1. Case Study/
Pharmaceutical Research
The Social Studies Group Leverages Social
Analytics to Better Engage with Online Communities

2. Company: The Social Studies Group
Headquarters: Washington, DC
Audience: Consumer Brands
Industry: Social Media Research
Website: www.socialstudiesgroup.com/
Services: Social Media Research,
Marketing & Branding Strategy
Brandwatch Services: Social Media Monitoring and
Analytics
The Goal/
Understand the Online
Community Surrounding a
Genetic Disorder
Referring to themselves as “Nerds with Panache,” The
Social Studies Group (SSG) is a social media research firm
with a seasoned team that brings over five decades of
marketing and branding strategy to each engagement. This
enables the firm to gather the right intelligence and deliver
meaningful results for companies seeking more knowledge
in the area of consumer research.
Recently, SSG was approached by a public relations firm for a
major pharmaceutical company. The PR firm had been tasked
with managing the social media efforts related to a genetic
disorder that the pharmaceutical company’s drug treats. The
PR firm had three specific social media goals:
1. To identify the true discussions taking place about the
disorder from patients, caregivers, and medical practitioners.
2. To engage, where appropriate, in online discussions
regarding the disorder.
2. To gain immediate awareness of any attitude shifts and
changes in the marketplace.
The pharmaceutical industry still awaits definitive guidelines
from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and similar
European agencies regarding how Pharma companies can use
social media. Because of strict rules and tight timetables for
reporting adverse effects currently in place by the FDA, the firm
wanted to be alerted immediately if any adverse effect
messaging came to light, and because of tight restrictions, this
monitoring project was a daily job.
The Challenge/
Isolating Relevant Discussion
from the Online Noise
To date, the PR firm had been unable to discern a
substantial amount of legitimate online conversations
relevant to the genetic disorder or its client’s drug. “This
wasn’t for a lack of data,” explained Wendy Scherer,
Managing Partner of SSG. “A social media search of
almost any genetic disorder turns up a massive amount of
spam, links, sales pitches for remedies – you name it.”
Using standard social searches, the PR firm had been unable to
isolate the legitimate discussions around the disorder or their
client’s drug and hoped that SSG’s in-depth experience at
detailed social research would yield better results. Of utmost
importance was being able to call attention to – and separate
out – the most authentic consumer/patient/caregiver stories
and content.
Project leaders at SSG knew they had to delve broad and deep
on their social media searches – and then perform complex
queries against the data to surface only the pertinent discussions
about the genetic disorder and the company’s drug.
Social Research Reveals Product
Attitudes & Informs Strategy
Key Results/
Case Study/ The Social Studies Group
About/
The Social Studies Group
• Identified the concerns and
sentiments of drug stakeholder
groups involved in online discussions
• Informed PR firm and pharmaceutical
company strategy of best ways to
engage online communities
• Categorized discussions in multiple
ways for ongoing market research and
marketing improvement
Locating
the most authentic
consumer and carer
conversations

3. A Best Practices Approach to
Social Pharmaceutical Research
SSG had been using Brandwatch for other clients’ complex
social searches because of the tool’s unique capabilities for
scanning social media in both a broad and exacting manner.
“Brandwatch is the ideal tool for Pharma-related searches,”
said Scherer. “It unveils all the online venues where health
discussions are happening, from Facebook and Twitter to
health advocacy forums and professional association blogs.
It then allows us to look at the data in any number of ways.”
SSG began the project by using Brandwatch to establish a
benchmark for ongoing social analysis of the pharmaceutical
brand, its drug, and the genetic disorder in question. This was a
critical first step, as the benchmark would inform results of the
daily research and monitoring that was required by the PR firm. It
also provided a brand audit of the pharmaceutical company and
its competitors, including those that did not offer a drug for the
disorder in question. “Having baseline data would help us more
readily identify spikes in daily conversation and shifts in sentiment
toward all brands as time passes,” explained Scherer. “It would
also help keep a pulse on the best places to engage in
discussions when appropriate.”
The second major step in the process was to separate social
search results into logical groupings – we’ve included sample
discussion categories on the right.
Having results sorted into categories would enable SSG, the PR
firm, and the pharmaceutical company to explore trends more
deeply and to more quickly notify specific groups within the
company should issues arise. The SSG team also created
additional queries in Brandwatch to monitor the pharmaceutical
pipeline with working code names for the products and company
names in combination with researched condition keywords.
Improved Community and
Category Insights
Because SSG applied its best practices to refining the
searches around the pharmaceutical brand and the genetic
disorder in question, many surprising and useful findings
emerged. A significant finding pertained to the
pharmaceutical brand itself.
Once SSG had removed all news, press releases, and other
marketing data, they discovered a surprisingly modest amount of
social conversation about the brand and competitive products.
SSG found that most discussion centered on the personal side of
the disorder, with the top three categories surfacing this way:
1. Parents discussing their children who have the disorder,
including the trials and tribulations the children endure.
2. Recommendations about whom to contact for “putting a
face” to the disorder.
2. Notification and logistics about fundraising events.
With this information in hand, the PR firm was able to set an
appropriate strategy for engaging with the social community of
stakeholders that surround the disorder. “It’s a huge benefit to
know where the parents and children are coming from and
what they care about most,” said Evans. “It informs the
company how to speak to the community in a positive way.”
Daily review of the social search results in Brandwatch provided
ample notice for any adverse effect reports. Moreover, SSG
was able to alert the PR firm of changes in the pipeline for the
disorder extremely early in the process.
“SSG has demonstrated that there’s a lot that pharmaceutical
companies can do on social media today to understand the
markets and stakeholders surrounding their current and future
drugs,” said Scherer. “Pharmaceutical companies that start
understanding their social community today will be ready when
the FDA and EU-based regulatory agencies provide social
media guidelines.”
This would help them understand the ongoing competitive
market dynamics. To obtain the most thorough results, SSG set
up complex queries, tags, and rules in the Brandwatch platform,
such as the following example:
The third step SSG took focused on cleaning and refining the
data. The volume of data around the general disorder
conversation was so great that SSG had to take the additional
step of cleansing the incoming data. As soon as SSG spotted
patterns, they performed a more in-depth manual review of the
data to verify assumptions. Next, they refined queries via
excludes and applied additional rules for tagging, categorization,
and type of user (e.g., patient, professional, caregiver) to
analyze, in real time, the data, sources, and sentiment. “We
used excruciating care to bring in results as cleanly as possible,”
said analyst Megan Evans. “This is where the rubber meets the
road when surfacing true insights from social media.”
Case Study/ The Social Studies Group
Broad and Exacting
Social Searches.
The Results/The Solution/
((condition) AND (pipeline OR “clinical
trial*” OR “FDA approval”~3 OR
((development) NEAR/5 (drug OR
pharmaceutical OR treatment OR Rx))
caregiver commentary
fundraising
trade commentary
drug applications
patient experience
condition awareness
Brand X
sentiment
Brand Y
pipeline commentary
available drugs

4. About/
About The Social
Studies Group
The Social Studies Group
(www.socialstudiesgroup.com) is a
market research firm that
specializes in using social media
conversations and visual content to
help companies better understand
their customers, competitors,
markets and industries.
Custom service offerings include
netnography (virtual ethnography),
identifying and analyzing niche
communities and influencers;
comparative linguistic analyses of
social media used for organizational
and brand messaging; creating
“universes” that can be monitored and
analyzed over time; and in-depth social
media monitoring for knowledge
accumulation and analyses.
For more information, please visit
www.socialstudiesgroup.com/
About Brandwatch
Brandwatch is a leading provider of
social media monitoring and
analytics solutions. More than 700
global brands and agencies use
Brandwatch, relying on a broad
range of social coverage and highly
reliable, spam-free data to monitor
online conversations.
As a result, organizations can glean
insights around their brand interests,
conduct market research, predict
market trends, and more actively
engage influencers, customers and
prospects.
A global company, Brandwatch is
headquartered in Brighton, UK and has
offices in the United States and
Germany.
For more information, please visit
www.brandwatch.com
@Brandwatch | Brandwatch Blog | Brandwatch Fan Page
“It’s a huge benefit to know
where the parents and children
are coming from and what
they care about most”
Wendy Scherer,
Managing Partner,
The Social Studies Group