If you haven’t yet read part one of this two-part series, check out The Simplest Way to Strategically Map Digital Thought Leaders. That’s where we discuss the four types of thought leaders you’ll find on social media and which you should monitor the closest.
In case you haven’t seen that yet, we’ll give you a brief conclusion: Since time is limited (because that’s how time works), we recommend prioritizing digital thought leaders (DTLs) for engagement who meet two criteria. Number one, they have a high healthcare practitioner (HCP) follower count, and number two, they have highly relevant owned content, meaning content they themselves have authored and published online.
Once you’ve mapped the DTLs you’d like to monitor into all four categories, create a profile for each high HCP follower count, high relevant owned content thought leader. Your profile development varies based on your unique medical plan. However, the following are typically found in a profile:
- General Information: Name, location, specialty, place of work.
- Channels: All the channels they’re involved in (Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, etc.).
- Top Content Review: Owned and earned content detail.
- Topic Analysis: Key topics contained within their mentions.
- HCP Follower Analysis: Number of HCPs following them and those HCPs’ specialty.
- Scientific Voice: Number of publications and presentations over the past few years.
- Alignment Analysis: Their alignment with your strategy, company, or competitors.
A digital thought leader profile provides an easy-to-follow framework to fairly, ethically, and legally compare DTLs to potentially engage. Each profile also clearly lays out specifics including therapeutic area, following, published science, and strategic alignment. At the end of the day, that final bullet is what’s most important. If an opinion leader is not currently active online in a way that indicates alignment with your medical plan and strategic objectives, engage with someone else.
To learn more about the best ways to engage digital thought leaders to improve patient outcomes, click here.
