Personalized Digital Content Creation

Most of us have at least heard about personalized medicine, but personalized content creation- in this industry???

Rest easy, we’re not talking about omnichannel marketing today.

Yet, there are still opportunities for us as biopharma communicators to personalize the types of content we do manage.

A 2021 McKinsey report found that “71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions. And 76% get frustrated when this doesn’t happen.”

Although these stats don’t exactly apply to most of us on the corporate communications and PR side, there’s definitely something to it.

In 2022, UC San Diego researchers reported that the average American consumes about 34 GB of information every day.

With that much coming at any given audience and the demand for hyper-personalization, we have to make every effort to tailor our materials as much as possible.

So, what ARE easy ways that we can create personalized experiences through corp affairs-driven content?

Common AI tools like ChatGPT are actually powered by Natural Language Processing, or NLP.

This doesn’t mean that every output sounds completely natural – we all know that’s not the case… yet.

But we can still take advantage of the way these types of tools work to adapt the same content for investors, or patients, or the media, or any given group.

And we can even pressure test customized messaging for each audience BEFORE it’s deployed by prompting these tools to have the same context and priorities as those actual groups.

That may even mean creating your own knowledge base for training data, including examples of past materials and any metrics you’ve used to assess success.

Then, once you’ve decided whatever you’re working on is as good as it’s going to get and actually deploy it, you can go BACK in with these AI tools again to help analyze how it landed.

So we keep going through this feedback cycle.

What does your own feedback cycle look like for personalized digital content nowadays?

Making the Case for Industry Executives’ Social Presence

“Scientists and experts are expected to lead on the implementation of innovation,” according to the 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer.

And with more than 50 percent of people surveyed getting most of their information about new technologies and innovations from social media, we in biopharma are well-positioned to become trusted sources directly through our scientific leadership team’s social profiles.

Content from individuals at our orgs and clients is the new version of quotes in a press release.

Think about it – if a press release announces the news and quotes within the release comment on the news and add context, there’s a parallel opportunity here pertaining to how we can manage our companies’ and leaders’ social accounts, respectively.

Edelman’s Trust Barometer goes on to recommend that we can build trust via experts’ commentary by “explaining the research, engaging in dialogue, and harnessing peer voices as advocates.”

And, what’s more is that research from FTI Consulting last year found that “engagement rates for content from business leaders are more than two times higher than posts on company channels.”

With confidence increasing in advances like gene-based medicine if they’re shown to have been evaluated by scientists, we as biopharma communicators have a PRIME opportunity to not only control but also to directly shape the narratives of industry breakthroughs and their implications for society.

So, if an executive you work with is skeptical of publishing personal social content, or their next LinkedIn or blog post always seems to be an afterthought, we hope this helps you to make your case.

Ownable Social Media Strategy

Corporate and executives’ social channels are considered “owned” content.

But what we’re talking about is “ownable” social strategy.

Social media consultant and author of the popular “Link In Bio” newsletter Rachel Karten recently described “ownable” in this way that resonated with us:

“An ownable social media strategy comes up with a format or style that somehow feels at home on a platform but also fresh and new.

An ownable social media strategy builds brand (and industry) lore.”

We’d be remiss not to acknowledge all of the regulatory guidelines to which we must adhere, but sometimes fear of being shut down stymies our creativity.

While we may not have the next Duolingo owl up our sleeve, we as biopharma communicators have a one-of-a-kind perspective on – and access to – scientific advances that are literally changing lives.

As Nia Patel, of Marketers in Progress, shared in last week’s Comm Convo, “When it comes to being authentic, it’s about telling the stories that you want to tell, being true to yourself, and being true to the kind of content that you want to talk about.”

So, if we strip away the layers of reviews that each word we put out on social has to go through, what’s the essence of that ownable content for our orgs and clients? For our industry?

Authenticity’s Premium in the Age of AI

The flood of AI-generated content isn’t coming, because it’s already here.

Microsoft and LinkedIn reported that three-quarters of global knowledge workers are using AI on the job.

While there are obviously many pros to using AI in our role as communicators, we really need to be careful when it comes to content generation.

In this year’s annual communications trend radar, researchers at the Academic Society for Management & Communication call this issue “information inflation.”

They say, “The value of information is diminishing due to the continuous surge in the volume and accessibility of data and content.”

Sure, there are a few tell-tale signs of AI-generated copy.

As one example, senior AI researcher and lecturer at Swinburne University of Technology Dr. Jeremy Nguyen found an exponential increase in the word “delve” in papers on PubMed in 2023 and 2024, coinciding with ChatGPT’s widespread adoption.

We’ve also noticed an uncommon volume of other words like “tapestry” and “weave,” as well as disproportionate usage of “not/but also” sentence constructs in AI-generated copy.

Despite signs like these, it’s getting harder to tell if content has in fact been AI-generated.

Researchers at Cornell recently showed that GenAI text detectors’ accuracy rate hovers around 40%, but that that already-low rate gets cut in half when machine-generated content is manipulated.

Though it’s possible to use AI tools to enhance our outputs, unique points-of-view and writing styles with character will be even more critical to demonstrate authenticity in our communications, to build credibility, and to reach the intended audience.

Overlooked Nonconfidential AI Applications

The reality is that there are already troves of publicly available information – and therefore, opportunity! – to leverage AI for a surprising number of comms scenarios, even in biopharma.

Before we go any further, let’s be clear about two things:

First, this is NOT a call to skirt your company’s or clients’ compliance or security guidelines.

And second, we are neither claiming to be AI experts nor legal experts.

With that out of the way… Training data for AI platforms is often kept secret, and copyright law is still TBD for a lot of this, but it’s safe to assume that anything in the public domain could be referenced or used to train AI systems.

So, why not take advantage?

We recommend taking inventory of public materials that you can use on your own to equip AI tools with context, tone, format, style, and voice.

Only a FEW examples include corporate website copy, past social media and blog posts, press releases, earnings call transcripts, and medical meeting presentations.

Much of our comms work is confidential, of course.

But using public materials for future plans or recycling previously released content with AI assistance are great use cases.

Let’s say you’re writing a series of follow-on social posts for leaders on your team to amplify key messages from a recent press release.

Or maybe you’re doing research for scenario planning and want to take into account outcomes with peers and competitors.

There’s so much more.

The point is, regardless of how AI-prepared your org is, you can still adopt these game-changing tools.

Explaining the Science to Lay Audiences

It’s true that many of the corporate materials–like earnings announcements and medical meeting posters–we put out into the world are consumed by a lay audience, including patients, even though they may not be the primary intended target.

However, this should not preclude efforts to explain our science and technology in more accessible ways for patient communities.

These are a few of the opportunities we invite life science comms peers to evaluate.

Launch a dedicated patients and families section on your corporate website. Include content like community profiles and patient advocacy organization resources. Don’t forget to use lay language, and avoid jargon and acronyms.

When meeting with patient groups or welcoming community guest speakers onsite, think twice before whipping out the corporate deck. Take the time to develop a tailored presentation.

Create a version of your mechanism-of-action video that’s not overly technical and appropriate for a patient audience.

Partner with trusted HCPs and KOLs who already have established relationships with the community on a campaign or webinar series. You may also explore unbranded disease awareness campaigns, which sometimes can run in conjunction with a patient registry, but not always.

It’s never too early to attend PAO family summits and other community events, even if you’re not sponsoring. Establishing a consistent presence is key to building long-term relationships.

And, perhaps needless to say, work very closely with your medical, legal and regulatory colleagues to ensure compliance.

What strategies have you successfully employed to educate patient and caregiver communities and other lay audiences on your company’s or clients’ science?