Empowering Corporate Advocacy Thru Social Media

As we roll into a new month, we’re combining a little bit of September’s theme of digital storytelling with October’s theme, as we transition to look at different kinds of advocacy across our industry and what it means for our companies, clients, and leaders.

First, let’s differentiate between a few types of advocacy:

Corporate advocacy relates to a company’s support for social causes.

Brand advocacy centers on customers and employees promoting the brand.

Policy advocacy involves influencing government policy or regulations.

Zeroing in on corporate advocacy, the Institute of Business Ethics reported in 2023 that a survey among international Corporate Affairs professionals found that half believe that companies should play a role in taking a public position on issues.

One of the most powerful tools at our disposal when it comes to corporate advocacy is social media.

The University of Kansas’ Community Toolbox highlights that “the modern digital era means that social media will no longer be a standalone aspect of your advocacy plan, but rather something that should be integrated at the most basic level.”

That’s because social media enables a quick reaction and a channel to share corporate responsibility efforts, while fostering two-way conversation and a community of trust.

What role does social media play in your own corporate advocacy framework?

Zeitgeist Du Jour

We started out this month talking about how we as biopharma communicators can foster a social-first employee partnership, despite the abounding compliance issues we face.

We’re CLOSING the month by looking at this in reverse, thinking about, as Digiday put it last week, “how extremely online culture is showing up outside of social media.”

The White House recently hosted a Creator Economy Conference, and the president told folks in attendance that they’re “the future.”

There are SO many microtrends these days, most of which seem to originate on the Tik-Tok.

We’re not even on Tik-Tok but know about them.

Why? Because we hear about them somewhere else.

When we google terms like “demure” and “brat,” we see explainers from major news orgs like the BBC and NBC.

We’ve started seeing thoughtful reflections and analysis about these terms – particularly in our comms world – on other platforms, like here, on LinkedIn.

Beyond ensuring awareness of what we in the biz may term big news stories and key mentions of our orgs and clients on social, we’re going to need to start to be fluent in some of these trends, too.

While there might be the occasional opportunity for a brand or executive in our industry to publicly hop on a trending bandwagon, we don’t see that very frequently – understandable.

But because what’s happening online is becoming part of our OFFLINE culture, that means that we are the de facto arbiters of figuring out how that translates to integrated comms strategies, including employee engagement.

Understanding the zeitgeist du jour and finding small ways to allude to some of them internally is another way to show that company leaders are attuned to what our colleagues are experiencing outside of the lab and office.

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?

Social-First Employee Partnerships

Do you remember when, a few months ago, a Chick-Fil-A employee got in trouble for posting favorable TikToks about their sandwiches?

She resigned soon thereafter and immediately signed a deal with Shake Shack for THEIR chicken sandwich.

Unless you work at a big pharma company with a really, really good in-house cafeteria, your colleagues probably won’t be posting about chicken on their lunch breaks.

But they may want to post about a day in the life at the lab bench or the moving remarks from a visiting patient advocate.

Many of us communicators have been trained to be SO careful that you may start to feel butterflies in your stomach at the mere mention of these scenarios.

In this age of mixternal communications, where there’s no longer a brick wall separating internal and external, a key opportunity to promote our orgs’ values, goals and messaging is through employee ambassadors via – you guessed it – their PERSONAL social media accounts.

You may have to be the bearer of bad news to Legal when you inform them that, no, in fact you should not require employees to seek approval every time they want to mention your company’s name in a social post.

The risk is there, sure, but in our role as communicators, we can mitigate this by actually encouraging colleagues to post by providing positively-oriented guidelines and resources.

That’s the difference between a list with a bunch of red x’s and suggestions for what type of content is not only permissible but invited.

This is one of those instances where, instead of being the gatekeeper, we can be a supporter, a champion of change, and an advocate for both employees and corporate.

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.