| | September 20179past two years. The country contrib-utes over 35.5 percent to the APAC community which has more than 118 million members.While career advancement and recruitment is still a major function, over time, LinkedIn has evolved into an effective publishing platform for professional content, which has had profound implications for corporate communications and marketing activ-ities. The way Pharma can leverage this is multi fold. A big part of Linke-dIn's appeal lies in the high level of engagement of its members and the potential for precise targeting of con-tent and talent searches. Healthcare marketers can target audiences by job title, function, occupation, indus-try, skills, affiliations and more. This precise targeting provides pharmaceu-tical marketers with the reassurance that their advertising efforts reach the right audience.In the healthcare space, mem-bership encompasses all stakeholder groups; pharma companies, patients, healthcare professionals, marketing agencies, hospitals, investors and, of course, employees. Numerous pharmaceutical companies have es-tablished dedicated company pages in an effort to amass followers, and provide a professional space for em-ployee engagement and collaboration. In India, Biocon, Apollo Hospitals, Siemens Healthcare, Pfizer are few firms actively engaging with audienc-es on LinkedIn. Not just from a talent perspective, LinkedIn also helps with adding to brand value with a page that is dedicated to establishing corporate presence for the brand.So, what can Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare firms do on LinkedIn?· Create a complete profile, design matters as much as content on social media pages.· Don't just be present, engage.· Make relevant company oriented, end audience relevant updates on a regular basis.· Review your wall regularly and share, comment on and like your con-nections' updates and long-form posts.· Create or join and participate in groups.· Post content on LinkedIn publishing tools.With proper protocols in place for page management, the inherent fear of social media of managing user com-ments, and incidents can be well man-aged and risk mitigated in advance.Moving on to another platform, and making big waves in the Pharma space is YouTube. Given that You-Tube is the number two search engine (behind Google), the most important thing to note is that pharma compa-nies should be using YouTube. India has 180 million monthly active users of YouTube on mobile devices alone. YouTube has 14 Indian independent content creators on its platform with one million subscribers each. With over 300 million smartphone users now in the country, creators are find-ing audiences beyond the top metros thanks to improved access to the In-ternet, as well as more Indians coming online in tier-2 cities who are discov-ering new content in their languages. This demand is driving more hunger for YouTube content across all genres.These trends are driving You-Tube's massive growth in watch time, with mobile contributing to 80 percent of YouTube's total watch time in India. That mobile watch time is growing at a staggering 400 percent year on year. Earlier this year, YouTube announced that its 1+ billion users worldwide are now watching one billion hours of video daily. Video content has the highest consumption rate, as it is an engaging way to educate patients and healthcare professionals. Video is es-pecially useful for patients with low literacy levels, in a country like India this provides a huge potential. Video content once created has a longer shelf life and provides for multiple usages. Content is king. If you're providing valuable video content that consum-ers are searching for, you will start gaining subscribers. In healthcare, it is important to po-sition your brand as the trusted expert, and people will want to keep coming back to you. Posting video content that is social, shareable and relevant to the interests of your core audience while still staying true to your brand is a great way to grow your presence in the digital space.While the consumer market of patients and HCPs is ready for em-bracing an inflow of information from the healthcare and pharmaceuti-cal players, the firms have to step up and embrace social across platforms. Fears of adverse event reporting, get-ting content through internal approval processes and other issues appearing as roadblocks can be resolved with a little troubleshooting and a lot of patience. The Pharmaceutical and Healthcare firms have to take the Digital Prescription! In the ever-increasing search for healthcare connected, Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare firms cannot afford to stay behind the curve for long
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