SOMEMA Unveiled: Benchmarking Social Media Performance in Medical Affairs

Amid a broader industry focus on omnichannel-engagement capabilities, medical affairs organizations are exploring how social media and digital opinion leaders (DOLs) can be harnessed to help achieve their objectives. Beyond passive social listening to monitor online peer-to-peer dialogue utilization and identify DOLs, a growing number of medical affairs organizations are shifting from passive observations to active participation on social media.

While the number of medical affairs-owned accounts on public platforms like X (formerly Twitter) remains modest, there are signs that an inflection point has been reached. Of 19 medical affairs accounts on X identified by Klick, 12 were launched post-pandemic, with a median age of just above 2.5 years. Two-thirds of these accounts are oncology-specific, including PfizerOncMed, which has generated a “DOL-like” following of over 33,600 since launching in September 2020, representing nearly 30 followers gained per day.

Such examples demonstrate the potential value of stepping onto the social media playing field and the potential to meaningfully expand the possible stakeholder reach through such channels. For now, however, most medical affairs teams remain on the social media sidelines or reliant on corporate accounts to support key objectives, including disseminating new data and medical information.

An Unmet Need for Industry Benchmarking

Among the reasons we’ve encountered for medical affairs hesitating to take direct action in setting up their own social media presence is uncertainty as to how they can demonstrate value and measure impact. Beyond the opportunities to monitor content performance through social media-engagement metrics and publication-centric altmetrics, Klick’s Medical Communications & Innovation Team identified an unmet need for specific indicators to enable medical affairs teams to assess their medical social media impact relative to their industry peers.

What Is the SOMEMA Index?

To help address this gap, Klick has developed SOMEMA, the SOcial MEdia for Medical Affairs (SOMEMA) Index. SOMEMA is a social media insights solution built specifically to help medical affairs teams set and measure key performance indicators (KPIs) for medical social media engagement, informed by industry benchmarks and best practices.

Among multiple metrics calculated using Klick’s proprietary algorithm, SOMEMA measures the productivity of medical affairs accounts in building an audience of followers over time relative to the total volume of social media posts put out over time— in essence, providing a potential marker of “return on investment” (see Table 1 for examples). A strong observed correlation between the number of posts and number of followers further allows predictions to be made and KPIs to be set in terms of the number of posts and time required to achieve a target number of followers.

This analysis shows only the top-ranked accounts for the SOMEMA “productivity” metric (limited to >10 followers/tweet). Contact Ryan Creighton (rcreighton@klick.com)) to request more information on the full set of SOMEMA rankings.

In addition to productivity (followers gained per post), SOMEMA aggregates multiple other sub-metrics to provide an overall SOMEMA score and ranking for all identified medical affairs X accounts. Beyond these standardized metrics and rankings, individual organizations can choose to customize the application of SOMEMA to their own unique situation, for example, by electing to benchmark their performance relative to a subset of the most relevant industry comparators (e.g., oncology-specific accounts or “big pharma” accounts).

Charting a Path to Impact

For medical affairs organizations who have yet to step onto the social media playing field or have only recently done so, SOMEMA can play a key role in helping to define KPIs and set goals objectively and, in doing so, help to make the case for appropriate internal investment. For most established players, it can guide deeper analytical approaches to uncover opportunities for optimization based on data signals and learnings derived from high-performing accounts and content.

To explore how SOMEMA can support your medical affairs’ social-engagement strategy, reach out to Ryan Creighton (rcreighton@klick.com) or visit the Klick Health Lounge at the Medical Affairs Professional Society (MAPS) meeting in Puerto Rico, March 24–27, 2024.