Jump-start your conference experience by attending these interactive and practical workshops. These information-packed sessions are a great opportunity to network with fellow attendees while taking a hands-on, common-sense approach to mastering social media that will enhance your understanding of the informative, case study presentations throughout the entire conference.

*** Choose ALL FOUR for Maximum Value and Learning ***

Social Media And Pharma — Strategies For Securing Medical/Legal Approval

Social media engagement for companies and brands may be all the rage, but it can be a daunting task for those companies who operate in highly-regulated environments, namely finance and pharma. For pharmaceutical companies, conducting any sort of external marketing or outreach requires the review and approval of a few key stakeholders: Medical, Legal, and Regulatory (not to mention communications, IT/IS, etc.). In the past, this often meant an engagement program was either watered down to become too bland or uninteresting or was rejected altogether. 

However, there are many pharmaceutical companies who are pushing the envelope with their social media efforts and engagements and not only for their own industry. In this critical workshop, we'll explore a few examples of those successful companies and programs. We'll also review the best practices for starting a social media program for a company and brand, as well as how to navigate the seemingly dangerous regulatory waters to make it happen. We'll explore this in a stepwise fashion from the most basic of social media involvement that's completely "safe" in the eyes of those aforementioned stakeholders.

Specifically, you will gain knowledge on the following key issues:

• Dealing with user-generated content
• Terms of use for your various social media channels
• Monitoring your social media efforts
• Dealing with potential adverse event reports
• Finding the right people to connect with online

WORKSHOP LEADER: Matthew Snodgrass is Group Director, Digital Strategy for NextWorks in New York. Along with extensive experience in digital marketing and social media, he brings with him over sixteen years of digital media experience, such as producing, directing, writing, and editing. At WCG, Matt oversees social marketing for WCG clients spanning health care, pharma, biotech, and consumer brands, such as Sanofi, Daiichi-Sankyo, Warner Bros., Hershey’s, and others. Matt has been involved with the social media committees for various companies, helping to develop policy and training for employees and brand communicators in the area of social media.

Testimonials From Past Workshop Sessions:

“A lot of subjects covered, very much tool box approach. Really enjoyed this session.”  

“Very good. Down to earth. Best presentation of entire seminar.”

11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
Lunch on your own

12:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.
PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOP B
Refreshments will be provided during this session.

How To Use Social Media Listening, Monitoring And Measurement To Better Understand Your Brand And Lay The Foundation For Increased Online Engagement

Building a social media strategy and foundation hinges on a brand’s success in online listening, monitoring and measuring. It’s critical to use each of these to better understand your brand and ultimately develop a well-informed online engagement strategy. Using real-world case studies, this interactive workshop will examine and illustrate tools and strategies for effective listening, measurement and monitoring to help you better understand your brand and put the building blocks in place for increased online engagement.

Specifically during this session, you will:

• Learn the difference between online listening, measurement and monitoring
• Understand how online listening, measurement and monitoring inform brand learning, performance and issues management
• Discuss best practices for identifying key online influencers and engaging with those influencers
• Hear about regulatory concerns and strategies for addressing those challenges
• See real-world examples that demonstrate the benefits of listening, monitoring and measurement
• Get a glimpse of some of the next-generation tools companies are using to monitor issues online and have a constant view of brand performance

There is a tendency in social media to start at engagement and skip the basic elements needed to increase the chances of success.  In this workshop, you will walk away understanding the dangers in ignoring the fundamentals and feel more comfortable in moving further along the path to engagement.

WORKSHOP LEADER: Chris Iafolla is Senior Manager for Twist Mktg. Chris is charged with helping to shape the firm’s innovative social media and digital offerings to meet and stay ahead of client needs. Believing in practical tools and strategies, he is a practitioner first and an academic second. Chris has a diverse background of pharmaceutical and healthcare social media, communications and PR experience across many Fortune 100 pharmaceutical companies. Chris brings expertise in both corporate and brand-level communications programs for a variety of therapeutic areas including: diabetes, oncology, pain-related illnesses (fibromyalgia, etc.), women’s health, men’s health, smoking cessation and depression among others. is the author of PRforPharma, a widely-read industry blog focused on the issues faced by pharmaceutical and healthcare companies when developing social media programs as well as a frequent speaker at industry conferences. In addition, Chris is a regular columnist for the Marketing Health section of Mediapost.

2:30 a.m. to 2:45 p.m.
Afternoon stretch break

2:45 p.m. to 5:15 p.m.
PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOP C
Refreshments will be provided during this session.

Using Mobile Technologies To Deepen Your Understanding Of Patient, Consumer And Health Care Professionals’ Needs

A businessman turns on his mobile video camera in a public restroom to demonstrate how he tests his glucose levels and prepares his insulin injection when traveling for work. A primary care physician keeps and transmits a journal of all of the detail visits she’s had and unsolicited marketing mail she’s received over the course of a week. A mom shopping for consumer healthcare products snaps pictures of what she’s seeing on the drugstore shelf, what’s attracting her attention, and what’s confusing her. An overweight patient trying to lose weight maintains an exercise log, and every time he makes an entry, is also prompted to complete a brief survey about how he feels.

These examples illustrate not just how mobile technology enables consumers to share their lives in ever-more immediate ways, but also what people are willing to share.

You’ll leave this workshop with a clear understanding of:

• The range of mobile survey and ethnography tools available trade-offs associated with each
• How to design effective mobile-based research projects
• What to expect in terms of participation rates

Mobile devices are people’s constant companions, making them a powerful tool for obtaining timely and intimate insights. And as they become not just the primary, but the sole means for a growing worldwide population to access the Internet and each other, mobile research is becoming an ever more essential capability for companies and brands.  For all of the hype about “consumers in control,” mobile is the one arena in which they truly are. Researchers and Marketers who embrace rather than fear that dynamic will be grateful they did!

WORKSHOP LEADER: Julie Wittes Schlack is the Senior Vice President of Innovation for Communispace Corporation, a provider of market research online communities to Fortune 500 companies worldwide, with a particular concentration in life sciences.

Wrap up your conference experience with a hands-on workshop that will leave you inspired and ready to embark on your own social media journey!

Forward-Thinking Communication Techniques To Strengthen Your Brand Message And Engage Your Audience: Gamification, Cyborg, Responsive Design, SoLoMo (Social, Local, Mobile), And More!

In the late 90’s, “convergence” was one of the hottest digital marketing buzzwords. Marketers were using the term in order to describe how traditional, broadcast media worked with digital and how this changed business as we know it. By the early 2000’s, the term had given way to the new buzzword “Web 2.0”. Fast forward to today and now we are actively using “convergence” as the buzzword to describe the emerging trends in technology. These trends include SoLoMo (Social, Local, Mobile), Responsive Design, Gamification, Big Data and Calm, or Cyborg, technology.

In this forward-thinking session, we will take a look at how the convergence of technology, platforms, media, devices and content are changing digital marketing as we know it. During this enlightening session, you will learn:

• The benefits of developing convergent content
• The framework to build a successful and effective convergent marketing mix
• How to harness emerging trends like SoLoMo, Big Data, Responsive Design and Gamification in order to engage your audience and drive business results
• How convergent technologies are creating relevance and building trust with your customers

WORKSHOP LEADER: Jim Dayton is Senior Director, Emerging Media at Intouch Solutions. Jim has more than 11 years of experience in interactive and traditional marketing. He joined Intouch Solutions in 2007, bringing expertise in relationship marketing, social media and mobile marketing to the agency. An initial account team position soon transitioned into forming and leading the emerging media team in 2008, based on Jim’s visionary identification of the rising influence of these emerging media.

Testimonial From Past Workshop Sessions:

“It was very informative in how to build a social media team and initiative within our organization.”