• by Les Luchter , April 23, 2023

Sanofi is the top big pharma company in self-published online content -- including blogs, websites and social media presence -- according to Worldcom’s biannual “Digital Health Monitor,” which analyzed and ranked the 2022 online presence of 25 firms both globally and in 25 countries.

Sanofi was followed in order by Novartis, Roche, Bayer and Pfizer.

Pfizer was the only one of the companies to also make the top five two years ago, when it placed second, behind Abbott and ahead of Abbvie, AstraZeneca and Novo Nordisk.

But, “the playing field was a bit different” this time around, Worldcom Healthcare chairman Serge Beckers tells Marketing Daily. The number of countries studied in the study decreased from 27 to 25, and companies now had to be operating in all of them.

 “So, besides having increased their presence and improved their communication, some pharmaceuticals will have obtained a higher ranking because of their regional presence -- the lack of which made other pharmaceuticals disappear from the list,” says Becker.

Also, he acknowledges, “the previous report was influenced to a large extent by ‘COVID communication.’ So I believe that this report gives a more realistic image of the pharma landscape than the previous one.”

What’s that landscape?

“The world’s leading pharmaceutical companies continue to spurn the opportunity to connect via social media at a local level,” the report states. "However, their use of apps almost doubled.”

On the other hand, Beckers said in a statement, “visual platforms like YouTube and TikTok and mainstream social media platforms like Facebook remain underutilized at a local level."

Indeed, TikTok, Pinterest and Snapchat have nearly zero usage, Worldcom said, noting that “pharmaceutical companies may be missing an opportunity to engage and build trust with younger generations.”

Sanofi was singled out for its use of local blogs in addition to a global one. “While all but two of the companies have a ‘global blog,’ local blogs remain hard to find,” said Worldcom.

Different playing field or not, Gilead -- which has come under fire from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation -- was the only company to place in the bottom 5 in both 2022 and 2020, but was nudged out of last place this time around by Lonza (whose poor communications skills may be why we’d never heard of the firm before).

Worldcom said it selected the 25 companies in this year’s study based on their global reputation, size and geographic presence. Scores are based on presence in 11 digital channels, including apps, blogs, corporate websites, local company websites, and social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube.