5 things your biotech company should be doing on social media right now

Guest Blog by Lauren Metter, CEO, Metter Media

The “let’s circle back after the holidays” season has officially arrived. But one thing you shouldn’t be pushing to next year is your biotech company’s 2024 social media strategy.

Social media is one of the best ways to get your work, culture, and key focuses out there. Q4 is the perfect time to start mapping out your social media strategy and content for 2024 so you can rest easy over the holidays — despite craziness elsewhere in the business, you can know your social plans are in place.

Plan for 2024

Create a timeline laying out the 2024 calendar year. Add key dates, events you’ll be attending, company milestones, and DEI national days/months that you want to amplify on social media. For example: January is National Blood Donor Month, February 29 is Rare Disease Day, June 14 is World Blood Donor Day, and November is National Caregivers Month. Include national/global days for your disease areas of focus. Here is a calendar of health observances in 2024.

For company milestones, map out any anticipated clinical trial milestones, BLA submissions, FDA ad comms, earnings releases, and any other company announcements. Map out dates of key events/conferences you’ll be attending so you can share those on social media. Finally, highlight key DEI moments, such as Black History Month (February), Women’s History Month (March), and Pride (June). Here is a diversity calendar for 2024.

Once you have your year mapped out and approved by the appropriate stakeholders, you’re all set to create monthly content calendars to keep your content on track.

Refresh Your Social Media Goals + Content Pillars

A good social media strategy starts with clearly defined goals. An easy way to start is with the goal of increasing brand awareness of your biotech on social media. If you’re hiring frequently, supporting recruitment efforts is a good second goal. You can do this with targeted ads and initiatives on social, and generally with highlighting the people & culture of your company. Here’s an example of 5 goals for social media:

Increase brand awareness of the company (support company news & announcements, quarterly earnings, etc.)
Support recruitment efforts (with hiring paid social ads, showing the people & culture, DEI initiatives, why people would want to work here)
Highlight commitment to [XX disease] community (patient features, attendance at patients/caregiver/HCP events)
Support key submissions and launches in 2024
Underscore XX leadership (highlight thought leaders at your company, what they’re doing for the disease community/health equity & access, and opinions on other hot topics)

Content pillars are a good way to develop balance within your social content. You want to have a mix of “here’s what we’re doing” and “here’s how we’re supporting others, like our patient communities”. We’d recommend choosing 4-5 content pillars and making your content a balance between them. Here’s a good example of content pillars for a biotech company:

People & Culture (team spotlights, what it’s like to work here)
Our Science (products, launches, research)
Gene therapy leadership (conferences, events, thought leadership)
Disease areas of focus (patient spotlights, disease education)
DEI (ERGs, company initiatives, helpful for recruitment)

Identify How You’ll Track Success

First, it’s helpful to define your target audience. This can be different per social channel. On Facebook and Instagram, you’re probably targeting patients, caregivers, and PAOs, while on LinkedIn you’re probably targeting HCPs and investors. Next, list out your key performance indicators for social media (or KPIs). Here’s a good starting point:

Engagements
Engagement Rate
Impressions
Clicks to website
Clicks to careers page (if you care about recruiting)

It’s important to have a tool or program to track social metrics. We use Sprout Social at Metter Media, but there are other affordable tools out there that can easily pull these metrics for you. You’ll want to pull results regularly to look at top performing posts and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Identify Key Employees to Highlight

I’m sure there are some employees at your biotech company who are surprisingly willing to participate in social media — they may even get excited about it! Start with them when it comes to who to highlight on social. It can be as simple as them sending some photos from the lab or from conferences, all the way to getting them to film a day in their life. If you have interns, they may be a good place to start in terms of willingness to participate.

Create a designated “social media team” of people who meet monthly to create content calendars for the month ahead and who can help execute content.

Look for Ideas to Inspire Your Content

One of the best ways to come up with new ideas for your social content is to look at other companies who are doing it right. We’ll give you a list of some to check out now, but it’s also important to note that you can find inspiration on social media from other industries and apply it to your company. Ideas, formats, and concepts can be repurposed across industries. Anyone who’s doing cool/innovative things can be a source of inspiration for your social content.

Here are some accounts to follow now for inspiration:

After finishing this blog, we realize this is a TON of information about how to plan your 2024 social strategy for your biotech. With social media, it’s all about planning more and being less reactive — there’s nothing worse than seeing Rare Disease Day is next week and you have no idea what your company is doing to participate.

Putting the time in now will set you up for success next year.

About the Author

Lauren Metter is the founder and CEO of Metter Media. For over 10 years, Lauren and team have guided brands on their social media strategy, from Takeda to Microsoft to bluebird bio. She’d love to hear more about your biotech company and talk about how you can work together to blow your competitors away on social media.

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