Main Contributors of Social Media Uncertainty & Distrust

In this Pharmaceutical Executive video interview, Ian Baer, Founder & CEO of Sooth, explores the growing distrust and uncertainty surrounding social media and its impact on the pharmaceutical industry. Key contributors to this distrust include the spread of misinformation, the rise of AI-generated content, and the politicization of social media platforms. The conversation highlights the challenges faced by pharma companies in building trust with patients in this environment, including the need to combat misinformation and navigate the complexities of social media platforms.

He emphasizes the importance of building partnerships with trusted voices, such as medical influencers and patient communities, to effectively communicate with patients. It also underscores the need for transparency and authenticity in pharma's social media presence, including acknowledging and addressing patient concerns and responding to negative feedback.

The conversation concludes with a discussion on the evolving role of social media in healthcare and the potential for private communities and personalized sharing to play a greater role in the future.

What do you think are the main contributors behind the uncertainty/distrust in social media?

This has been building for a while, right? I think the last two political presidential election cycles have created a different awareness about social media, how content gets created, the nature of influence, the way data is used. Certainly, the whole Cambridge Analytica scandal from years back created a lot of alarm among people when they looked at content that was posted in social media and left them questioning, ‘is this fact? Is this fiction? Is this opinion? Do I trust the source it's coming from?’ Of course, now, with the advent of AI, you even have, ‘do I trust that the source is actually who the source claims to be?’

There's just so much of a swirl. Unfortunately, where five or six years ago, none of the social media platforms had a very strong political bent one way or the other, now we have platforms that lean more in one direction and more in another direction. The whole notion of it being an echo chamber, it gets greatly increased, yet you have a lot of factors at play. The weirdness is, at the same time, people still trust friends and family and influencers in social media more than they trust companies in social media.

It's a really odd state of affairs and a picture that's continuing to resolve as certain things proceed here in the US. Whether it's some of the legislative things being discussed, what's going to happen to TikTok, we’ve got a lot of winds blowing here.