Social Listening Is Becoming a Medical Affairs Imperative

Social media is now embedded in almost everyone’s life, making online conversations increasingly relevant to organizations across the health care industry. In medical affairs (MA), social media monitoring began primarily as a regulatory compliance function, focused on identifying adverse events (AEs) and product quality complaints (PQCs) and reporting them in a timely manner to help protect public safety. Over the years, as social media has remained integral to most populations and data-mining tools have advanced, attention has shifted not only to compliance but also to the value MA teams can draw from online conversations.