Digital Pharma: Pfizer begins social media drive for online clinic

Pfizer UK has turned to social media to help raise awareness of its online Man MOT male health clinic and bolster its use of traditional PR.

The free confidential advice and information service opened its virtual doors last month and will be available to men in the UK every Monday from 6pm – 11pm for the next four months.

Man MOT UK is funded by Pfizer and has the support of a number patient groups, among them Diabetes UK, Relate, the National Obesity Forum, and Heart UK.

Now, looking to build on a traditional PR launch that has already won radio and print coverage for the unique initiative, Pfizer has just launched its first ever UK Twitter account, @ManMOTUK.

The company confirmed its social media plans last month, when Pfizer’s Andy Widger told Digital Pharma: “From here on we're looking to gradually introduce and try a variety of promotional tools - including social media. In this way we can assess and learn what works, and how we can best use these tools going forward.”

To date Pfizer’s use of micro-blogging site Twitter has concentrated on its corporate @Pfizer_News account, but pharma teams also run country-specific accounts for Venezuela, Mexico and Spain.

Dominic Tyer is web editor for Pharmafocus and InPharm.com and the author of the Digital Pharma blog He can be contacted via email, Twitter or LinkedIn.