Demo: MarketBeam’s Social Media Integration with Veeva Vault PromoMats

This video provides an in-depth exploration of how the highly regulated life sciences industry can effectively leverage social media for communication and engagement while maintaining strict compliance. Pushpa Ithal, the founder and CEO of MarketBeam, presents a solution that integrates MarketBeam's social media publishing, amplification, and analytics platform with Veeva Vault PromoMats. The presentation begins by highlighting the significant increase in social media usage for health and medical information, underscoring the urgent need for pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device companies to engage with their audiences on these platforms. However, Ithal emphasizes the unique challenges faced by this industry, primarily the stringent regulatory requirements and the often inefficient, manual processes involved in content approval.

The core of the discussion revolves around the inefficiencies of traditional social media content approval workflows in the life sciences sector. Ithal details how content creation, internal marketing review, preview generation, MLR/PRC committee review, and manual publishing often involve multiple teams, external agencies, and a cumbersome exchange of spreadsheets, emails, and images. This "old way" is not only resource-intensive but also lacks traceability and auditability, posing significant risks for non-compliant content publication and potential FDA audits. The speaker contrasts this with less regulated industries that can be far more agile and responsive on social media, highlighting the competitive disadvantage faced by pharma companies.

MarketBeam's integration with Veeva Vault PromoMats is presented as a transformative solution to these challenges. The system automates several critical steps, from content creation and automatic preview generation (as a PDF) to direct submission into Veeva Vault PromoMats for approval. Once approved within Veeva, the content is automatically published to corporate social media channels (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook) at a scheduled time, eliminating manual intervention and reducing human error. Furthermore, the platform facilitates employee amplification of approved content, allowing colleagues to share compliant messages on their personal social media profiles, significantly expanding reach and engagement. The video concludes with a demonstration of the MarketBeam platform, showcasing its user interface for content creation, the seamless approval process within Veeva, automated publishing, and comprehensive analytics for tracking performance and engagement.

Key Takeaways:

• Growing Importance of Social Media in Life Sciences: Social media is increasingly used by consumers for health and medical information, with usage for health decisions rising from 25% in 2009 to over 52% in 2019. This necessitates that life sciences companies engage proactively on these platforms to reach their audiences.
• Regulatory Hurdles for Social Media Agility: Unlike less regulated industries, pharmaceutical and life sciences companies face extensive compliance requirements (e.g., MLR/PRC review, FDA 2253 submissions) for all content, including social media posts, which significantly slows down publishing and limits agility.
• Inefficiencies of Manual Approval Processes: Traditional workflows for social media content approval are highly inefficient, relying on manual steps, spreadsheets, emails, and multiple team hand-offs (marketing, branding, MLR/PRC, external agencies), leading to resource-intensive operations and delays.
• High Risk of Non-Compliance: The manual nature of current processes increases the risk of publishing unapproved or non-compliant content, which can have severe consequences for brands and even individual employees who share content.
• Lack of Traceability and Auditability: Manual processes often lack a clear audit trail, making it extremely difficult to trace who created, reviewed, and approved content, and when, which is critical for regulatory audits (e.g., FDA).
• MarketBeam-Veeva Vault PromoMats Integration: MarketBeam offers a specialized integration with Veeva Vault PromoMats, leveraging Veeva's established digital asset management and robust approval processes to streamline social media content workflows.
• Automated Content Workflow: The integration automates several steps: content creation in MarketBeam, automatic generation of PDF previews, direct submission to Veeva Vault PromoMats for MLR/PRC review, and automated publishing to social media channels upon approval.
• Reduced Human Error and Increased Efficiency: By automating the approval and publishing process, the solution significantly reduces the potential for human error, accelerates content delivery, and frees up resources.
• Employee Amplification of Compliant Content: The platform enables employees to connect their personal social media accounts and share pre-approved, compliant content, vastly extending the reach and impact of corporate messaging while mitigating compliance risks.
• Comprehensive Analytics and Insights: MarketBeam provides integrated analytics dashboards that track hourly engagement, identify top-performing content and channels, and offer insights into audience behavior, helping companies optimize their social media strategy.
• Global Applicability: The workflow and integration are designed to be globally applicable, accommodating various regional compliance requirements, though specific regulations will still need to be managed within the Veeva system.
• Support for Multiple Social Networks: MarketBeam currently supports LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, with plans to expand to Instagram and Xing, catering to a broad range of social media strategies.

Tools/Resources Mentioned:

• MarketBeam: A social media publishing, amplification, and analytics platform.
• Veeva Vault PromoMats: A digital asset management and content approval platform widely used in the pharmaceutical industry.
• LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook: Social media platforms supported for publishing and amplification.
• Instagram, Xing: Social media platforms planned for future support.

Key Concepts:

• MLR/PRC Committee: Medical, Legal, and Regulatory / Promotional Review Committee, responsible for reviewing and approving all content in the life sciences industry to ensure compliance.
• FDA 2253: A specific FDA requirement in the US for submitting promotional materials to the agency before or at the time of initial dissemination.
• Auditability and Traceability: The ability to track and verify the entire lifecycle of a piece of content, including its creation, review, approval, and publication, which is crucial for regulatory compliance.
• Employee Amplification: A strategy where employees share approved corporate content on their personal social media channels to extend reach and credibility.