What comes to mind when you hear the word “compliance”? Do you shiver, sigh, break out into hives, or all three? Believe it or not, your compliance colleagues are crucial to your social marketing success. This is especially true for marketers in regulated spaces such as financial services, healthcare, and pharmaceuticals. I can share from personal experience that my social marketing success at American Express was in part due to the relationships I fostered with compliance, legal, and even outside legal counsel — in fact, I’m still in touch with those former colleagues. Given the importance of breaking down the marketing compliance silo, I partnered with my colleague Nick Hayes on a new report, Bridge The Divide Between Social Marketing And Compliance. And though the intention of this report is to help marketers in regulated industries, Nick and I both agree that all marketers can benefit from it. 

Below are three takeaways to help you elevate your relationship with compliance:

  • Don’t make procrastination an option. Yes, it’s true, most healthcare or pharma social media-related regulations aren’t consistently updated. But that doesn’t mean you can or should procrastinate about initiating a conversation with compliance. Your social marketing success rests upon a few factors, including your relationship with your compliance colleagues.
  • Create structure around your approach. Our “research, align, implement, and optimize” approach is a repeatable process that can jump-start your compliance conversation (see below). This will eventually help you establish a solid relationship and, ultimately, trust with your stakeholders. In addition, you’ll have a clearer understanding of their perspective on social.

  • Continue cultivating your relationship. Once you start your relationship with compliance, fuel it with consistent communication. One way to do this is to factor their concerns into an annual audit of your social marketing processes. This proactive step keeps the lines of communication open and increases their awareness of your upcoming initiatives. 

Read Bridge The Divide Between Social Marketing And Compliance and let us know if you have any questions or ideas that we should explore for future collaborations. Thanks!