We completely changed our understanding of how to help Type 2 Diabetes patients thanks to social listening.

Social listening allowed us to add a new dimension of social understanding to Type 2 Diabetes patient research. Traditional research had identified 4 patient personas and 4 factors (mind, body, heart, and bonds) that influenced whether someone had their diabetes in a controlled state. The research treated the factors as equal; social listening revealed that they weren’t.

We restructured the factors with bonds in the centre, meaning that bonds affect the other factors, which in turn affect how well patients deal with their diabetes. Until then our client’s patient-communication approach had been purely educational. But this new insight told us that if a patient didn’t have a strong bonds they wouldn’t be ready for educational content — we had to start with a patient’s support system and work from there. This was a huge communications shift and won our clients internal ‘marketing excellence’ awards. Plus the research uncovered a 5th persona. Here’s to listening.