Scotching speculation about how it came to 'acquire' the @pfizer Twitter account, Pfizer has said the process was much more straight forward than might have been assumed.

The company has had a presence on the social network for more than four years, but was forced to use @pfizer_news when it discovered the account in its name was not available.

So the announcement this week that the company was now in charge of both @pfizer and @pfizer_news came out of the blue for pharma social media watchers.

But speaking to PMLiVE the company explained that it was neither a big money deal nor a result of corporate pressure on Twitter that yielded access to @pfizer.

Andrew Widger, Pfizer's senior director of media relations, said: “The @pfizer previous owner stopped using it, the account lay fallow for some months and we asked Twitter if we could have it and Twitter said yes.

“It just hadn't been used for a while and we asked the question - if it's not being used is there any mechanism by which we could request it.”

The company has actually had the two accounts for a few months now, he added, running the same announcements from both during that time.

Going forward, the @pfizer account will still run news, but also be used for a wider range of announcements and interactions, such supporting the company's Get Old social media campaign or highlighting former US president Jimmy Carter's recent visit to Pfizer's New York headquarters.

Former US President Carter, Pfizer celebrate 15-yr effort to help end blinding trachoma http://t.co/Ec6SeZ1XOZ pic.twitter.com/epOycQWafC

— Pfizer Inc. (@pfizer) November 5, 2013

Asked whether the change in accounts, and subsequent expansion of its tweeting, would lead to initiatives such as tweet-chats Widger said there was nothing to announce at this time.

“There are other opportunities for all sorts of other things” with the account but for now it's a case of “watch this space”, he concluded.

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