Award highlights growth of online professional networking among doctors in France

The rising popularity of professional independent online networks in France has been underlined by Networks in Health member egora.fr. The network recently saw off competition from 65 other technical and professional websites in France, including medical news ones, to secure a prestigious award for increased visitor numbers in 2012.

The Star Award was presented by OJD, which certifies the dissemination and distribution of media, including newspapers, periodicals and advertising outlets. It rewarded the exponential growth of the online doctor network egora.fr, which saw a 180 per cent increase in page views in a six-month period. The organisation, which is owned by Global Média Santé, now receives about 1.2m page views each month from its 116,000 doctor members. It has an average of 315,000 visits per month.

egora.fr attributes its success in the OJD Star Awards largely to the provision of original content that is tailored to the needs of doctors in France. As Mélanie Macé, cChef de publicité at GM Santé, explained: “French doctors are increasingly turning to the internet to catch the latest news and official recommendations, and to search for information on diseases.“ According to the 2012 CESSIM digital survey, 90 per cent of health professionals in France are using the internet for professional purposes, an increase of 12 per cent compared to last year.

The rising popularity of egora.fr is mirrored by many other countries across the world. For example, data from Manhattan Research and Google shows the average US physician spends 22 hours a week on the internet and makes about six online searches a day, mostly for professional purposes.

A similar reliance on the internet is evident across Europe, including the UK where statistics show that GPs, on average, spend over 9 hours a week online for professional purposes (1) and are more likely to go online to find information about a new product than ask a colleague.

In addition to providing valuable resources for doctors, independent online networks also present a real opportunity to engage with these doctors in a highly effective manner. Doctor networks can help pharma to understand how doctors' thinking and behaviour vary online, depending on factors such as nationality, age and specialty, hence helping them to tailor their online resources to their target audience's specific needs. Access to such international networks has been simplified by Networks in Health, which provides a central channel through which they can access more than 2m doctors worldwide across Europe, Latin America, Australia, the US, Canada and Asia.

(1) Doctors.net.uk internal data: Survey of 600 UK doctors, March 2013

For more information on Networks in Health, please email Alex.Merckx@networksinhealth.com You can also follow Networks in Health on Twitter: @netwrksinhealth

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