Kwello Platform Relaunch: Expanded KOL Social Listening for Medical Affairs

Key Takeaways

• Kwello's relaunched platform expands coverage of scientific content published by KOLs, researchers, and HCPs across social media, professional societies, and industry publications.
• A redesigned dashboard surfaces the most relevant content from the past two weeks, including top-reach contributions, the most active KOLs, and trending scientific topics.
• Automated alerts notify Medical Affairs professionals when specific KOLs publish new content or when topics of interest appear, without requiring manual monitoring.
• Real-time social listening helps field medical teams identify timely engagement opportunities with KOLs based on their current areas of scientific interest.
• Kwello indexes content from sources spanning social media platforms, blog posts, industry news sites, YouTube, and professional society websites.

KOL social listening is the practice of monitoring the online scientific activity of key opinion leaders, researchers, and HCPs across public digital channels to inform Medical Affairs engagement strategy.

Acceleration Point has supported Medical Affairs teams with social listening capabilities for more than five years. Throughout that time, Kwello has been updated continuously to extend its coverage of scientific content published by KOLs, academic researchers, and HCPs. This relaunch represents a significant expansion of those capabilities, including a rebuilt interface and broader content indexing.

Keep Your Finger on the Pulse of Today's Scientific Conversations

Building meaningful connections with KOLs has grown more difficult in recent years. Researchers and health care practitioners are busier, more in demand, and more protective of their time than ever. A Deloitte benchmark study of 20 pharmaceutical companies found that only about half of Medical Affairs' HCP interactions now take place in person, and that 65 percent of teams have implemented digital capabilities to support engagement across channels. Real-time social listening gives Medical Affairs a window into KOLs' thinking close to the moment it is expressed.

Keeping track of KOLs' online activity is challenging because of the sheer volume of discussion taking place. Three factors define the problem:

• Volume: Millions of contributions are published daily across scientific and professional channels.
• Variety: Content takes many forms, from long-form articles to social posts, videos, and podcasts.
• Velocity: Conversations move at a pace that is practically impossible to track manually.

Kwello addresses all three. With coverage spanning blog posts, industry news sites, social media platforms, YouTube, and professional society websites, the platform is built to handle the scale of contemporary scientific discourse. It filters content across that entire range of sources to surface what is most relevant to each team.

For Medical Affairs teams looking to build more informed engagement strategies, social listening for Medical Affairs offers a useful framework for getting started.

Understand What Matters at First Glance

Because the digital space generates so much content, Kwello's redesigned dashboard is built to reduce the time it takes to identify what matters. Users can see an overview of the most relevant content published within the last two weeks, including which contributions have the greatest reach, which KOLs are most active, and which scientific topics tied to specific products are generating the most discussion.

Sorting, filtering, and organizing large volumes of content are built into the platform. Kwello lets users identify experts by reach, understand the specific disease states and medical topics they are discussing, and search contributions by conference. Filtering tools make it straightforward to focus a social feed on what is most relevant to a given territory or therapeutic area.

Automated alerts extend that capability further. Teams can set triggers to receive a notification whenever a specific KOL publishes new content, or receive curated topic digests on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. For field medical professionals managing broad territories, alerts help ensure that no significant scientific development goes unnoticed.

Teams exploring how these capabilities apply at medical congresses can find practical guidance in Leveraging Social Listening Tools at Medical Congresses.

Be in the Right Place at the Right Time

Timing matters in relationship-building. A well-timed comment is more likely to open a conversation, and an expression of interest when an idea is fresh is more likely to generate a detailed response. As more scientific discussion moves online and KOLs become harder to reach through traditional channels, the ability to engage at the right moment becomes more valuable.

That is the practical advantage Kwello's real-time monitoring delivers. When a field medical professional understands what a KOL is currently discussing, it is easier to make contact in a way that is relevant and well timed.

One early adopter of the updated platform described this directly. He had been trying to connect with a top electrophysiologist for some time without success. When Kwello flagged a comment the researcher had posted on social media, he was able to respond quickly. Because organizational policy prohibited direct communication via social media, he sent an email instead. The KOL responded promptly, and the two spoke by phone for over an hour.

Knowing when KOLs are active and engaged gives field medical teams a meaningful advantage in building relationships that are both timely and substantive. For a deeper look at how digital engagement with KOLs works in practice, see Mapping the Modern Patient Journey Through Social Listening.

Kwello is Acceleration Point's KOL social monitoring platform for Medical Affairs and field medical teams. Connect with our team to learn more about how we support Medical Affairs social listening and KOL engagement strategy.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is KOL social listening?
KOL social listening is the practice of monitoring the online scientific activity of key opinion leaders, researchers, and HCPs across public digital channels to inform Medical Affairs engagement strategy.

What is new in the relaunched Kwello platform?
The relaunch expands Kwello's coverage of scientific content published by KOLs, researchers, and HCPs, adds a redesigned dashboard that surfaces the most relevant content from the past two weeks, and includes automated alerts that flag new KOL activity and topics of interest without manual monitoring.

What sources does Kwello monitor?
Kwello indexes content from social media platforms, blog posts, industry news sites, YouTube, and professional society websites, so teams can follow scientific conversation across the channels where it happens.

How does real-time social listening help field medical teams?
Real-time social listening helps field medical teams see what a KOL is currently discussing, so they can identify timely, relevant engagement opportunities and make contact when an idea is fresh.

Further Reading:

• Social Monitoring for Medical Congresses: A Guide for Medical Affairs Teams → https://www.accelerationpoint.com/resources/social-monitoring-for-medical-congresses/
• Why Social Media Listening Enhances Medical Affairs' Understanding of Rare Disease Patients → https://www.accelerationpoint.com/resources/social-media-listening-enhances-medical-affairs-understanding-of-rare-disease-patients/
• 3 Digital Ways to Engage Key Opinion Leaders (And Why) → https://www.accelerationpoint.com/resources/3-digital-ways-to-engage-key-opinion-leaders-and-why/