“Multiple sclerosis (MS), also known as disseminated sclerosis or encephalomyelitis disseminata, is an inflammatory disease in which the insulating covers of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord are damaged.”(Wikipedia.com)

Wait a minute. You’re a young woman in the prime of your life, with kids and a fast-paced job and you’ve just been told you have MS. And this is what you find when you search your condition online. This is all you find.

In 2014, Novartis Pharma AG changed that. We created Living Like You, a global community driven by patients, for patients. We’ve partnered with leading MS bloggers around the world. We’ve handed over the reins and let them advise, direct and develop content.

Activated through social media and featuring content like “Sh*t people say about MS”. We changed the MS experience to create a new kind of advocacy: advocacy for a life after diagnosis.

We built a blogger network of people living with and impacted by MS from Brazil, Canada, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, the UK and the US. They make up the Living Like You advisory board, drive editorial direction and develop content.

In order to be relevant and meaningful to our audience content has to be honest. It’s also provocative, embarrassing and even moving. We had to push the envelope of what a pharmaceutical company would normally do. Nothing is off the table: sex, marijuana, depression, relationships and more.

Amplified through social media, we also developed a “7-Day Challenge to Live Like You,” a collaboration with the quantified-self start-up TicTrac to give people with MS valuable insights into their own personal activity and sleep patterns. In 2015, we introduced #MSLifeHacks: a simple tip posted every day for a year, devoted entirely to making living with MS a little easier.

The response to Living Like You has been overwhelming. It has empowered the MS community. It’s broken the mold for digital disease awareness, shifting the conversation from diagnosis and treatment to lifestyle – what the patients truly care about most.

But it has also enabled Novartis to reach a younger, primarily female community with meaningful and shareable content. Not just as a company speaking to the masses, but one with insight into their wants and needs, one that has been praised by both patient advocacy groups and people living with the disease. Says one: “I have never seen a community as edgy and glamorous AND informative about MS! Most are cold and clinical :)”.

Other Living Like You results:

• social communities of nearly 12,000 people

• 575,420 page views on LivingLikeYou.com

• Over 60,000 Facebook and Twitter engagements

• 23% greater engagement than the closest industry-sponsored Facebook community