Immo Studio Conversations: Branding & Pharma Marketing

Imogen Ley-Clowes speaks with Lisa Kyriacou Faulks about branding, strategy, and helping life science companies communicate on LinkedIn.

Most people who spend twelve years inside AstraZeneca and Roche don't end up running a social media agency. Lisa Kyriacou-Faulks did. 

Her marketing agency, Social Medicine, is built on the insight that life science companies are often brilliant at what they do and terrible at saying so.

In this conversation, Immo Studio founder, Imogen Ley-Clowes, spoke to Lisa about why LinkedIn still feels uncomfortable for many healthcare companies, what founders misunderstand about thought leadership, and the challenge of making highly intelligent people feel comfortable being public-facing online.

This conversation is the second part of our series with Immo Studio’s partners. It’s an ongoing exploration of how adjacent disciplines overlap when building brands alongside specialist collaborators.

Imogen: 

You spent twelve years at AstraZeneca and Roche before moving into social media. What made you realise that combination was a strength rather than an odd career change?

Lisa: 

It was a bit accidental. I was offered redundancy at AstraZeneca and during my notice period I took a social media marketing course. During my extended maternity leave (I was working for Roche at the time), I had started a side hustle making cakes, because looking after baby twins obviously wasn’t enough!  So initially, I figured it might help me promote that. I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do post AstraZeneca but clearly I had a spark of entrepreneurial spirit.

During the course I had a bit of a lightbulb moment. I realised AstraZeneca weren’t really doing a great job with their comms and social media at the time (both internal and external facing), and I started thinking that if a company that large was finding it difficult, there were probably lots of smaller life science businesses needing support too.

There’s a lot of secrecy within pharma, and companies often become so cautious they stop saying anything at all. I realised there was a gap between having expertise and knowing how to communicate it publicly.

So while it looked like an unusual career move, there was logic behind it. I could stay in an industry I loved, but approach it from a different angle. I never actually ended up using social media for the cake business, and in the end I closed it down because i’m more of a science geek at heart.

Imogen: 

Life science and healthcare companies seem particularly reluctant to show up on LinkedIn. What do you think is holding them back?

Lisa: 

A lot of the time, it genuinely doesn’t occur to them. Scientists are often naturally introverted. They’re brilliant at the science, but not necessarily great in communication, marketing, or business development.

Many of the businesses I work with are academic spin-outs or founder-led consultancies. Visibility comes as an afterthought and is way down on their list of priorities. There’s also still a perception that social media isn’t really “for them” and that it’s for consumer brands or people selling products on Instagram or TikTok. Obviously, this assumption is not correct.

Imogen: 

We see something similar in branding workshops. It often takes a little warming up. A lot of founders in that sector didn’t set out thinking they’d become the face of a company or need a LinkedIn strategy. 

Before you touch any LinkedIn strategy, what do you need to know about a business first?

Lisa:

We start with a detailed questionnaire covering topics such as competitors, goals, target audiences, and influential voices in their space. Then we run a two-hour workshop to go deeper into those answers.

A lot of businesses don’t fully know why they want to do social media yet, or what success should look like. So part of our role is helping define that. 

Imogen: 

It’s a bit like giving people homework and then helping them finish it.

‍Lisa: 

Exactly. And it helps people start thinking strategically before we begin. We’ve had feedback from our customers that this strategy process is really useful for helping them to see the bigger picture and think critically about their marketing goals.

Most companies initially want lead generation or investment opportunities, but often they’re not yet in the right place for that. There’s usually an education piece around expectations because social media is a long game. 

Imogen: 

It feels very similar to branding in that sense. You can improve positioning, messaging, and identity, but it builds value over time through consistency rather than overnight results.

Lisa: 

Yes, I agree. And social media can’t work in isolation anymore either. You need a strong brand identity, a good website, articles, and thought leadership. Everything needs to work together to form a cohesive marketing identity. This is becoming even more important with the rise of Generative AI, you need to be posting content that can be surfaced on platforms such as ChatGPT and Claude - but that’s a whole other topic. 

Imogen:

When companies approach you and are thinking about working with you, is there a common trigger? Or is it really mixed?

Lisa:

Most of the time, companies come to us because they want to build awareness for their product or service, usually to support investment opportunities or generate leads. That might mean attracting VC investment, partnering with pharma, or raising awareness among clinicians and the NHS of what they’re doing.

But often they’re not quite in the right stage for lead generation yet. A lot of the work is actually about education and managing expectations by helping them understand that social media requires patience.Just because you start posting on LinkedIn doesn’t mean you immediately get an influx of people wanting to work with you.

Imogen: 

Do they usually come with a clear sense of their brand and what they stand for, or is that something you end up helping them work out?

Lisa: 

We definitely end up helping shape that. We look at what they want to be known for, what content they should post, their messaging, and their tone of voice.

A lot of companies think having a logo means they have a brand identity, but that’s not the case, especially once you’re trying to create content consistently over months rather than just designing a deck.

Imogen: 

You quickly realise a logo and two colours only gets you so far when you need to create ongoing content.

Lisa: 

Yes. We can support with social assets, but we’re not designers. It always helps when some of that brand groundwork has already been done properly.

Imogen: 

What’s the biggest misconception people have about LinkedIn as a channel?

Lisa: 

I think people still see it as a purely professional platform where everything has to be very corporate. But actually, there’s room for personality and authenticity without oversharing.

The other misconception is that because you run a business, every post needs to be about your business. A good content strategy is much more varied than that. You need to think about what your audience actually wants to hear.

I always say it’s like going to a party. You wouldn’t stand in the middle of the room talking only about yourself all night. You’d ask questions, be curious, and have conversations. LinkedIn works in a very similar way.

Imogen: 

It’s a difficult balance. Some people share personal details in a way that really complements what they do professionally, and others make LinkedIn feel strangely confessional.

If you could give one piece of advice to a founder wanting to build a thought leadership presence on LinkedIn, what would it be?

‍Lisa:

Take time to properly think about your profile, how you want to be perceived, your tone of voice, and why you’re posting in the first place.

It’s very easy to jump straight into posting content without thinking strategically about what you actually want it to achieve.