When I was in grade school, my Dad became very irritated with the administration at my school because of the letters they would send when I’d get a good report card. In those days (dating myself) letters were typed with typewriters, and to save time, they’d photocopy (Xerox in those days) what was called a ‘form letter,’ with a blank for the student’s name. Then, they’d only have to type in each students’ name rather than re-typing the whole letter. These letters must have been easy to spot, and my Dad felt strongly that if the school was going to truly praise the children, they should hand type each letter. Now, I was oblivious to all of this and likely did not notice that the letters were not as ’special’ as they could be, but I think it proves a point that I’m experiencing again in the age of new media.

If you’ve been reading Seth Godin, you know that he has long sung the praises of so-called ‘permission marketing,’ where you use tools such as e-newsletters to develop a relationship with customers whereby they sign up to hear from you. Godin points out that the tenets of ‘old school’ marketing, such as broadcasting a message using a printed Ad, no longer work well for today’s customers, who have so many choices for research updates and news. I agree wholeheartedly with Seth, but have seen the dangers of relying too heavily on the myriad tools which facilitate these types of interactions.

For Twitter, there are many tools which allow you to send a direct message to someone automatically when you have news or when they first begin following you. Depending on your settings, you’ll get an email and/or a notification on your phone. The problem? It is difficult to determine whether the ‘DM’s’, as they are called, are automatic or a true personal interaction. The result? When I receive what I think is an automatically generated DM, I feel as though it is highly disingenuous and dislike it–I even consider ‘un-following’ the person. I found that others on Twitter have had similar reactions.

What can you learn from this when using permission marketing? Be 100% clear about the nature of the communication when sending messages to customers. Newsletters are an acceptable way to mail a large group of your customers, but if you send a message to a group using CRM software, etc., make it clear by saying something like ‘we’re emailing you because you fit this category’, etc. Beware of including the customers’ first name when sending e-mail blasts, even if they have opted in for the message (I know one company that switched first and last names of customers in an email blast, causing much distress).

In summary, make personal and automatically generated communications with your customers distinct, and you will prevent misunderstandings and form more meaningful relationships with them. I don’t think any of your customers’ parents will contact you, but they may decide to withhold the ‘permission’ they granted you to contact them, and more importantly, have a negative association with your company. If you want help building relationships with customers which will lead to long term growth of your company, contact us.

I got an e-newsletter recently from a company announcing that they had ‘entered the blogosphere.’ I thought this comment was odd because it was as if they started a blog just for the sake of starting a blog. This ‘on the bandwagon’ sentiment is common and likely in response to all of the hype surrounding social media and blogs.

You probably know that in general I believe that yes, companies should have a blog, and I’m usually happy when any life science or biotechnology company starts one, even if the initial intentions are misguided or vague. One of the catch-22’s of social media is that you don’t often understand a medium until you experience it, something we discussed in our Social Media for Scientists presentation to the SDBN. I do think that the above mentioned company will ‘get it’ over time. They’ll begin seeing a much faster-paced and informative dialog with their customers which will ultimately result in improvement of their products and the attraction of new customers.

However, because of the ‘chicken and egg’ phenomenon of social media, an overall change in perspective will take some time. It will probably be similar to the collective realization by companies that took place 12-15 years ago that they needed to have a web presence. Sometimes, as well, a company doesn’t ‘get it’ until they see an example, or see that their competitor is doing it. How do we ‘jump start’ this process? It begins by realizing that the answer isn’t simply to ‘have a blog’ but to understand greater driver that customers expect to be engaged with now and not broadcasted to. All around, we see examples of companies or even media outlets that are unresponsive, and failing as a result. Examples of those companies who ‘get it right’ do help, but unfortunately there are few in life sciences or biotechnology.

We’ve compiled a list of biotechnology companies with blogs below, and because the number from all sectors is so small, we’ve put them together, as disparate as they may appear. Let us know if we’ve missed any, and we’d love to see this list grow! There are so many valuable ways that a blog or social media can be used, and we are lucky that in biotechnology, there is a wealth of information for us to share. ‘Whether ’tis nobler in the blog to suffer the slings and arrows of social media, or to take arms against the status quo…’ You get the picture.

We also suggest that you look at successful social media examples and blogs in other industries. Also, as the title suggests, consider that blogging may not be the solution for every company. A newsletter, forum, or even starting by making your website more dynamic (web 2.0) may be the right next step. Indeed, companies such as Stemgent have a wiki and a forum, giving them an ‘honorable mention’ in this post.

Need help? Contact Comprendia, we specialize in social media strategies designed to help you engage your customers and grow. We’ll make sure you ‘get it’ from the start by setting up a ’social media charter’ which will guide and integrate your efforts. We’ll also be covering issues on blogging and social media in our Biotechnology Marketing 101 series, sign up for updates!

Life Science, Biotech & Pharma Companies with Blogs

Special thanks to the friendfeed Life Scientists room for helping me compile this list.

When I started Comprendia little over a year ago, I actually had some doubt as to whether WordPress, a software popular for blogging, could be used to create my entire site. With the knowledge I had of web programming and WordPress, some through my personal usage, I quickly developed a branded, web 2.0 site. Now, it appears to me as if WordPress is taking over. If you look closely, you’ll see many websites are using it. Several nice examples of corporate WordPress sites exist here and here.

Why is WordPress so great? It has a highly customizable front end, with a user friendly back end as well. This translates into professional-looking websites which can be easily edited by non-professionals. This combination creates the potential to make businesses of all sizes more functional on-line and responsive to their customers, even if they choose not to use WordPress blogging feature. It is a stellar example of open source software, meaning that developers literally all over the world have written ‘plugins’ and ‘themes’ for it, making it infinitely customizable. Using it, I created the Comprendia site and the SDBN site quickly. Both are branded sites with many web 2.0 features, and I am able to quickly change content. Additionally, search engines LOVE blogs and WordPress can be configured to dramatically improve your ranking, which I’ve used to quickly reach the first page of results for terms that I think are important.

What does the ‘WordPress Wrevolution’ mean for life science/biotech companies? For small companies, it means you can set up a professional looking website with an integrated blog, and it can be branded and doesn’t have to look like open source software. Interesting scientific news and articles can easily be fed into your site, adding functionality and content. Your site can easily be integrated with and leverage other social media, creating a comprehensive strategy gain exposure and new customers. Mid-size life science companies Accelrys and Promega use WordPress for their blogs, even Johnson & Johnson’s JNJBTW blog uses it! Hopefully, this embracing of WordPress means we’ll see more blogs and interactivity from biotech, life science, and pharma companies in the future. Currently, as we’ve covered, the number of blogs from our industry is very small.

My niece Anne is doing a ‘virtual internship’ with me this summer, and some of this includes learning WordPress so she can update the Comprendia and SDBN sites. Typical of her generation, I asked her to do it, and although she knew little about it to begin with, she told me you ‘just have to figure it out’ and picked it up quickly. We can all learn a lot from her attitude, and realize this ‘just do it’ mentality is all we really need, regardless of whether we ‘grew up’ with Facebook.

How do you get started? Check out the links below to get your feet wet. While we encourage you to try it yourself, we can also help you to create a branded and unique website and blog, or integrate a blog with your existing website. We work with a team of designers and developers, and together with you we’ll create a site that will help you to grow quickly. Contact us for more information, check out our Biotechnology Marketing 101 blog series, and sign up for updates via our RSS feed.

WordPress Resources

Special thanks to Anne Warner, student at Indiana’s Taylor University, for composing this list. You can follow Anne on twitter at @anwarner. This is Anne’s ‘Summer of Social Media.’ ;)

If you grew up in the US, you likely remember two characters from Highlights magazine (often found in doctor office waiting rooms) who helped us learn manners. The cartoons would describe a situation and how the fictitious boy Goofus and Gallant would respond. We’d learn to follow Gallant’s example and not Goofus’.

Being involved in social media, and moderating a few LinkedIn groups, I’ve seen several of each (but I won’t be a Goofus and call out the missteps). As we discussed at the SDBN Social Media for Scientists event, it’s all about ‘paying it forward,’ and while this may seem counterintuitive, you’ll see after looking through the examples below, that you gain much more in the end by viewing it this way. Let’s see how Goofus and Gallant react to the world of Social Media….(can you almost smell the doctor’s office waiting room?)

Goofus and Gallant Take on Social Media

At a corporate level, there have been companies who have been a ‘Goofus’ and paid for it, one caveat to launching a major social media campaign without understanding the genre. On a personal or company-wide level, your reputation in social media is very important (on Twitter we call it ‘Tweet Cred’). When done properly, your Social Media ‘capital’ can surely be used to promote yourself or your company, but you should never view it exclusively for that purpose. When starting out, be careful, and if you have any doubts, ask someone more experienced than you how your actions may be perceived. Also, Comprendia offers social media coaching and strategies for you or your company to help you get off on the right foot, contact us for more information.

Interestingly, the folks from Highlights For Children magazine saw one of my tweets about Goofus and Gallant and sent me the images for this post–special thanks to them. Talk about serendipity!

The 23rd Annual Symposium of The Protein Society

July 25-29, 2009

Boston Marriott Copley Place

Boston, MA

[[Click here for more information.]]

Protein Kinases and Protein Phosphorylation

July 26-31, 2009

Snowmass Village, CO

[[Click here for more information.]]

Yes, I am a networking and social media zealot. You name it, I’m doing it, or it’s on my list of things to do. I estimate that through LinkedIn, Twitter, and the SDBN, my personal social media reach is around 5,000, meaning that I can apprise that many biotechnology professionals of a relevant message quickly. While this network is very valuable to me, and the number is obviously significant, we all need to keep in mind that our networks are made of real people that we should connect with, not items that we should simply collect, assigning too much significance to the numbers.

Your network is made of people who are likely doing interesting things every day, why not connect with them as often as possible? You never know when a new opportunity will result for both of you. In addition, you’ll stay on top of what is happening in your industry, which benefits you in many ways. While it’s true that your knowledge will be directly proportional to the size of your network, the quality of your contacts should be foremost. Building a relevant, quality network will help you to stay connected, as you’ll find that you have more common interests and opportunities for growth.

How do you build a quality network? There are shortcuts, which I discussed in an earlier post, which may result in a large network, but it will likely not be of high quality. Always be on the lookout for those with common interests and interesting things to say. In addition, consistently provide value to your network, and you’ll attract and keep even people you don’t know well in your extended network. Examples? Post interesting, non self-serving news to LinkedIn. Help out someone who needs an introduction to someone else in your network. In short, pay it forward, as we talked about in our Social Media for Scientists presentation to the SDBN.

As an analogy, view your network as butterfly garden rather than a butterfly collection. Treat your network as a garden in which you must attract people, keep them engaged, and enjoy, not as a box of pinned, lifeless items which you pull out and admire. Connect, don’t just collect!

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, you’ll find that the ‘good karma’ you’ll get from connecting will pay you back for your time. Do whatever you have time for–even if it’s just sending a few emails a week. You’ll find that spending time in your ‘garden’ will be beneficial in many ways.

Need help with social media and networking? Check out our Biotechnology Marketing 101 blog series and/or contact Comprendia, we can help you with coaching and strategies that will help you to maximize your efforts and reach your personal or business goals.