A few months ago we did an analysis of life scientists’ utilization of social media applications, studied the applications ourselves, and published our findings. Based on this study, and our own experience, we’ve developed the STIR Social Media™ system which helps life science companies develop strategies and tactics which will both attract life scientists and maximize their return on investment (ROI). STIR is an acronym for the four attributes which social media applications and campaigns must achieve to succeed: Sticky, Transparent, Intuitive, and Resonating.

In our workshops and on this blog, we’ve pointed out that life science companies have been utilizing strategies and tactics that are similar to those behind social media for decades. Social media is about ‘paying it forward’ and providing resources which go beyond self-promotion, see this blog post for some examples of life science companies who have been doing this for years. Social media involves taking these resources to the next level, and using all the web 2.0 tools available to engage scientists in a two-way conversation rather than broadcasting messages to them. This can be tricky, and based on our studies and experience, we’ve developed the STIR Social Media system to help, its four attributes are described below.

Sticky. Create a site or application which has almost immediate attraction for scientists, providing reasons for them to visit, interact, and return. We’ve all heard about, then visited sites which we never return to again because they’re not sticky. My favorite example of a sticky website for life scientists is BiomedExperts. When you create an account and login, the application allows you to upload your publications, and you’re instantly connected to everyone you’ve ever published with. As such, they’ve circumvented the negative impact of the network effect that plagues many young social networking sites, a brilliant move by the developers of this application.

Transparent. Scientists are skeptical of anything that has the slightest hint of marketing or advertising in it. They love your products, and have lots of brand loyalty, but hate to be be marketed to. An example I like to use is UC Davis Professor Jonathan Eisen’s response to what he calls ‘Stimulus Spam‘ which refers to emails sent by companies eager to help (and profit from) researchers applying for ARRA/stimulus funding. Now, I do think some of the resources that companies provided were useful to scientists, but you can see that they were viewed otherwise by some in the community. As such, social media programs must be handled with complete transparency, as you can imagine campaigns in which the identity of the sponsoring company is not immediately known is a recipe for disaster. I have no examples of life science companies who’ve made this mistake, but read about the 3M social media debacle to help understand why it is so important. Being 100% transparent also means that ties to your products will be much more easily made. A good example in the life sciences is the Accelrys blog, which is completely transparent in its intentions and has great links to their products.

Intuitive. During our study of social media applications for life scientists, we were curious as to why BiomedExperts had so many more users than Scilink, when in essence they have the same premise, in other words connecting scientists via their publications. We surmised that part of it may be that the BiomedExperts interface is much more easy to navigate, or intuitive. Scilink appears to be gone now, so comparisons can no longer be made. This intuitiveness quality speaks to the way we have all been accustomed to the increased functionality of websites. We gravitate towards what is easy, gives us what we want, and what we understand quickly. Related to these expectations, intuitiveness also means that users need to know what’s expected of them in a given interface. For example, users come to LinkedIn to network and find business, and Facebook to share information and socialize, so any activities you plan for either application should match with these expectations. The Invitrogen Everydaycloning Facebook page is a good example of an intuitive application, as the content is useful, light, and social, and encourages fans to engage.

Resonating. Develop a theme that resonates with life scientists; one they can relate to and participate easily in. There are myriad places for scientists to spend time online, and your website or application must resonate with them in order for them to remember it and return. Sigma’s Wherebiobegins campaign is a good example of a resonating theme. They’ve asked scientists “where did your BIO begin?”, and have gotten great engagement on Facebook and other applications from them in the form of videos and comments.

The four STIR Social Media system attributes work together to define social media campaigns and applications that both attract scientists and achieve a favorable ROI. I’m not brave enough to call out those that don’t meet all four requirements, but you can check out our list of life science companies using social media and judge for yourself.

Want to learn how to become a STIR Social Media expert so that you can develop winning campaigns for your company? Attend our ‘on demand’ Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshop 1 webinar, a three hour workshop which will explain these concepts in more detail, and give you worksheets which will help you to jump start social media at your company. Additionally, we’re offering a series of workshops, with the second being held in San Diego June 22nd. We’ll be offering it as an interactive webinar and on demand as well soon. Sign up for email updates so you’ll always be on top of the developments.

To share this post easily, cut and paste: Attracting Life Scientists and Maximizing ROI: Comprendia’s STIR Social Media System http://bit.ly/cQUchT

Our first Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshop went over well, with IRL (in real life) and virtual sessions full of marketing and business development professionals eager to learn how to attract scientists and improve their return on investment with social media. When polled anonymously, 100% of attendees indicated that they would suggest the workshop to colleagues, and we continue to incorporate your feedback to make the workshops even better. In the first workshop we covered Comprendia’s STIR Social Media™ system which defines the four qualities needed for a successful campaign: Sticky, Transparent, Intuitive, and Resonating.

We discussed in detail how social media is a natural extension of the activities life science companies have been engaged in for years, and that, as with all marketing, strategies must come before tactics. If you missed the IRL and virtual events, don’t despair, you can still order it on demand through the Comprendia website, and we highly suggest it before you attend the second workshop. The Workshop 1 webinar is roughly 3 hours long, and we’ll give you a ‘day pass’ in which you can watch it any time that day, and we’ll send you the printed presentation as a booklet beforehand.

Our second workshop will focus on first party social media, or applications and strategies which are integrated into company websites:

• Web 2.0
• Blogs
• Forums
• Wikis
• Content Generation

We’ll focus on the 4 B’s which will help you create successful first party applications and campaigns, which are the Basics, Benefits, Best Practices, and Biotech Examples. As in the first workshop, we’ll focus on the questions that really matter to you, including strategies that work with scientists, metrics, return on investment, and implementation. We know that seeing real examples helps you to think about applying the ideas your business, so we’ll spend plenty of time on this as well. We’ll have wifi so you can bring your computer, ask lots of questions, and head back to the office ready to get started. Sign up!

Who Should Attend: Business Development and Marketing professionals who provide products or services in a non-regulated environment and are interested in using social media to increase sales, leads, or visibility. Examples: companies who sell research-only products or services to scientists or small to mid-size biotechnology companies that need more visibility. Contact us if you have questions. Completion of Social Media and Life Science Workshop 1 is recommended but not required (details on ordering the Workshop 1 webinar will be given during registration).

As a Participant You Will Receive:

1. Printed workshop materials
2. A highly interactive presentation session from Mary Canady, customized to your needs and using real examples from life science and biotechnology
3. Worksheets designed to help you get social media launched at your company
4. Hands-on, online training and feedback from Comprendia during the session
5. Free follow-on session with Comprendia
1. Review of workshop ‘homework’
2. Guidance for next steps

This is our second in a series of Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshops. Sign up for updates to our blog and you’ll be the first to hear about our workshops and training. Contact us if you’re interested in having these workshops customized for your company.

Check out our Workshops and Training page to see when this workshop is offered next.

I have blogged at the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) convention for three years now (see posts here), and I am always very grateful that they give me a pass in exchange for blogging. It’s a great experience for me all around–learning, meeting, and getting exposure for Comprendia and the San Diego Biotechnology Network. You may have heard that this year the media, including me, were shut out from the keynote sessions featuring Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Al Gore. I was incredibly disappointed as two of these are big heroes of mine (I’ll let you guess which ones). Two of my friends/colleagues gave feedback: Christiane Truelove and Mike Spear. I recently wrote an open letter to life science conferences with suggestions for improving them, and wanted to give an update and some examples specific to the BIO 2010 convention and how it could be improved.
Improve website information. It is very difficult to find information on the BIO 2010 website. For example, I was interested in finding all of the attendees from San Diego at the conference, and this was near impossible. Instead, I had to look up or go to individual breakout sessions to find them. There are super sessions, breakout sessions, business development presentations, and partnering, and with an estimated 13,000 in attendance, I’m sure I only met with a fraction of the San Diego companies in attendance. BIO sets up a great interface for partnering and searching, but this is an additional cost, and what happens to it after the conference? I suggest opening that up in an interface that is available year round to facilitate more interaction and to help the media give more intelligent coverage of the industry.
Choose keynote speakers who ‘get it.’ We don’t really know why the media were excluded from the keynotes, but some speculated that the speakers give ‘canned’ presentations at each event, and don’t want reporters making this information public. Others commented that the Bush/Clinton appearance was more of a ‘Mutt and Jeff’ show than a serious discussion about biotechnology (I heard Bush made up a new word which I’m sorry to have missed). Regardless of the reason, isn’t one of the major objectives of BIO to get the word out to the public that important people care about biotech, and have messages for the outside world? Having keynote speakers who do not allow media coverage would seem to only have the benefit of attracting BIO attendees. In the future, I suggest inviting speakers who are not only famous, but who can be the advocates we need.
Take good care of the exhibitors. There is no doubt that the choice of non-media friendly keynote speakers affected the coverage of the conference, and don’t forget that the exhibitors pay dearly to be at BIO. This event is their big chance to get news out, whether they’re a biotechnology company or cluster. Anecdotally, I heard that ‘the big media names were not at BIO this year,’ which is a bad sign. As part of the media, I got a flurry (maybe 50?) emails from exhibitors and followed up on very few of them. Also, of the projected 13,000 who attended BIO this year, how many spent a lot of time in the exhibit hall? I’m betting only a small fraction, as several exhibitors commented that the meeting was slow. By most accounts, BIO is becoming more about the partnering meetings than the exhibit hall, but will this be sustainable? Related to this is the comment about making the website more interactive and opening up the partnering interface to all. More access to information helps everyone.
Leverage the media. Related to this last point, if indeed the professional journalists are becoming less interested in BIO, help bloggers like myself to cover the event more fully. I suggest you employ a team of bloggers who start six months before the conference, planning in depth coverage of different aspects. Think about it, you’ve now got some control of media coverage, the opportunity is golden, and will give the BIO site search engine fodder for many months after the conference is over.
Ride the social media wave. It must be said that BIO appears to want to ‘turn on’ social media shortly before the convention so that it can be leveraged only when needed. For example, a flurry of meetup invitations were sent about a week before the convention–these groups need to be cultivated year round. The efforts they’ve undertaken are great, but they’re just scratching the surface. The image on the right of this post is the word cloud of the BIO2010 twitter stream. Check out the twitter hashtag search, we counted around 50 people tweeting about BIO 2010, or 0.4% of the estimated 13,000 attendees. Imagine the power of enlisting just 5%, or roughly 10 times that amount. The BIO coverage would be fantastic, allowing those who couldn’t attend, or even those like me who were busy the whole time and did not even see a small fraction of the conference. Think it will result in less people attending? That thinking is so outdated. I can guarantee you that even this minuscule coverage made more people think about the convention than before, when perhaps more official, ‘sterile’ coverage was the norm. BIO will continue to own all of the official recordings of the meetings, and if anything, they’ll sell more copies due to piqued interest (although I would argue that the entire conference should be ustreamed live).
Help us help you. Yes, the media was very frustrated with BIO 2010. I think it was partly personal, as we were treated like outsiders, but realize that all of our careers depend upon heavily the success of biotechnology. If BIO is not taking every opportunity to communicate biotechnology to the public during this convention, can we count on them to be an effective ambassador year round? We are very eager to help BIO with its objectives, because we care about the cause and also our livelihoods. I hope that this blog post is seen as a constructive effort to visualize how we can all work together to make biotechnology as an industry as successful as it can be to heal, fuel, and feed the world.
To share this post easily, cut and paste: Constructively Deconstructing the #BIO2010 Convention http://bit.ly/dBMjw7