Just a quick note to let you know that our Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshop series is starting again with a Workshop 1 interactive webinar April 14th. Also our Twitter Workshop is now available on demand. We hope to help you meet your goals in 2011 with social media workshops specific for life science and biotechnology, contact us if you want more information or require customized training.

Welcome to the first in our series of Video Bytes, Demos and ‘How To’ Resources for Life Science Marketing & Social Media. You may be familiar with our Sound Bytes which are links and tips along the same theme, we’re adding videos to help show you how you learn how to use online applications to better reach your goals. Our first video is about the recent changes to the LinkedIn interface, and how to contact users who are in your groups.

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To share this post easily cut and paste: Video Bytes: Demos and ‘How To’ Resources for Life Science Marketing & Social Media 3/27/2011 http://bit.ly/vidbytes0327

Wow two months since the last Sound Bytes! We’ve updated our look from 80′s mix tape to ’00′s iPod, here’s our most recent playlist of links and tips for life science marketing and social media:

1. EMD Millipore: How do you like them apples?

   This week at our San Diego Biotechnology Network event my good friend and colleague Steve Edenson from EMD Millipore sponsored, and he showed me their brochure for Lead Discovery services, the tagline is ‘at the core of your discovery’ and they’re a nice light green with apples subtly featured. Here’s the twist: it’s apple scented! Perhaps it’s a gimmick, but it makes it memorable and you could even argue that it could help with branding or even send a subliminal message. EMD Millipore also recently announced their new branding (PDF) after Merck KgaA aquired Millipore last July. I’m not sure how the marketing team came up with the apple scent, but it shows creativity–how could you distinguish your marketing materials? I’ve heard great ideas from outside our industry, perhaps ask your printers, vendors or consultants for ideas, or have a brainstorming session on a Friday afternoon with your team. I also like to keep an open mind when visiting other events such as home shows, etc., or even sorting through junk mail.

2. Twitter gives developers the bird.

   In our Twitter workshop last week (available on demand soon!) we emphasized that you should cautiously rely on the posting and analysis tools outside of Twitter, because they can be here today and gone tomorrow. Instead, you should start talking to your IT team now about creating archiving and analysis tools for Twitter and other social media. Why? Well, we got a good example this week, as Twitter told outside developers to stop making applications which they claim are confusing end users. These ‘confusing’ applications are in many cases more intuitive and useful than the Twitter web and search tools, which is why they are so popular. Big name apps such as Hootsuite and Tweetdeck will likely stay, but this move is a harbinger towards more control for them and less functionality for end users, unless Twitter beefs up its development of tools. How does this affect the life science marketer? Twapper Keeper is (or was, depending on when you read this) a fantastic tool to see the content and users centered around an event or keyword, and Twitter is forcing them to shutter their most useful features March 20th. Get your archives while you can, and get those conversations started with your IT group (there is an open source version of Twapper Keeper they may be able to install for you)!

3. HootSuite launches more analytics

   If you use HootSuite for posting to and managing your Twitter accounts, check out their announcement about now providing more analytics. You can now get more information about your facebook page and Google analytics, and it may help you ‘close the loop’ from social media to sales so that you can measure return on investment (ROI) better. HootSuite is a big competitor for TweetDeck, this may make them ‘owl that’ in the battle for leadership.

4. Google tweaks its search engine.

   In an announcement in late February, Google announced some changes that should benefit the life science marketer. They’re cracking down on so-called ‘scraping’ sites which reuse content on an automated site in which the goal is more visitors and Ad revenue. You may have noticed these sites when searching for information about your brand or products. Hopefully, this will happen less often, and you may want to check your company’s PageRank or search results in general to see if your ranking has improved at all. I’d expect modest, if any, change, and you should also discuss these changes with your IT/search engine optimization group to make sure they are taking the changes into account.

The soundbytes tag on Delicious contains all links mentioned, as well as others we think are useful. Sign up for Comprendia blog email updates to get our playlists delivered to your inbox.

To share this post easily cut and paste: Sound Bytes: Links and Tips For Life Science Marketing & Social Media 3/18/2011 http://bit.ly/soundbytes0318

These days there are many ways that a life science company can reach out to researchers, which is great. You likely don’t just have one list of contacts in your CRM, you’ve got employees using LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. With this added flexibility comes new questions regarding how to make contact that is welcomed. We like to use the golden rule, in other words, do unto others as you’d have done to you. Here are some examples of what we consider to be breaking the golden rule, illustrating why it is a simple and effective guideline for many different situations.

1. Unsolicited newsletter opt in. I was recently signed up for a newsletter simply because I’d exchanged an email with someone that had nothing to do with their products. I hear this complaint often from colleagues, that they’ve been signed up for newsletters and resent the sender. Your newsletter recipients should request to be signed up, or you should match their interests closely and monitor unsubscribes closely. Don’t assume a contact is a lead, and remember a newsletter is a regular publication which carries more weight than just sending an email.
2. No ‘unsubscribe’ on mass emails. Related to the last point, you should ALWAYS include an unsubscribe option for all email blasts. Modern CRM software and other tools make it easy to send mass emails, but failing to include the option to unsubscribe can cause resentment towards your brand. In addition, without the option to unsubscribe, your leads may mark your emails as spam, meaning you could be blacklisted and that they will no longer receive your messages.
3. Automated direct messages (DMs) from Twitter. This is one of my personal pet peeves and I can assure you that we NEVER do this and advise our clients against it. Some applications send a DM automatically when you follow an account, and experienced users (i.e., those you want to engage) get very irritated by them. Depending on the user’s settings, it can arrive as a text message, and minimally an email. On Twitter, you may be following 1,000 or more accounts–can you imagine if all of them texted or emailed you regularly? (Note: We’ll cover etiquette in our March 10th Twitter Workshop.)
4. Lack of respect for communities. I think the above Twitter transgression occurs with new users because they don’t understand the etiquette of the community. I see similar missteps with those who join one of our LinkedIn groups and immediately post 3 self-serving items. I guess the golden rule assumes that you can ‘stand in the shoes’ of the other person, but as a newbie it’s difficult. In short, don’t rush into a new application and make assumptions about contacting people. Take your time or find an aficionado who can help you.
5. Too frequent communication. A possible issue with having so many ways to communicate with people is that you could barrage someone with the same message too many times. With broadcast advertising (e.g., print Ads), it was considered a good thing to get your message in front of a potential customer multiple times, with personal communication the rules are different. When planning, determine the maximum number of times a person may see your message in, say, a week’s time. Consider how you’d feel if you received the same message from a company with the same frequency. Also, always remember that your targets may not hold the same affection for your brand as you do, so do the comparison with a company you’re not overly fond of. I like to use the car dealership I bought my car from 6 years ago that still sends me monthly mailers (a personal gripe). Look for tools which will help you marry contact information between applications, for example this Constant Contact plugin for Salesforce .
6. Mixing personal and company connections. We’ve covered this before, but from my personal experience the problem seems to be getting worse so I’m bringing it up again. Building a network is a fantastic way to find and engage prospective leads, but you should be very careful to not assume that your personal contacts don’t feel as though they’ll be automatically entered into your company’s CRM. An example that illustrates this concept well involves LinkedIn contact information. Should you upload your LinkedIn contacts into your company CRM? As a general rule, I’d say no. However, we do manual updates when we see, for example, that emails are bouncing and we know it’s because the person has moved jobs. Usually this means we know the situation fairly well and have followed the above rules as well, so that the person can opt out if needed. You should also think about your personal brand when making these decisions–if your company abuses the contact information now or at a later date, the damage to your reputation could be irreversible.

We hope these examples will help you understand a simple way to determine how your company’s communications will be perceived, so that you can make them as effective as possible. Also, feel free to ask our advice if you’re unsure about a campaign you’re planning, we’re always available for a free consultation.

Personally, have you been irritated by communication missteps, and how do you think could they be avoided by life science companies?

To share this post easily cut and paste: Are You Following The Golden Rule of E-Marketing and Social Media? http://bit.ly/f5cQdo