Comprendia was founded in June of 2008, and we’ve had three great years. We’d like to thank our clients and supporters with what we think will be a fun way to give out 50 $15 prizes. We’re also giving an extra $50 to the person who refers the most people to the survey, so you can win up to $65!

Here’s how you can win. We created an uber short survey for both life scientists and those who provide products to them. We’re going to challenge you a little and learn about what you like. There are two ways you can find the survey:

1. Scan the QR code in this blog post, it will link directly to the survey. QR codes appear to be all the rage in marketing these days, but we’re not sure how many of you will go to the trouble to scan. To find a scanner, check out your phone’s app store. Once you start looking for QR codes, you’ll see them everywhere, and you’ll have the app to start scanning.
2. Check in to the Comprendia 3rd Anniversary Jubilee event on Foursquare and the link can be found in the ‘Tips’ (if you live in San Diego, you should be able to find on your phone).

Comprendia branded Moleskine notebooks are one of the prizes we’ll give to the first 50 people who qualify for and finish the survey (the large ruled, click on the image above to see detail). We think they are pretty spiffy, if you’ve never used a Moleskine before, I highly suggest them. They are very high quality and actually ‘make’ you want to write! If you aren’t into writing, we’re also offering $15 Amazon.com gift cards for participants.

We’ll keep track of how many from the scientist and company side take the survey and how they got to the link. Check back at comprendia.com/jubilee to see who’s on top! It will be interesting to see if participants find either option easier, and if there is a difference between the two groups.

Remember that you can win an extra $50–share this post, your Foursquare check in, or put the QR code on your blog and ask people to say they heard it from you. Good luck!

Table last updated: 7/5/2011

Current top referrer: Angela Alexander aka @flutesud

We’ll use the information we collect to help companies serve life scientists better, contact us if you’re interested in hearing about the results.

To share this post easily, cut and paste: Comprendia’s Third Anniversary Jubilee, Win Up To $65! http://comprendia.com/jubilee

Want more tips? Attend our Google Tools Workshop Webinar.

To share this post easily cut and paste: Video Bytes 6.24.11: Monitor Life Science Topics on the Web In Real Time Using Google Alerts http://bit.ly/kIqfXr

We’ve announced our Google Tools workshop webinar July 7th, and Workshop 2 is now available as a recording. Check out our workshops and training page for other offerings.

Comprendia’s analysis of the top life science company Twitter accounts was recognized by Affymetrix in this press release. We congratulate them on their success with social media and hope that our analyses and expertise will continue to facilitate increased communication between biotech companies and the researchers they serve. As part of Comprendia’s 3rd anniversary celebrations this month, we will be announcing more products, services, and awards shortly towards our goal of encouraging increased transparency and collaboration the life sciences.
To share this post easily cut and paste: Comprendia Life Science Social Media Report Recognized by Affymetrix http://bit.ly/kCeaIi

Twitter is currently the most active area for life science companies in social media, we count around 170 accounts. For this analysis, we only count companies who deal primarily with non-FDA regulated products. While our survey earlier this year confirms Twitter as the top interest for marketers, we find that follow through isn’t always guaranteed. To highlight life science companies which are doing a great job on Twitter, we employed the influence tool Klout to rank them.

Klout is an application which gives Twitter accounts a score according to how many followers they have and how much they engage with others on Twitter. It’s not perfect, but gives a good indication of the performance of a Twitterer. The life science companies on Twitter are shown in the ManyEyes bubble chart visualization above, and the largest circles have the top Klout. The colors represents Klout’s assessment of the performance of the Twitter account, and by viewing the chart on the ManyEyes site you can also color by the class they assign to each user, see a description of the Klout classes here. You can also access the data, and the top 10 Twitter accounts are shown below. I’d like to thank Mike Chelen for creating the Klout batch application for us.

How accurate are the results? For the most part, the results match our intuition as to which Twitterers ‘get it’ and are doing well. However, we did notice that some larger brands can get away with little engagement and still have a strong Klout score. See, for example, @Agilent which is an automatic feed. This may be where Klout is not as accurate, because we all know accounts that are engaging are more effective. Several of the larger brands follow far fewer than follow them, and we suggest that if they truly want to listen to customers and participate, that they should follow and engage. We don’t see larger life science brands having a personality like Twitter successes Zappos or Comcast have, and would love to see this take place. Indeed, Comprendia has a significantly higher Klout score than even these large corporations, likely due to our three years of daily effort on Twitter and the personal relationships we’ve formed with life science influencers (and we truly care about the community, we’re not just trying to get a high score).

Smaller companies are well represented in the list, with Mendeley, Integrated DNA Technology, and BioData being in the top five. All have great engagement–a must for small companies to get good traction. We were pleasantly surprised to see that @GenomicApps, a new account started by our colleague Ruby Gadelrab aka @divabiotech a few months ago, is already competing well with more established accounts. We know Ruby’s a social media aficionado, so this isn’t surprising. We’re also happy that @EpiExperts, which Tweets about the epigenetics community we developed with New England Biolabs, is doing so well after only starting a few months ago as well.

What is the relevance of this study to your Twitter strategy? We know social media is not all about numbers, but having more followers and influence gives you better exposure and all the benefits. Twitter’s increasing impact on search engine results has been recently documented. Check out our howto post on getting more Twitter followers or take our Twitter workshop. Not only will these resources help you to raise your Klout score and influence, but the strategies and tactics will help you get more out of the application, including getting more feedback and learning about trends. We can also use the Klout batch application in conjunction with our other social media monitoring tools to find life science influencers in any area, contact us for more information.

Also interesting for life science brands is that Klout is allowing users to promote other users, and one could envision that it could be used in many ways to get your brand noticed. We had a lively discussion about it on Twitter this week, and of course I welcome your continued comments. In addition, Klout’s move is a result of the ‘gamification of social media‘ that is occurring also in applications such as Empire Avenue.

P.S. An honorable mention goes to @Clonegene who were 11th on this list, and engaged with us this week, asking about their ranking!

To share this post easily, cut and paste: Life Science Companies on Twitter: Who’s On Top? http://bit.ly/ls_inf