Here’s our most recent playlist of links and tips for life science marketing and social media:

1. Sigma updates website.

   Sigma Adrich has updated their website. It looks nice (except I think they need to be consistent with the red–it’s too light at the top) and time will tell whether life science researchers find it easier to use. The video about the new site shows 4-5 staff members describing the changes and excitement they have for it (frankly I’d rather just see the updates). The video is a bit over the top–did they really work with the ‘top designers in the world’? From the web 2.0 standpoint, they now have favorites and product reviews, which is great, and it looks to be iPad compatible. Social media is not prominently displayed–links are in gray at the bottom right. They indicate that it is the ‘first stage in their digital evolution.’ The sophisticated video makes me think of this post about every company needing to be a media company now. Is your company expanding its video production team?

2. Tineye image search.

   This is cool. Ever see an image in an Ad, or get sent an image that someone in your group wants to use in some marketing materials, but don’t know where it’s from? Enter Tineye–upload an image from your computer or give the original web address and the application will try to locate it on the web so you can purchase it, etc. It has saved me many times!

3. Millipore creates iPad app.

   Millipore, now EMD Millipore, has launched an iPad application which helps researchers map histone modifications, and lists publications and their products that are related. This app can be seen to extend the tools they have on the web, such as clickable pathways and a GPCR and kinase profiling tool. They have a very content rich, and web 2.0 site in several ways (interface and layout), but their social media presence is not very engaging, which is a shame. The iPad app is a nice addition, it will be interesting to see how popular it is.

4. Life Technologies launches Invitrogen and Applied BioSystems Facebook pages.

   OK this move confuses me. LIFE has been very active in social media, creating an overall corporate presence and ‘personalities’ for different product lines (e.g., Everyday Cloning). They’ve recently launched Invitrogen and Applied Biosystems Facebook pages. In our workshops and training, we talk about the fact that life scientists need to find value to participate in social media–what is the value in following a broad product line? To me, it muddies the identity of LIFE as a brand. An additional complication is that Facebook has organization pages for each of these sub brands (example), which the company has no control over. Whatever happens, you can follow all of LIFE social media via the RSS or email alert we’ve created.

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 5/26/2011 http://bit.ly/soundbytes05_26

Here’s our most recent playlist of links and tips for life science marketing and social media:

1. Promega updates website.

Promega recently redesigned their website, and while I thought the old one seemed easy to navigate, it’s clear they’re looking forward with this redesign. The interface is simpler and they also offer RSS feeds for some sections (which we’d love to see for ALL areas of ALL life science company websites). They have a chat feature too (not sure if it’s new) which is good as a grad student cancer researcher I spoke to recently said that “phone calls are only for emergencies,” typical of the new scientist’s attitude. Promega will also be linking their blog soon and has also started a blog-style news aggregator called “Forensic Connections.”

2. Scientists and the social media survey.

Lab Manager Magazine recently published a social media survey of 300 of their readers. Take a look at the results and judge for yourself, but we’re hesitant to give a full ‘thumbs up’ on the survey as the article isn’t a full report. The results are different than what we’ve found with our surveys, for example LinkedIn is the most popular application. The answers do underline the importance of surveying your subset of life science customers, as social media preferences will vary depending on the age, computer proficiency, and environment of researchers or professionals.

3. Salesforce acquires Radian6.

As we talked about in our Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshop 4, we see Salesforce customer relationship management (CRM) software as having the best options for tracking social media return on investment (ROI). Radian6 is a social media monitoring company, so this bodes well for being able to track these metrics, check out this nice overview of social CRM to see what may be possible soon.

4. Life Technologies launches Cell Imaging smart phone app.

Nice app for Mac devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) and Droid which features products and protocols from the Molecular Probes brand of cell imaging products. It’s a bit product centric compared to most social media apps, but the addition of protocols may mean that scientists will adopt.

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 4/15/2011 http://bit.ly/soundbytes0415

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

Here is our latest collection of links and tips for life science marketing and social media:

1. Cool online biotech stuff.

   We can’t help but notice how many people are starting cool biotech websites. Check out BetterBio, a community-run organization that promises better biotech communication. I love this new spirit of the web where asking for donations is OK and even inspiring. Also check out ConnectingSF, a portal to help those traveling to San Francisco for the big JP Morgan Healthcare conference to connect. The conference is notorious for its large attendance and paucity of online resources, so the site is a welcome addition. Finally, we saw an article in Xconomy about Relay Technology Management, who have a cool app which facilitates partnering with a sophisticated database of drug-related scientific discoveries. It looks like it may be difficult to get a free test drive, but check out this video which shows some of the features. All these sites are harbingers of the next wave of what we’ll be able to do with ‘life science 2.0′ on the web.

2. Mind Maps.

   We think a lot about ways to organize content on the web and social media and our related strategies and tactics, because the format is often non-standard. One tool we’re using is Mind Maps, visualizations in which ideas are organized and expanded upon in a free form fashion. You begin with a core concept and attach ideas–it reminds me of the ‘post-its on the wall’ approaches to software development I’ve seen. A picture is worth a thousand words, so check out this kinase assay social media mind map we created, getting some inspiration from this blog post. As you can see, it’s a great way to organize ideas for areas in which your company might not have a template, including social media. Mind Map aficionados have all sorts of cool ideas for them. You can also embed them in sites, something useful for internal planning. The apps we’ve found most useful are MindMeister (web-based), FreeMind (standalone), and there’s even a droid app which can save files in a compatible format. Your management will likely love these types of diagrams, don’t you think?

3. ScienceOnline 2011.

   We’re really excited to attend the ScienceOnline 2011 conference next week in North Carolina. We get interest from both life science marketers and researchers in working together more in the web 2.0 environment. We’re doing two surveys, one for life science marketers and one for researchers, to help facilitate these interactions. We’ll present the results next week and those who participate will get the results sent to them, so please take the survey soon. Note that the conference will be live streamed, and we’ll post instructions here on how to view, and we’ll be tweeting from it as well.

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 mix tapes delivered to your inbox.
To share this post easily, cut and paste: Sound Bytes: Links and Tips For Life Science Marketing & Social Media 1/07/2010 http://bit.ly/soundbytes0107

Here is our latest collection of links and tips for life science marketing and social media:

1. Social Media Tools Feed.

   Our 4th Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshop went well this week (it will be available as a webinar soon, check out the training page for updates), and we’re ready to start again next year with the series. We’ll also be rolling out some new tools and resources for you soon, to whet your appetite, check out our social media tools RSS feed which you can subscribe to by email. The only constant in social media is change, so keeping apprised of the best tools will help you to keep on top.

2. Holiday Gift Cards Benefiting Science Students.

   Our friends in the Bay area have a great idea–send holiday e-cards that benefit California students! Check it out, it looks easy, or consider making a donation to your favorite charity in lieu of sending printed cards or gifts.

3. On Literature Becoming More Social.

   Several items have surfaced recently about life science research publications becoming more social, such as a review of paper sharing application Mendeley and a new app called Annotatr which allows scientists to comment on papers. I bring these up to life science marketers because they present a great opportunity to learn about trends and to get involved in discussions around their brand (carefully). We’ll continue to stay attuned to the developments and let you know what apps and tools are the most useful.

4. Creating a Social Media Policy For Your Company.

   Short interview with IBM’s VP Harriett Pearson, discussing IBM’s publicly available social media policy in general terms. We know this is a big area of concern for life science marketers, and the document may help you with your 2011 planning.

5. Social Business Forecast: 2011 The Year of Integration.

   Fantastic presentation from Jeremiah Owyang about how companies will plan their social media strategies in 2011, obviously also good for planning your next year.

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 mix tapes delivered to your inbox.
To share this post easily, cut and paste: Sound Bytes: Links and Tips For Life Science Marketing & Social Media 12/10/2010 http://bit.ly/soundbytes1210

Here is our latest collection of links and tips for life science marketing and social media:

1. Science Online 2011 Conference

The fifth annual conference for science bloggers will take place in North Carolina January 13-15th. Science blogging is an exploding area, and learning more about and sponsoring the conference is a great way to reach these increasingly important thought leaders in life science. The conference sold out in 45 minutes, but you can still sponsor and I think it’s a great opportunity to show your support and get exposure for any online campaigns. I’ll be in attendance as well, let me know if you have questions or want any specific information about the conference.

2. Society for Neuroscience (SfN) 2010 Meeting had 550+ Tweeters!

I attended SfN this week and made an archive of the tweets. Currently the summary lists 572 people tweeting with the #sfn10 hashtag, and I estimate that 80-90% of these were actually at the conference. With 30,000+ scientists at the conference, this is still only 1-2%, which is a low number, but I was able to find at least one exhibitor at the conference (Jove) who said they got good results from their tweets. Also, I think the number is growing as more life scientists discover it’s a great way to get the buzz of what’s going on. You can even watch what’s going on in real time via applications such as visible tweets (and note that people are still talking about the conference after it’s over!). Tip–if you’re looking for life science researchers to follow, search for conference hashtags (e.g. #sfn10) or check out and follow our Twitter List of SfN 2010 attendees.

3. fluorXchange launches

At SfN we did a soft launch of a new application for fluorescence researchers called fluorXchange which we developed with 89 North. It’s a web 2.0 application which integrates research publications, a wiki, forum, blog and has community features. We plan to write up more details on how we designed the application soon, for now check it out and let us know what you think!

4. Comprendia’s Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshop 4: Webinar December 9th

We’ve heard from many of you that you need help in three areas with traditional and new media marketing: integrating, measuring, and adapting. In this four hour webinar, we’ll show you how to make the impact of your efforts more than the sum of the parts. We’ll cover metrics, return on investment/relationship (ROI/ROR), engagement, social media monitoring/sentiment analysis, search engine optimization, and inbound marketing. Of course, we’re also always open to your suggestions, feel free to contact us.

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 mix tapes delivered to your inbox.
To share this post easily, cut and paste: Sound Bytes: Links and Tips For Life Science Marketing & Social Media 11/18/2010 http://bit.ly/soundbytes1118

Here is our latest collection of links and tips for life science marketing and social media:

1. Life Technologies’ New Look

Someone could write a book about the different branding of Life Technologies throughout the years. To me, they were the first company to really bring a distinctive branding to life science products, and I think following them is important to learn about how companies can deal with the challenges of consolidation. Check out how they’re using the Life Technologies brand as an umbrella for the many company brands they represent. One former Invitrogen employee told me that it is reminiscent of IVGN’s early days. What do you think? It is also interesting in light of CEO Greg Lucier’s comments that the company will expand into the medical area in the next year. Will this new branding be used, or will they require more differentiation for this market?

2. The Social Network.

I just saw this movie about the genesis of Facebook and I’m ‘assigning’ it to anyone who is interested in creating social media applications for life scientists. While the movie tends to focus on the negatives of the early days of Facebook, it also shows how this application, which faced considerable competition from the likes of MySpace and Friendster, differentiated itself and eventually won the race. To me, it underlined the importance of usability and understanding what motivates people to participate in social networks.

3. HIV/AIDS New Media Guide.

This is a great resource from AIDS.gov which gives both a basic overview as well as examples of how new media is being used to engage HIV/AIDS patients and advocates. Even if you’re trying to engage a different audience, it’s a great site to look through and bookmark. As with much of new media, the site itself engages as it educates.

4. The Semantic Web is coming….

As we’ve discussed, the changes happening on the web aren’t just about people interacting or even your ability to engage your customers more. The data structure of the web is changing and you need to take notice as it will change e-commerce, likely sooner rather than later. Here is one article to pique your interest.

All links can be found under the soundbytes tag on Delicious, and sign up for Comprendia blog email updates to get our mix tapes delivered to your inbox.

Here is our latest collection of links and tips for life science marketing and social media:

1. Life Technologies launches Invitrogen Select, a publication alert aggregator.

As we’ve talked about here, research publications are the ‘glue’ that tie life science researchers together, and LIFE is ingeniously tapping into this with it’s new Invitrogen Select website and service. Researchers can sign up for publication alerts in a variety of fields, and LIFE adds an unobtrusive text advertisement at the end of the publication titles. It’s a nice tool for researchers because it is difficult to set up Pubmed alerts which all appear in one email.

2. How to build a social media cheat sheet for any topic.

This is brilliant and self explanatory, I highly suggest doing it to become an expert on any life science topic and/or to generate content for your social media campaigns. If you don’t feel as though you have the time, check out our Custom RSS service, we can generate daily emails for you.

3. The buzz is all about Quora right now…

Quora is a site everyone’s talking about, it is a ‘clearing house’ of questions and answers for any topic. It looks like it will be good for finding thought leaders/KOLs, information, and to establish yourself in an area.

4. LinkedIn Labs launches.

Looks like LinkedIn is launching a bunch of new search tools. This is hot off the presses, I haven’t had time to look into it, as always help yourself! LinkedIn is a treasure trove of information, having more access to it is bound to be very useful.

All links can be found under the soundbytes tag on Delicious, and sign up for Comprendia blog email updates to get our mix tapes delivered to your inbox.
To share this post easily, cut and paste: Sound Bytes: Links and Tips For Life Science Marketing & Social Media 10/14/2010 http://bit.ly/soundbytes1014

Here is our latest collection of links and tips for life science marketing and social media:

1. Commentary on social media and science from David Bradley

Where is social media for life scientists headed? Read thought leader David Bradley’s commentary on the subject, and also be sure to read Brian Krueger’s blog post as well. The importance of finding value is underlined, as well as the challenges at hand, and it will help you learn how your company can leverage social media to help and attract life scientists.

2. Life Technologies launches the Molecular Probes Technology Network and the Protocol Exchange for transfection.

Related to the first links, Life Technologies is dabbling in social media communities for life scientists with these new applications, which are focused around protocols and discussions. Will they gain traction? Time will tell, however the similar (from an application perspective) Stem Cell Network they launched a few months ago seems to be languishing. Do the networks meet our STIR Social Media system criteria, which we believe are needed for success? You decide!

3. New Twitter launches…kind of…

Twitter is launching a new web interface, which you can learn about in real time by following the #newtwitter hashtag. The interface will include more multimedia, powered by partnerships with many different companies, and will help Twitter to compete with third party applications (e.g., TweetDeck) and even Facebook. The new interface is being rolled out slowly to users, and the joke on Twitter is that the most experienced users aren’t getting access because they never use the web interface. I have 8 accounts and don’t have it yet! What will it mean for you, the life science marketer? It could make Twitter fill a more relevant niche as more multimedia is added, making it more similar to Facebook, but easier to manage.

4. Social media infographics.

Everybody loves an infographic! Learn and help others in your organization understand many different aspects of social media with these schematics.

All links can be found under the soundbytes tag on Delicious, and sign up for Comprendia blog email updates to get our mix tapes delivered to your inbox.

To share this post easily, cut and paste: Sound Bytes: Links and Tips For Life Science Marketing & Social Media 10/01/2010 http://bit.ly/soundbytes1001

We’re starting something new here, inspired by our friends Mike Spear and Walter Jessen, who each provide posts with useful links and summaries regularly. Our ‘flavor’ will be focused on life science & biotech marketing and social media, all meant to keep you up to speed on the interesting things we’ve found during the week. We’re documenting all of the links on the bookmark sharing site Delicious under the ‘soundbytes‘ tag, so you can always reference them (and even sign up for RSS updates–look for the orange RSS symbol). You’ll note that there are many bookmarks there now…we’ve had this in the works for a while. Without further ado, here are our first Sound Bytes!

1. Google Announces ‘Caffeine,’ a new ‘as it happens’ search engine feature.

This link’s a bit outdated, but very important, so I’m including it. Google may be feeling pressure from more timely searches available from Twitter, and introduced this new feature which indexes a ‘subsection of the internet’ quickly. What does this mean for you? We talk about in our workshops and training that search engines love dynamic websites, and this new feature turns this affection up to 11. Which ‘subsection of the internet’ do they index quickly? No one outside Google really knows, but I’m guessing blogs and other social media applications are being indexed quickly. For the Comprendia blog, our posts often ‘hit’ the first page of our target Google search engine keywords within minutes of posting. They may fade away depending on their popularity, but we get great ‘Google Juice’ almost immediately. Meaning? Start that blog yesterday, and post often!

2. More fallout from ScienceBlogs’ ‘PepsiGate’: New Wired Science Bloggers and Bora Zivkovic heads to Scientific American.

We covered ‘PepsiGate,’ Seed Media’s unfortunate episode hiring Pepsico bloggers for ScienceBlogs, and how many bloggers left the popular site. Since that time, many players have ‘stepped to the plate’ to offer these bloggers a home, and Wired Science is one of them. Their effort is certainly one to watch, as is the more ‘home grown’ network Scientopia. This week, the highly respected ex-ScienceBlogs blogger Bora Zivcovik announced he’s helping Scientific American launch a new science blogging network. What does this mean for you, the life science marketer? Advertising on these new sites is definitely a possibility, but I’d like you to think beyond this type of broadcast advertising and think about how you could help these sites in a more context-specific manner. It’s very ironic that the addition of Pepsico to the ScienceBlogs roster caused this cascade of events–if Seed Media had instead chosen a life science company-hosted blog, the outcome would have been very different!

3. Creating Social Media Business Guidelines.

We covered this topic in our Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshop 2, and as things usually go in this fast paced area, a few great resources have come out since then. Check out this post, it’s a gold mine!

4. RSS feed for Life Technologies Social Media.

Interested in seeing how LIFE is doing social media? We’ve aggregated all of their accounts into a single RSS feed, allowing you to view it in an RSS reader or get email updates. We also created a Twitter list so you can follow them easily. They’re the most active company in life science social media, incorporating many brands, you can learn from them by watching what they’re doing.

That’s all for now, folks, we’ll make another life science marketing mix tape for you in about a week, and sign up for email updates so you won’t miss anything! Stay tuned also for Sound Bytes Videos with tips and tricks from our workshops and training.

To share this post easily, cut and paste: Sound Bytes: Tips For Life Science Marketing & Social Media 9/16/2010 http://bit.ly/soundbytes0916