Comprendia’s mission is to improve communication in the life science industry, and a big part of this is opening up more of a dialog between companies and researchers. We think social media is a perfect venue for discussions, and are co-founding a biweekly life science chat on Twitter. Life scientists and company representatives can openly discuss issues important for advancing research through a better understanding of the challenges faced by each.

Many life science companies have a presence on Twitter, but we see them mostly as being in broadcast mode, simply tweeting about products and promotions and not engaging with scientists. We were approached by one life scientist on twitter who wanted us to connect them with a company as their efforts to engage with them regarding a large equipment purchase had not been fruitful. With an email, we were able to connect them, but the process would have been much easier if the company had been available and responsive on Twitter.

Life scientists have questions directly relating to existing products as well as ideas for new ones. Companies want to hear this information and ask questions about their performance and perception. A Twitter chat will bring the two sides together in an informal and trackable way, accepting discussion topics from all interested. We can also use the chat to help life scientists through the personal challenges many face during their PhD or postdoc, as most of us on the company side have been through similar struggles.

Angela Alexander (@thecancergeek) is one of our favorite life scientists. She’s a postdoc at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, and she had the idea for the chat while we were talking on Twitter about our recent post about life science hashtags. This underlines another benefit to interacting with life scientists–they’re brilliant and creative! She is our co-founder and we’ll both be moderating the chats. She’s already thought of many discussion topics already.

The chat will take place alternating Wednesdays at 4 p.m. PT beginning September 14th, using the hashtag #ls_chat and led by the @ls_chat Twitter account. Following the lead of Andrew Spong’s fantastic post on how to start a tweet chat, we’ve also started a life science chat wiki. To participate, visit the wiki and sign the guestbook and submit and/or vote on discussion topics. Check out the calendar, then log into Twitter at the designated time, follow @ls_chat and the #ls_chat hashtag (a search column in Tweetdeck or Hootsuite works well) and join the discussion. We’ll provide summaries of the discussions afterward. Also, like our Facebook page for announcements and summaries. As always, contact us if you have a question or suggestion, and you can email the ls_chat team directly too.

To share this post easily cut and paste: Introducing The Life Science Twitter Chat: Improving Communication Between Researchers and Companies http://bit.ly/qtEap6

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

If you’ve been following our Biotechnology Marketing 101 blog, you likely know that we are ‘in the know’ about social media. We’ve used it to grow our own company and the San Diego Biotechnology Network, and we’ll be featuring our work with other companies soon. Check out our Social Media Capabilities page to learn more and to get started!

In our first Biotechnology Marketing 101 presentation, we discussed using the principles of marketing to help further your career. In our latest presentation, Biotechnology Marketing 101: Your Company (PDF), you’ll learn how promote your small or large company using tactics that all marketers use to promote any ‘product,’ be it a physical product, service, or organization. Learn about every day steps you can take to ensure that your company is positioned for success. The presentation includes strategies to make the most of your budget. Tips for everything from choosing a logo to leveraging PR is included here, and please contact us if you’d like to schedule a free, personalized Biotechnology Marketing 101 presentation and consultation with Comprendia.