Recently Facebook announced a new metric, ‘people talking about,’ would be available on the left sidebar of pages below the number of likes. The number shows how many people have interacted with the page by liking it, commenting, or sharing, and it is meant to show how active a page is. We used this number to do an analysis of around 45 life science companies on Facebook, helping us to understand which companies are successfully engaging life scientists, and why they are successful.

Two charts are needed to fully understand the data, and you can also look at the raw data in the Google document. The first chart shows the number of ‘people talking about’ for each page, along with the percent engagement, or this number divided by the total number of ‘likes’ for a page. You can see that Life Technologies holds all five top spots for ‘people talking about’: Invitrogen, Applied BioSystems, Life Technologies, Molecular Probes Handbook Club, and GIBCO Cell Culture. We applaud them for their efforts, and have been tracking their activity, which helps us to understand what the numbers mean. The Invitrogen and Applied BioSystems pages were launched about six months ago, and we noticed growth was slow for months. Recently both pages have shot up in the # of likes, and we are fairly sure this growth is due to advertising. So, since the ‘people talking about’ number includes how many people have liked the pages, these numbers are high for the pages now, and will likely only be sustained with advertising.

We have found that Facebook ‘likes’ can be obtained for about $1 each (contact us to learn more), so by much hand waving you can surmise that LIFE is putting a healthy budget into Facebook advertising, perhaps $10-20K per month.

The numbers in the first chart also speak to great content which the top companies are providing. Engagement will surely go down after the $ is spent if the content does not continue to engage. The chart above is probably biased by the influx of advertising dollars, so we also charted the total number of life science page ‘likes’ below. LIFE has pages that have grown greatly due to the content, the Cell Imaging and Molecular Probes Handbook Pages are excellent examples. This content must be not simply a broadcast of a company’s products, something we’ve discussed before regarding life science companies on Twitter.

How do the companies find the content? We’ve found custom RSS feeds, which pull information about a topic from all over the internet, including news, blogs, and Twitter, to be vital for this tactic, and we can set one up for you.

As a scientist or a former scientist, you may want to know how we can reconcile these two metrics and find the top 10 life science Facebook pages. We tried combining the rankings for both charts, and the result was that the ranking was the same for the top chart. So, unfortunately or fortunately at this time for Facebook, money talks, likely because it is somewhat uncharted territory. There are around 750,000 Facebook users who indicate they have a life science degree (data not shown), so a ‘land grab’ for them will likely be taking place over the next year for those who have the resources and a defined social media strategy. Additionally, companies must think about how to capture the leads from these efforts. Stay tuned, we plan to provide resources for 2012 social media planning soon. Also, check out our own Facebook page, where we keep tabs on life science activity. Here are the top 10 Life Science Facebook Pages for those who like lists:

1. Invitrogen
2. Applied Biosystems
3. Life Technologies
4. Cell Imaging
5. Molecular Probes Handbook Club
6. GIBCO Cell Culture
7. Engaging Epigenetics Experts
8. Promega Corporation
9. New England Biolabs
10. Ion Torrent by Life Technologies

To share this post easily, cut and paste: Life Science Facebook Engagement: Which Companies Are Creating ‘Contagious’ Pages? http://bit.ly/sTb2Uw

I’ll admit I was skeptical of Google+, the new social network from the search engine giant, because I knew Google had given up their previous attempts with their products Wave and Buzz, which were in a similar vein. However, it soon became apparent that Google+ was different in many ways, from the offerings to the way everyone was talking about it. What promise does it hold for life science? I think that there are many features of Google+ which researchers and companies will find useful, and that it may become very popular. Here are the reasons:

1. Threaded discussions. Social media savvy life scientists really like Friendfeed, which allows for users to comment on posted items in targeted groups, resulting in relevant discussions which can be followed by all in the group. Currently, this is difficult with applications like Twitter. Friendfeed was bought by Facebook 2 years ago, and ever since then, the community has been worried about changes or the disappearance of the application. While Facebook has threaded discussion features, some life scientists dislike aspects of it and have eschewed it for various reasons, some of which are described below. The fact that Google+ has threaded conversations is big for life scientists, as they’ve used specialized mailing lists for decades and forums for years, both which offer this feature.
2. It’s not your grandmother’s social media. I think Google+ was designed for the slightly more technical crowd–to me it seems Google built it based on what their employees would want. Users arrange contacts into ‘circles’ and share items with the circles. However, contacts don’t see the items unless they in turn add the user to their circle. It’s a bit like following on Twitter, with an added filter that each user chooses what to share with whom. It’s a bit more complicated than the ‘binary’ friending in Facebook–you’re either friends with someone or not. I think this concept may be beyond what many Facebook users will want to think about and manage, something that Robert Scoble outlined in a recent post. Now, while we’ve seen several groups of life scientists who aren’t eager to put precious brain power into figuring out social media, we think that the potential value of individuals and organizations sharing targeted information, which they can filter accordingly, could very well lure them to Google+.
3. It’s in the cloud, stupid. I didn’t fully realize it at first, but this presentation pointed out to me the very broad implications of Google+ for web users. Google is likely aiming to move users “into the cloud,” in other words, towards using the company’s applications as a centralized resource for online and computer activities. Think about everything that Google owns: web search, email, documents, locations, calendars etc. Having a social network with easy access to just document sharing is HUGE for life scientists, think of the opportunities to facilitate collaboration! To begin with, Google spreadsheets listing scientists and communicators on Google+ have been circulating. Currently, sharing is not super easy, but you can imagine that Google is planning ahead, starting with a black taskbar that now appears at the top of your browser when you’re logged into any Google product (and a red message notification lures you back into Google+ when you have a message).
4. Hangouts are cool. A useful feature of Google+ is what they’ve termed a ‘hangout’ where you can videoconference with up to 15 people at once. Of course, most of us have used Skype, Google Chat, and screen sharing applications like GoToMeeting (which we at Comprendia love) to facilitate our work communication. Google+ takes this to the next level by making it easy to have multiple people on a video call, check out this recorded health care hangout. We held a hangout this week to discuss uses for Google+ for life scientists and companies to communicate, and some great suggestions came up, including technical support (“show me your gel and tell me what you did”), journal clubs, and focus groups. Making informal discussions more available opens up channels between life scientists and companies. We plan to hold periodic hangouts to discuss the topic and invite life scientists and companies to join, add us on Google+ to be notified.
5. The buzz. As I mentioned, I was skeptical at first, but quickly found that people were talking about Google+ and joining at an incredibly fast rate. I have added many life scientists to my circles and have already started to get to know them better than I could on Twitter or Facebook, since real names are required and photos are easy to access. The fact that we are already using so many Google products means that it has a great chance of succeeding. The name, Google+, ties into another ‘sticky’ aspect of the application for users and businesses alike–users can now “+1″ items on the web (like this blog post, see above) and thus suggest it to colleagues (similar to a Facebook “like”). If you’ve got your business hat on, this is HUGE for tracking your customers’ interests. Google+ is using many of the ideas that made Facebook and Twitter popular, but their pervasive presence and their stellar reputation bode well for their success. I’ve heard several life scientists complain about two of Facebook’s opposing issues: lack of privacy for individuals and inaccessibility of information outside of the application. It seems they can’t win! For now Google seems to have struck a balance that works.

As a business, how should you plan? Currently, Google+ is not accepting business accounts, but you can get a feeling for what it might look like here. It’s exciting (for me) to think about the possibilities of integration with Google Analytics. As with other forms of social media, one of the best ways to get involved is to set up a personal account and test it out. Currently, in my personal account, I have circles for Comprendia and the San Diego Biotechnology Network, and am treating each of these as ‘temporary’ business pages, you may want to do the same. Add people to your circles now, provide good content and hopefully they’ll add you, and you can announce your business page when it launches. Contact us if you’d like an invitation, and as always we’ll share our experiences and advice here, and will include the latest information in our training and workshops.

How do you think Google+ could be used to improve communication between life scientists and the companies that serve them?

To share this post cut and paste: 5 Reasons Why Google+ Could Be a Game Changer for Life Science #googleplus http://bit.ly/ls_gplus

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

Up to 95% of your life science customers are using Facebook, are you leveraging it yet? Attend our workshop webinar May 12th and you’ll receive training and the materials you need to get started quickly.

You may remember we surveyed life science marketers regarding their plans for 2011 for the ScienceOnline2011 (scio11) conference we attended in January. Thought leaders Arikia Millikan, Dave Mosher, and Taylor Dobbs did a survey of scio11 participants and enthusiasts with a great sample size (339) and the results haven’t been published formally so I analyzed the results (special thanks to Dave Mosher and Taylor Dobbs for making the data public). More demographics are included in the Slideshare presentation below, and our summary of the results is also given. Of course, our blog is tailored towards life science companies and marketers, so we included information pertinent to our audience, and note that we provide life science social media workshops and training, including Twitter and Facebook. We’d love to know how you’d interpret the results, please leave a comment below!

To share this post easily cut and paste: ScienceOnline2011 Web 2.0wned Survey: Social Media a Must for Staying Current, Twitter Top Tool #scio11 http://comprendia.com/surveyscio11

A recent survey of life science marketers found that 52% plan to increase their level of new and social media advertising in 2011. The study, conducted by life science consulting firm Comprendia LLC, was comprised of thirty-three respondents working in the non-FDA regulated sector, dealing with products for research use only. When asked which social media applications were most utilized, Twitter and Facebook were the top results, with 58% and 39% using them daily or one or two times a week, respectively. Respondents indicated that social media monitoring is also prevalent, with more than 60% indicating they track mentions of their brand on social networks. The long term effects of these trends are unclear, but it is possible that increased interaction between these life science companies, their customers, and independent science communicators portends the development of better products and increased progress in biotechnology research.

These results indicate a shift from traditional, broadcast marketing such as print advertisements and even online banners to new, more engaging methods such as social networks and blogs. Are life science marketers fully ready for this drastic change, which involves much more engagement with their scientific customers? When asked how they’d create the additional content needed for new and social media, 67% of life science marketers indicated that their existing staff would allocate time. Anticipating this unreasonable expectation, respondents were also asked about partnering with existing websites such as science blog aggregators. Initial interest in collaborating with existing entities was low, but respondents indicated a willingness to work with web 2.0 sites such as Benchfly, LabSpaces, Science 3.0 and Scientopia, and events such as ScienceOnline.

The results of the survey were presented at the ScienceOnline 2011 conference in January, where several involved in the ‘science 2.0’ movement expressed interest in working with life science companies. These blogs and sites are filling an important niche as scientific content is becoming scarce on traditional sources such as newspapers. Some bloggers expressed concern with corporate content intermingling with their own, an issue that does not exist with traditional media where distinctions between editorial and advertising content are usually clear. However, ideas for creating new boundaries emerged from discussions at the conference, and all of the findings from the meeting and this report can be found at http://comprendia.com/lifesciencesm Support from life science companies could bolster the independent science entities, resulting in more scientific information being disseminated to the general public via these routes. Company representatives, bloggers, or writers who are interested in participating should fill out this form.

Mary Canady, Founder of Comprendia, said “Life science companies appear eager to embrace social media, and it is clear that forming close partnerships with independent science entities such as blogging networks and open science conferences are necessary. New advertising models that will meet the companies’ needs while not sacrificing the integrity of the science communicators will result in a collaborative environment benefiting all involved.”

Comprendia is a California-based LLC which develops social media marketing plans for life science and biotechnology companies. Comprendia is actively implementing related strategies and tactics in a variety of projects and also provides monthly life science social media workshops and customized training. Based on the results of the survey, we’ll begin with a Twitter Workshop March 10th.

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.

Facebook is everywhere, from the movie box office, to news about frequent announcements and changes, to your friends and family who are likely interacting there more and more frequently. Facebook’s leveraging its 500 million users to become the gorilla who can sit anywhere it pleases. You may have dismissed it as not being useful for your life science business, but Facebook’s users, and the changes that the company has been making, are affecting many current and future aspects of the web. Below we outline the changes that are most likely to affect life science businesses.

Mark Zuckerberg describes the ‘heart’ of the important changes at the April f8 conference (Facebook’s conference for developers), establishment of an ‘open graph.’ What is it? Zuckerberg explains that before the described changes were made, many different applications were mapping out the connections between people and their interests–for example Yelp maps out restaurant patron experiences shared between friends, and Pandora maps out music interests. At f8 a series of applications were launched which will help to connect much of this information, using Facebook as a hub, to create what he calls the open graph.

Perhaps the most obvious change you’ve noticed as a user is that the ‘Like’ button is showing up everywhere on websites (we even installed one in the sidebar here). This change is made possible with the new applications Facebook has made available, allowing almost any web entity to be ‘liked’ and tracked. In addition, websites can also use a Facebook login rather than an individual one, making it much easier for them to join a website.

I highly suggest listening to Mark Zuckerberg’s f8 keynote speech, as it underlines the broader, optimistic implications for ‘changing the web,’ but it should be pointed out that some see it as a ploy for Facebook to ‘take over’ the web. Somewhat quietly during this time, Facebook forced users to convert all of their interests into ‘Likes’, which served to standardize the information more. For example, my favorite movie is Moonstruck, so I was ‘forced’ to ‘Like’ that page. This is pretty powerful if you think about it–if there is ever a sequel to the movie, Facebook will be THE place to market it, as they can easily market to their exact demographic (not to mention the ability for them to do market research beforehand). In a sense, with this change Facebook made an important step in them ‘owning’ a lot of important real estate on the web.

Some of the other changes Facebook made this year also far reaching and important to note. One is the introduction of ‘Community Pages,’ which pull content from Wikipedia. What does this mean for life science companies? Well, it means that if you have a wikipedia entry, you now have a facebook page which you may have no control over, as wikipedia is crowd sourced (e.g., anybody can edit). For an example, check out Thermo Fisher’s community page.

Also, this week Facebook launched updates to their groups which will allow more interaction, functioning as Yahoo! or Ning groups, but in some ways easier because so many people belong to Facebook. Because this announcement is so new, it’s hard to say how it will affect life science companies. For now, we still recommend that a Facebook Page be made for brands, and you can check out early reactions to the announcement as well.

You may still be wondering what this has to do with your life science business. Consider this: Facebook’s inclusion of wikipedia entries means that there is now a MAP Kinase page. Consider my movie example above–because of Facebook’s reach, they may ‘own’ this on the web, giving them some control, but also allowing you to tap into MAPK aficionados. Now, take it one step further and imagine that all of the products you have related to MAPK could be linked to this entry. Wow. Are you starting to see how powerful these changes are? It’s all part of what’s called the semantic web, and its being thought of from both the life science side and the commerce side–see the Linked Open Data and the Linked Open Commerce websites.

What should you be doing now? I suggest scheduling a meeting with your IT/Web group to discuss the implications for your product catalog. Are there Facebook applications which will help you to engage and learn about your customers more? Check Facebook for community pages related to your company, and replace them with ‘real’ pages which you’ll have more control over. Is Facebook starting to ‘own’ a piece of the web that you are interested in, and if so what should you do about it? As always, contact us with any questions you have, or check out our Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshop 3 which covers third party applications such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

To share this post easily, cut and paste: Facebook’s Changes: Why Every Life Science Marketer Should Care http://bit.ly/dusOHr

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

Comprendia has been invited to present a social media workshop for the chemical industry by Informex, the leading meeting place for buyers and sellers of high-value chemistry for a broad range of applications. Learn more from Informex’s press release about the social media webinar for the chemicals industry, and register here. If you’re interested in hiring Comprendia to train your group, see our life science social media training and workshop opportunities.