We’ve talked about the new media revolution, and how scientists are publishing more research and information online, while traditional printed publications are experiencing a downward trend. If you’ve been watching, there has been a concomitant movement to make research open access, meaning making published data free, as evidenced by the growth of journals such as the Public Library of Science. This movement is aimed at improving the progress of science by making more information available for faster discoveries. In addition, a group of researchers has taken a brilliant step towards controlling their destinies and begun to ‘crowdfund’ their research via an initiative called SciFund, soliciting funds from individuals to support their work. As researchers begin to ‘take charge’ of their future in these endeavors which are linked and perhaps similar to the Occupy Wall Street movement, life science tools providers can partner with them, benefiting all.

Let’s list a few ways that the status quo limits life science companies. Funding for life science research, which directly affects the growth of tools providers, is determined by the federal government, and distributed via the peer reviewed grant process. Researchers carry out this research aided by products from life science companies and publish results in peer-reviewed journals which delay and heavily restrict the utilization of the information. So, the government, academic infrastructure, and the peer reviewed journals severely limit revenue, product development, and communication with scientists and their use of products. We’ve learned to put up with these limitations, but what if we embraced the #scifund and #openaccess (as they are known on Twitter) movements? Some of the benefits are listed below, and we are just beginning to scratch the surface.

1. Find and engage thought leaders more easily. Who are the influencers in your field, what are they thinking about, and how can you work with them? In the past, finding them via traditional publications has been easy enough, although most of the work is 6-12 months old by the time it is accessible, and this multiplies the time they could publish any work they do with you or your products. With more researchers blogging and Tweeting about their data, or publishing it more quickly via PLOS, you can find the influencers and interact with them more quickly than before. As an added bonus, you’ll be able to use the data and figures on your own website, as PLOS information is free for commercial use.
2. More opportunities to reach a targeted market. With more researchers publishing online and in niche blogs, you’ll be able to reach very specific audiences with your message, and obtain feedback. Partnering with a blog or a blog network is an easy way to go, or you can start your own website/blog and engage there, something we’ve done with the EpiExperts Epigenetics Community.
3. Better product development. Daniel Mietchen, a science communicator who was part of the inspiration for this post, has an elegant SciFund proposal about a repository of research data in which scientists can learn from others’ work much more quickly. As a life science marketer, if you’re not drooling already, you should be. Access to targeted, real time information about what life scientists are working on is like the CRISP database on steroids! Additionally, the targeted advertising opportunities are mouth watering as well. Of course, we wouldn’t want them to feel as though their research is tainted by commercial interest, but think of the possibilities to react quickly to a researcher who has used your tools, and to feed this information back into product development.
4. More control over funding. Related to this last point, think about the potential to have an effect on which life science projects are funded. Of course, if life science companies directly support all research, the funds will soon dry up, but it is interesting to note that data from Europe show that businesses already fund more research than the public. By getting involved now with projects such as SciFund, life science companies will get great PR and also make connections with digital influencer. As this Wall Street Journal article and related book point out, scientists who are sharing will have advantages and likely be more influential than those who do not. Life science companies could use their marketing channels to promote these thought leaders not only within the industry, but to the general public. Should we envision a future whereby academic research is fueled more directly by the public and those who influence them? Perhaps not that completely, as basic research is important, but the face of research will undoubtedly change. Efforts to affect government funding should also be on the table, with tools companies supporting entities like BIO.

What can you do now? Comprendia serves as a liaison between life science companies and the thought leaders of these revolutions. We’d be happy to work with you to find ways you can find opportunities for synergies, contact us. One of the ways we facilitate communication is through our life science chat on Twitter, through the #ls_chat hashtag, @ls_chat Twitter account, and wiki. We’re having a special #ls_chat Wednesday November 16th at 10 a.m. PT to discuss SciFund, and we’ll have their founder Jai Ranganathan (@jranganathan) to answer questions as well, see the ones we’ve come up with so far and feel free to add. Follow along using the Tweetchat room and use the #ls_chat hashtag in your Tweets to ask or answer questions. See summaries of our previous chats as well.

To share this post easily, cut and paste: Occupy Life Science? How Researchers Are Challenging the Status Quo And Why Companies Should Help http://bit.ly/u58tK1

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

Here’s a great video from Imperial College in which several life scientists discuss their interest in social media.

Blogs, Twitter, Wikis and other on-line tools from John Conway on Vimeo.

How can life science companies participate? Join us June 9th for our Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshop 2: The 4 B’s of First Party Applications and find out!

To share this post easily, cut and paste: How Do Life Scientists Use Social Media? http://bit.ly/iZ35ss

You may know I was trained as a scientist and realized about ten years ago that combining this knowledge with marketing know-how could help me make what I hope are significant contributions to life science. Marketing gets a bad rap because it is used incorrectly by some, but its tenets are designed to help provide customers with items they need and want, and in the process advancing technology in many areas. One of the most basic ideas is that of value–professionally and personally, it is an excellent guideline for success.

The picture for this post is from the Art Institute in Chicago–I knew immediately when I saw it that I wanted to write this post about it, as I think about the concept a lot. What is value? It is the simple answer to the question ‘what’s in it for me?’ that we’re programmed from birth to ask ourselves during many of the decisions we’re faced with. For life scientists, this often relates to saving time or achieving more meaningful results. Successful life science companies provide value to their customers, and also build a brand that has a very positive image.

For product development, I think many life science companies do a great job of identifying what is valuable for their customers and developing new technologies to meet needs. However, I currently see a disconnect in some of the online marketing strategies being used, especially in the social media area. Some life science companies have put significant resources into creating games and contests, perhaps with the thought that they will ‘go viral.’ While it’s true that some amusing life science videos have gone viral, and some games on Facebook spread like wildfire, consider our target demographic: they are highly educated, busy, and under a lot of stress to publish. Do they have time for games? Not likely.

Social media is unlike broadcast advertising, where a funny Ad can get a chuckle but requires little interaction from scientists. Consider that games and contests require significant participation from researchers, so they must provide a lot of value to be successful. Now, more than ever, people are short on time, and there are myriad games that are likely more sophisticated and fun that they could spend their time with. Contests are similar, as they require participation–if you’re asking your customers to upload videos, be sure that they are comfortable with this medium.

Instead, as we will cover in our Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshop 3, life science companies should focus on developing online tools and resources that provide value to researchers, addressing pain points that their products do as well. As we’ve covered earlier, use what has worked in the past as a start and produce ’2.0′ versions of them. I suggest leaving the games and contests to the larger brands, as there is much value we could be providing to life science researchers.

I’m also a fan of marketing because its ideals help me personally, and the value theme is important here as well. With many interactions I make, whether it be a simple email or a proposal for work, I try to ensure that I provide significant value to the other party. Of course, a positive response is much more likely when the recipient sees the value of continuing a relationship with you.

What is the best way you’ve found to provide value to your customers and/or colleagues?

To share this post easily, cut and paste: Why Providing Value to Life Scientists is Now More Important Than Ever http://bit.ly/cTsnHc

Twitter is not just for breakfast any more. Life scientists and companies are using it to learn and share information, and there are likely a few thousand life scientists and more than 100 related companies using it. One of the really great things about twitter is that you can find connections based on the content they are tweeting, and you don’t need to know them to follow and vice versa. Whether you’re in marketing or do research, the value lies in following a good quantity of high quality life scientists, and having them follow you back, and here are some tips and tricks for achieving this goal.

Follow more life science twitterers. We know purists who think that ‘if you tweet, followers will come,’ they want to grow ‘organically.’ However, if you look at the vast majority of twitterers, their number of followers is roughly equal to the number they follow. So, if you want 1000 followers, you’ll likely need to follow 1000 (and I think is the minimum number you need to get any real traction on Twitter). The good news is that there are many great ways to find life science twitterers, including:

• David Bradley’s Scientist Twibe–600 scientists (perhaps not all life scientists). Follow these scientists, add yourself to this list, and browse sites like wefollow and follow people and add yourself to the appropriate list(s).
• Search Twitter for terms you’re interested (e.g., RNAi, epigenetics) and follow twitterers in search results. Some twitter applications like twhirl allow you to add searches to your stream, making it easy to follow as you go.
• Conference hashtags. Tweets from most life science conferences include a ‘hashtag’, e.g. #asmgm for the ASM General Meeting. Search for the hashtags and follow twitterers.
• Find a great life science twitterer and follow who they follow. Their list can be found on their profile page by clicking on the ‘following’ link. Don’t follow their followers, as these lists are usually a lot more noisier than the list they are following.

Note: You shouldn’t follow more than 100 people a day, as Twitter may flag you as a spammer.

Provide good content. Twitter is used to share news and information related to your interests, be they personal or professional. To get people to follow, you need to give people something interesting to look for. We’re big proponents of using RSS for this function, you can even set it up to send yourself a daily email of customized content from across the web. Of course, you can also promote yourself, as long as you follow our 90/10 rule: provide 90% selfless content, and 10% self-promoting content.

Engage. It’s not enough to just follow and tweet good content. You also need to engage with the life science community. It should come naturally, if not you’re not following the right people! Retweet interesting content, reply to twitterers who capture your attention, or just say hi. I think you’ll find that you’ll even make some friends! They don’t call it SOCIAL media for nothing!

Think holistically. Most social media applications work best synergistically with other tools. A twitter account works much better if you also have a blog which you can tweet about, for example. Also, it’s a good idea to get to know the twitterers you follow by leaving comments on their blogs. The general theme is, be a part of the community! You’ll find you know more about your field and the world in general by following Twitter. You may not notice it right away, but you’ll be getting ‘Tweet Cred’ and your number of followers will grow.

Lighten up. There are many brands, life science and otherwise, on Twitter. The most successful ones show they’re human and tweet some personal information. Regardless of your motives, it’s a good idea for many reasons to show you’re human. For one, it makes the experience more enjoyable. It doesn’t have to be anything unprofessional, it can simply be commenting on the weather, for example. As we’ve pointed out, engaging is key, and nobody wants to interact with a robot! You also may find you share hobbies, etc. with other life science twitterers, allowing you meet those you might otherwise would not have.

This list is good to get you going on getting more followers and mastering twitter, and we also offer Twitter training and as part as our Workshop 3: The Rule of 3’s for 3rd Party Applications: Strategies, Tactics, and Metrics. Contact us for more information, and subscribe to our blog so you’ll get this information in your inbox hot off the press.

Note: The Twitter ‘mascot’ is a blue bird, so a blue dodo seemed fitting for life science. Get it?

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Comprendia is dedicated to improving communication in life science and biotechnology, and towards that end we are big proponents of social media. Our Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshop 2: The 4 B’s of First Party Applications interactive webinar will take place July 28th from 8 a.m.-12 p.m. Pacific Time. During this four hour workshop, you’ll learn how to build web 2.0 applications including blogs, forums, wikis, and how to generate meaningful content for life scientists. For each strategy or application, you’ll learn the 4 B’s crucial to attracting scientists and achieving a good ROI: the Basics, Benefits, Best Practices, and Biotech Examples. Register here or contact us if you’re interested in a private or customized version of the workshop.

We also offer training for social media applications such as Twitter, WordPress, LinkedIn, and Facebook, check out our Social Media Training and Workshops page for more information. We can also customize the training for your business, contact us for more information.

We’ve put together a list of life science wikis on the SDBN site. It’s a resource for life scientists, and also a great resource for life science companies to consider, and we found a nice example of a company who is using a wiki well. If you’d like to learn more about using a wiki, come to our June 22nd Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshop in San Diego, where we’ll cover the Basics, Benefits, Best Practices, and Biotech examples. Earlybird registration ends Wednesday, don’t be late! We’ll also be offering the workshop virtually and perhaps in your area soon, contact us for more details.

A few months ago we did an analysis of life scientists’ utilization of social media applications, studied the applications ourselves, and published our findings. Based on this study, and our own experience, we’ve developed the STIR Social Media™ system which helps life science companies develop strategies and tactics which will both attract life scientists and maximize their return on investment (ROI). STIR is an acronym for the four attributes which social media applications and campaigns must achieve to succeed: Sticky, Transparent, Intuitive, and Resonating.

In our workshops and on this blog, we’ve pointed out that life science companies have been utilizing strategies and tactics that are similar to those behind social media for decades. Social media is about ‘paying it forward’ and providing resources which go beyond self-promotion, see this blog post for some examples of life science companies who have been doing this for years. Social media involves taking these resources to the next level, and using all the web 2.0 tools available to engage scientists in a two-way conversation rather than broadcasting messages to them. This can be tricky, and based on our studies and experience, we’ve developed the STIR Social Media system to help, its four attributes are described below.

Sticky. Create a site or application which has almost immediate attraction for scientists, providing reasons for them to visit, interact, and return. We’ve all heard about, then visited sites which we never return to again because they’re not sticky. My favorite example of a sticky website for life scientists is BiomedExperts. When you create an account and login, the application allows you to upload your publications, and you’re instantly connected to everyone you’ve ever published with. As such, they’ve circumvented the negative impact of the network effect that plagues many young social networking sites, a brilliant move by the developers of this application.

Transparent. Scientists are skeptical of anything that has the slightest hint of marketing or advertising in it. They love your products, and have lots of brand loyalty, but hate to be be marketed to. An example I like to use is UC Davis Professor Jonathan Eisen’s response to what he calls ‘Stimulus Spam‘ which refers to emails sent by companies eager to help (and profit from) researchers applying for ARRA/stimulus funding. Now, I do think some of the resources that companies provided were useful to scientists, but you can see that they were viewed otherwise by some in the community. As such, social media programs must be handled with complete transparency, as you can imagine campaigns in which the identity of the sponsoring company is not immediately known is a recipe for disaster. I have no examples of life science companies who’ve made this mistake, but read about the 3M social media debacle to help understand why it is so important. Being 100% transparent also means that ties to your products will be much more easily made. A good example in the life sciences is the Accelrys blog, which is completely transparent in its intentions and has great links to their products.

Intuitive. During our study of social media applications for life scientists, we were curious as to why BiomedExperts had so many more users than Scilink, when in essence they have the same premise, in other words connecting scientists via their publications. We surmised that part of it may be that the BiomedExperts interface is much more easy to navigate, or intuitive. Scilink appears to be gone now, so comparisons can no longer be made. This intuitiveness quality speaks to the way we have all been accustomed to the increased functionality of websites. We gravitate towards what is easy, gives us what we want, and what we understand quickly. Related to these expectations, intuitiveness also means that users need to know what’s expected of them in a given interface. For example, users come to LinkedIn to network and find business, and Facebook to share information and socialize, so any activities you plan for either application should match with these expectations. The Invitrogen Everydaycloning Facebook page is a good example of an intuitive application, as the content is useful, light, and social, and encourages fans to engage.

Resonating. Develop a theme that resonates with life scientists; one they can relate to and participate easily in. There are myriad places for scientists to spend time online, and your website or application must resonate with them in order for them to remember it and return. Sigma’s Wherebiobegins campaign is a good example of a resonating theme. They’ve asked scientists “where did your BIO begin?”, and have gotten great engagement on Facebook and other applications from them in the form of videos and comments.

The four STIR Social Media system attributes work together to define social media campaigns and applications that both attract scientists and achieve a favorable ROI. I’m not brave enough to call out those that don’t meet all four requirements, but you can check out our list of life science companies using social media and judge for yourself.

Want to learn how to become a STIR Social Media expert so that you can develop winning campaigns for your company? Attend our ‘on demand’ Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshop 1 webinar, a three hour workshop which will explain these concepts in more detail, and give you worksheets which will help you to jump start social media at your company. Additionally, we’re offering a series of workshops, with the second being held in San Diego June 22nd. We’ll be offering it as an interactive webinar and on demand as well soon. Sign up for email updates so you’ll always be on top of the developments.

To share this post easily, cut and paste: Attracting Life Scientists and Maximizing ROI: Comprendia’s STIR Social Media System http://bit.ly/cQUchT

Our first Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshop went over well, with IRL (in real life) and virtual sessions full of marketing and business development professionals eager to learn how to attract scientists and improve their return on investment with social media. When polled anonymously, 100% of attendees indicated that they would suggest the workshop to colleagues, and we continue to incorporate your feedback to make the workshops even better. In the first workshop we covered Comprendia’s STIR Social Media™ system which defines the four qualities needed for a successful campaign: Sticky, Transparent, Intuitive, and Resonating.

We discussed in detail how social media is a natural extension of the activities life science companies have been engaged in for years, and that, as with all marketing, strategies must come before tactics. If you missed the IRL and virtual events, don’t despair, you can still order it on demand through the Comprendia website, and we highly suggest it before you attend the second workshop. The Workshop 1 webinar is roughly 3 hours long, and we’ll give you a ‘day pass’ in which you can watch it any time that day, and we’ll send you the printed presentation as a booklet beforehand.

Our second workshop will focus on first party social media, or applications and strategies which are integrated into company websites:

• Web 2.0
• Blogs
• Forums
• Wikis
• Content Generation

We’ll focus on the 4 B’s which will help you create successful first party applications and campaigns, which are the Basics, Benefits, Best Practices, and Biotech Examples. As in the first workshop, we’ll focus on the questions that really matter to you, including strategies that work with scientists, metrics, return on investment, and implementation. We know that seeing real examples helps you to think about applying the ideas your business, so we’ll spend plenty of time on this as well. We’ll have wifi so you can bring your computer, ask lots of questions, and head back to the office ready to get started. Sign up!

Who Should Attend: Business Development and Marketing professionals who provide products or services in a non-regulated environment and are interested in using social media to increase sales, leads, or visibility. Examples: companies who sell research-only products or services to scientists or small to mid-size biotechnology companies that need more visibility. Contact us if you have questions. Completion of Social Media and Life Science Workshop 1 is recommended but not required (details on ordering the Workshop 1 webinar will be given during registration).

As a Participant You Will Receive:

1. Printed workshop materials
2. A highly interactive presentation session from Mary Canady, customized to your needs and using real examples from life science and biotechnology
3. Worksheets designed to help you get social media launched at your company
4. Hands-on, online training and feedback from Comprendia during the session
5. Free follow-on session with Comprendia
1. Review of workshop ‘homework’
2. Guidance for next steps

This is our second in a series of Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshops. Sign up for updates to our blog and you’ll be the first to hear about our workshops and training. Contact us if you’re interested in having these workshops customized for your company.

Check out our Workshops and Training page to see when this workshop is offered next.