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.

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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.

You’ve put together your overall life science social media strategy (if not, see Workshop 1 and our other social media training) and it includes third party applications such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube. How do you use these applications to reach out to your customers effectively? The applications are all different, requiring individual strategies, tactics, and methods for determining metrics. Join us August 31st in San Diego or via the web to learn the ‘Rule of 3′s’ for third party social media, and you’ll start reaching out to your customers like never before (almost like a 3D movie, you could say).

In this four hour interactive workshop, offered in San Diego and via webinar, you will learn everything you need to know to implement campaigns on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube, including:

• Strategies
  • What strategies and themes work with life scientists?
  • Which third party social media applications are my customers using, and how do I target them there?
  • How do I fulfill corporate goals and provide value at the same time?
• Tactics
  • How can I get the most out of my time spent on 3rd party social media?
  • What are the best tips and tools for each application?
  • Where can I find the content I need?
  • How do I get direct leads from 3rd party applications?
  • How can I quickly understand the etiquette for each application?
• Metrics & ROI
  • How do I measure success using external and internal metrics?
  • My management still doesn’t understand the value of third party social media applications–how can I convince them?

As always, we’ll give you plenty of examples specific to life science to help you see things in context. 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 workshop is now available as an on demand webinar lasting 3.5 hours, see the workshops and training page for more details. Printed materials will be mailed to you, so there may be up to a one week waiting period. Register here and contact us with any questions.

Lately I’ve been disturbed, and frankly quite irritated, by a trend in which more individuals, either acting on their own or on behalf of their company, frequently send personal email blasts with no easy way to opt out. These individuals are likely empowered by new tools such as LinkedIn and customer relationship management (CRM) software, which make it easy to send emails to a large set of contacts. However, this practice can be damaging to you and your company, and I’d like to point out the reasons you should think twice before sending personal email blasts.

Violation of your company’s privacy policy. Having been in the marketing departments of large companies, I appreciate that privacy is a serious issue. I heard a story reminiscent of the “Hatfield and McCoys” family feud where someone harassed a neighbor by signing them up online to be mailed hundreds of catalogs. Because it is now so easy to find and abuse personal contact information, the federal government has realized the need for stronger online privacy regulations, you can learn more at the Better Business Bureau Online’s website. In California, every website which collects personal information requires a privacy policy, and if you are using LinkedIn or your CRM to send mass emails, you may be violating your company’s regulations.

Making your contacts’ day harder. There are myriad strategies which help people to clear out their email inbox to help them be more productive. By sending your contacts unwanted emails which they can’t opt out of, you are making their life harder. They need to decide whether to mark you as a spammer, risking missing important emails you send, or determine how to politely decline the emails. Your contacts are one of your most valuable asset, and the absolute last thing you want to is be seen as making their day harder.

You may be crying wolf. I will admit it…I have encountered the decision of either telling one of my contacts to stop sending me unsolicited emails a few times a week…or to mark the person as spam…and I did the latter. I may be missing emails from that person now, which is too bad, but they have my contact information and will call if it is important. Don’t put yourself in this situation, of having people ignoring or tagging your emails as spam because you are sending too many that are unrelated. As we talk about in our social media training and workshops, in this new media age it’s ‘not all about you’ and constantly sending mass, self-serving emails will brand you as someone who has little to offer. It may be more efficacious to build a big network or following and use more ‘soft sell’ methods like status updates to promote yourself.

It’s easy to do it right. It is very easy to send emails including an easy ‘opt out’ using your CRM or email communication applications such as constant contact or mailchimp. We send most of our notifications to our contacts through our email application, always with the option to opt out. I will have to admit that LinkedIn makes it really convenient for us to send email announcements at times, but we don’t feel as though we abuse it. However, who knows, maybe some people are irritated with us (if so, leave a comment below ;). We should migrate LinkedIn contacts to an opt out version of communication (or hopefully LinkedIn and our email application will talk to each other someday soon).

Bottom line? Don’t assume everyone on your contact list wants to hear from you often and indefinitely. Sending large scale personal emails on behalf of your company can negatively affect you both. What’s really dangerous about it is that if you damage your reputation, even on behalf of your company, it will follow you even after you’ve moved on.

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We hear from life science marketers that they ‘don’t have time’ for social media. We think that for many reasons, they should ‘make’ time, as the benefits are far reaching, from reinforcing your brand to getting input on product development. However, we are realistic and know that integrating these habits into your routine will take time, so we’ve created this list that will help you to leverage life science social media by spending just ten minutes a day.

Set up custom RSS feeds. We’ve talked about the power of RSS feeds to deliver customized content from all over the internet, from research publications to company websites to blogs. Set up RSS feeds and use the information to tweet or blog about, as well as to stay on top of what is going on in your industry and with your customers. You can browse this content from an RSS reader or set up customized emails. Need help? We can set up a customized feed and daily emails for you quickly and affordably, check out this example of a drug discovery blogs RSS we set up. We’ll set it up for you, adjust it if necessary, and give you all the information you need to adjust it in the future as needed. As we’ll cover in our July 28th Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshop 2, great content is the cornerstone of a winning social media strategy.

Repurpose. Different social media applications have different functions and audiences, so there is no harm in sharing a link on, for example, both Twitter and Facebook. In our workshops, we’ve also talked about ‘recycling’ content from your website or blog. Resources, news, and user-generated content such as FAQs can be used. Of course, don’t be too redundant, and don’t consider that posting information about product discounts, etc. is necessarily interesting to your audience all the time.

Automate. Related to repurposing is the fact that you can use tools and tricks to automatically post status updates to more than one application, which is handy. For example, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook all ‘play nicely’ with each other, and you can set them up so that you can post an update on one and feed it to the other applications. In addition, you can use great tools like HootSuite to post to multiple accounts and also schedule updates for later. We do think that there is a lot of value in logging in and browsing your network or followers updates, but to begin with, you can do this weekly instead of daily to save time (see next item).

Use calendar reminders. Some aspects of social media require maintenance, such as growing your Twitter followers or your LinkedIn network. These things can’t be done all at once, so we suggest setting weekly calendar reminders for tasks such as connecting with new people you’ve met on LinkedIn or using Twitter searches to find new life scientists to follow. If you work at a larger company, you may need to aggregate all of your activity using RSS feeds, Friendfeed, or Hubspot, and depending on the size of your company, you’ll want to review these daily or weekly. Also, reviewing metrics such as engagements or return on investment (ROI) is important as well, and is likely best done weekly or monthly. If you want more information about the strategies behind these tactics, check out our workshops and training.

Use the force. One of the great things about social media is that you can find great people to follow, share content from, and emulate. Once you find a few ‘Jedi masters’ you can save time because they will serve as ‘channels’ of information for you to learn from and share. We hope that you’ll consider this blog as a channel of information for life science and biotech marketing and subscribe to updates.

The workflow we suggest follows the order of this list. Start with good content, and the rest should naturally flow, to the last item in which you’ll hopefully be engaging with the thought leaders in your area. We hope that you’ll find so much value in these ten minutes that you’ll branch out more and spend more time leveraging social media. What techniques have worked for you to get the most out of the time you spend using social media? We’d love to hear, please leave a comment below.

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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.

How can life science and biotechnology companies leverage social media to increase visibility, generate more leads, and ultimately improve sales or the value of the company? Comprendia is the recognized leader in understanding how to develop and implement social media strategies tailored to life science and biotechnology companies. Check out our Biotechnology Marketing 101 Blog for more details. There are myriad online social media resources and agencies, but this workshop is the only resource that will provide you with strategies backed by real examples and designed to help you launch campaigns that will work with your life science customers.

In this 4 hour hands-on workshop we’ll answer these questions, giving real examples and materials to help you jump start social media campaigns for your company:

• Which applications and themes work with scientists or biotech professionals?
• How do I integrate social media with existing marketing strategies and tactics?
• What is the return on investment (ROI) for social media, and how do I maximize it?
• How do I get buy-in from the management and motivate my team to participate?

We’ll have wifi so you can bring your computer, ask lots of questions, and head back to the office ready to get started.

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.

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 first in a series of quarterly Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshops. Sign up for updates to our blog and you’ll be the first to hear. We’re also considering ‘virtual’ workshops or roadshows–let us know if you’re interested.

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

To share this post easily, cut and paste: Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshop, Part 1: Get Started With Industry-Specific Strategies and Tools http://comprendia.com/smworkshop1

At least four times this week I’ve been asked by someone for help and I’ve politely declined. It’s true that I have a large network and knowledge that comes from years of experience in the industry, and do help people quite a bit. However, I see many people who don’t realize how much they can achieve on their own these days, and think that in some cases it’s better in the long run to show them how and why they should take more initiative. Here’s a short list of the benefits of ‘helping yourself,’ with examples of the many ways we are all more empowered now.

Notoriety. Often people ask ‘can you post this news on your LinkedIn group,’ not realizing that they can post it themselves. What’s the benefit for them to post it? If the news is interesting and relevant to the group, they’ll get some ‘good karma’ from group members for pointing out something useful, and expand their reach. Regardless of your motives, being more well known is a benefit (with the exception of those in the witness protecion program ;).

Opportunity. Together with Notoriety, much opportunity comes when you help yourself. Take the example of posting items to LinkedIn groups–let’s say you post an article about stem cells. You’re automatically letting people know that you’re interested in stem cells. Perhaps someone in the field will look at your profile and offer to connect. The possibilities for receiving highly relevant opportunities are endless when you help yourself in this way.

Knowledge. I am often asked to meet people who want me to tell them what I know about San Diego Biotech. Yes, I do ‘get around’ and may have knowledge, some anecdotal, that others don’t, but I am a function of what I read and do. We set up the San Diego Biotechnology Network website with news and information that helps anyone come up to speed quickly. In fact, I know of three reports that just came out over the past few weeks about California Biotech. Other resources are Xconomy, RSS feeds, Twitter… You may say that you don’t understand these new tools, I would argue that they will become as important as radio, TV, and the internet, so buck up and learn them ;) Today, you really have the opportunity to become an expert in a wide variety of fields, for free.

Control. Sometimes people want to post irrelevant items to the LinkedIn groups I manage. Because they are irrelevant, members get irritated and feel as though they’re being spammed, and I have to delete the posting and potentially remove the member. When this happens, I tell the person that it is much more effective to start their own interest group, something we covered more generally earlier. By starting a group, rather than always trying to find one that fits, you have much more control. The topic needs to be chosen carefully, but we all have valuable offerings for others. (Note: this may seem to conflict with what I said in the ‘Opportunity’ section–however, I always tell people if they question whether a posting is appropriate, they can always ask me.)

Almost on cue, Amy Winehouse’s ‘Help Yourself‘ started playing in the background as I wrote this post…corroborating an earlier post. I hope that these examples inspire you to think about more ways you can help yourself and ultimately achieve more of your goals. Also, if I tell you to ‘help yourself,’ that you’ll understand why.

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I’m realizing that almost every one of my post starts with ‘you may know that I’m a fan of’ and this is no exception. This post is about LinkedIn, which I absolutely love. I’ve built a great network and created groups, I keep in touch with colleagues and let them know what I’m up to. The result is that this ‘soft sell’ keeps me on peoples’ minds, so that when they need my services, hopefully Comprendia comes to mind. I started to think about how my clients could benefit if they started encouraging their marketing, business development, or even R&D team members to ‘work’ LinkedIn as much as I do. Most of your customers are likely on LinkedIn, why not encourage your team to engage them there? Think about the potential for spreading the word and getting leads if everyone in your team participated. Here are some tips to guide and motivate your group.

1. Understand the ABC’s

There are many great resources to help you understand LinkedIn–see this overview, this video, and this blog that provides excellent LinkedIn advice. One of the most important things to understand, which we’ll cover in the last point, is that your team should always be cognizant of the etiquette on LinkedIn. A little common sense/golden rule goes a long way: don’t do things to others that you would find irritating. In general, the mantra is ‘it’s not all about you.’ Realize that LinkedIn, like other social media, is more about engaging people rather than broadcasting to them.

2. Build a Great Network

Everything starts with building a network. The more people you are connected to, the larger reach you’ll have. It may seem like you’re asking your team to do this with an ‘ulterior motive,’ but it’s very likely that the people they’ll be linking with will help them with their career growth in the future. Ask them to look for colleagues, ex-coworkers, friends, and to look in through their connections’ connections to find people they may not have thought of.

3. Join Groups

Joining groups has many benefits. Firstly, you’ll be able to contact anyone in the group directly. Also, you can post news to the group, and learn what is going on in the area. Here is a list of good groups to join in Biotech/Life Sciences.

Group	No. of Members
American Chemical Society	5,400
BIO International Convention	6,400
Biotech & Pharma Professionals Network	73,000
Life Science Opportunities in US	19,300
The Life Science Executive Exchange	8,400




4. Start a Group

This is an excellent way to build a community that ‘cares’ about your company and your industry. I’ve had success with the Biotech Marketing Group and the San Diego Biotechnology Network, and I am continually amazed with the quality of professionals that join the groups. It’s also an easy way to get into social media without having to make immediate changes to your website. Consider creating a group that is not expressly focused on your company. For example, if your team sells protein purification columns, create a protein purification group, and share news, events and tips pertinent to that area.

5. Interact

Encourage your team to look for ways to interact with others on LinkedIn. It could be looking through the questions and answers, commenting on group discussions, or connecting with colleagues or clients to see what they’re up to. For example, people often update their profile when changing positions, a time where they’re often looking for new providers–why not send a note to congratulate them? You’ll find that besides spreading the word, that your team will be more ‘in touch’ with what is going on in your industry.

6. Use Status Updates

A good way to keep your clients abreast of your companies’ news is to encourage your team to regularly update their status on LinkedIn. For example, they can post company news or blog posts, and even give updates on what they are doing. Of course, you need to make sure that your team is adhering to the company’s policies. Often, this is uncharted territory, but why not get the ball rolling so that the whole company can take part?

7. Find Leads

Recently I was talking to an account manager at a large life sciences company who told me that he ‘uses LinkedIn more than the company’s CRM.’ Wow. Google searches will likely give you ways to find leads on LinkedIn such as this one. The advanced search allows you to search by location, keywords, and specific groups that you’re a member of. Building a good network and joining groups increases your teams’ chances of finding good leads, as you won’t be able to find or contact people outside of your network and groups.

8. Be a Good Citizen

While you want your team to leverage LinkedIn, the absolute worst thing they can do is to give your company a bad name by not understanding protocol. Check out our post on social media etiquette for more information. In general, emphasize to your group that LinkedIn is a powerful tool which should be used but not abused to interact with your customers. Unwanted attention or posts are still unwanted, even if they come from LinkedIn, and damaging your reputation can be disastrous.




I stretched the truth a little bit when I said using LinkedIn is free–of course your employees will need to spend some time with it. I think that after they’ve spent a few hours learning about LinkedIn, and get the hang of it, that it should take no more than 30 minutes a day, depending on your goals. I suggest you have a few meetings, including some brainstorming time, and set some goals and structure for your team to leverage LinkedIn to improve your bottom line.

Want to get jump started? Contact us for a free consultation, and we can do an ‘audit’ of your company’s LinkedIn presence, make suggestions for improvement, and provide training. You can also sign up for email updates or check out our Biotechnology Marketing 101 blog often. Feel free to link with me on LinkedIn, as well, where you’ll find that I practice what I preach ;)

Yes, I am a networking and social media zealot. You name it, I’m doing it, or it’s on my list of things to do. I estimate that through LinkedIn, Twitter, and the SDBN, my personal social media reach is around 5,000, meaning that I can apprise that many biotechnology professionals of a relevant message quickly. While this network is very valuable to me, and the number is obviously significant, we all need to keep in mind that our networks are made of real people that we should connect with, not items that we should simply collect, assigning too much significance to the numbers.

Your network is made of people who are likely doing interesting things every day, why not connect with them as often as possible? You never know when a new opportunity will result for both of you. In addition, you’ll stay on top of what is happening in your industry, which benefits you in many ways. While it’s true that your knowledge will be directly proportional to the size of your network, the quality of your contacts should be foremost. Building a relevant, quality network will help you to stay connected, as you’ll find that you have more common interests and opportunities for growth.

How do you build a quality network? There are shortcuts, which I discussed in an earlier post, which may result in a large network, but it will likely not be of high quality. Always be on the lookout for those with common interests and interesting things to say. In addition, consistently provide value to your network, and you’ll attract and keep even people you don’t know well in your extended network. Examples? Post interesting, non self-serving news to LinkedIn. Help out someone who needs an introduction to someone else in your network. In short, pay it forward, as we talked about in our Social Media for Scientists presentation to the SDBN.

As an analogy, view your network as butterfly garden rather than a butterfly collection. Treat your network as a garden in which you must attract people, keep them engaged, and enjoy, not as a box of pinned, lifeless items which you pull out and admire. Connect, don’t just collect!

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, you’ll find that the ‘good karma’ you’ll get from connecting will pay you back for your time. Do whatever you have time for–even if it’s just sending a few emails a week. You’ll find that spending time in your ‘garden’ will be beneficial in many ways.

Need help with social media and networking? Check out our Biotechnology Marketing 101 blog series and/or contact Comprendia, we can help you with coaching and strategies that will help you to maximize your efforts and reach your personal or business goals.