Yes, in fact, we are obsessed with Twitter hashtags, terms that are added to status updates surrounding a topic, event, or chat. They give insights into the discussions and trends by anyone on Twitter who wants to join in, and allow us to discover new people and ideas. We track all the life science hashtags we’ve found, with a bent towards the research tools area (e.g., non-FDA regulated products). We’ve analyzed the utilization of all hashtags in our compilation and have identified the top 10 in 2011 based on the number of Twitter status updates tagged with them. We’re also enamored with word clouds and have displayed them in a clickable image below linked to a Twitter search of the term, the largest words indicating the top hashtags in 2011 (note Twitter searches go back only 8 days, some links may give no results).
We’ve listed the top ten in the table below. Note that this list is by no means perfect, we’ve tried our best to find all the life science hashtags, but may have missed a few, be sure to comment below if you’d like us to track others. Additionally, some topics may extend outside of life science, such as #phdchat. The top ten indicate the versatility of hashtags to discuss topics, events, or to have a targeted chat. It is interesting also to note the prevalence of open access themes, and the influence of the ‘BlogFather‘ Bora Zivkovic who is heavily involved with three of the top 10: #openaccess, #scio12, and #sciamblogs. It shows how digital influencers can impact the landscape of an ecosystem. Two ‘traditional’ conferences made the list, #sfn11 and #bio2011. There are no life science company hashtags in the list, which is of course a big opportunity. A Twitter user recently started a meme with the hashtag #chemistrythemovie, generating 800 Tweets in a few days, something that should make life science companies drool.
| Hashtag | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| #phdchat | chat | Weekly discussion/forum between aspiring and current PhD/doctoral researchers and supervisors. |
| #biotech | topic | Biotechnology |
| #scio12 | event | ScienceOnline 2012 |
| #sciamblogs | topic | Scientific American Blogs |
| #openaccess | topic | Open access for scholarly publications |
| #biochat | chat | Biofuels focused chat |
| #singularityu | topic/event | Singularity University |
| #stemcell | topic | Stem cells |
| #sfn11 | event | Society for Neuroscience 2011 Meeting |
| #bio2011 | topic | Biotechnology Industry Organization 2011 Conference |
Outside of hashtags, life science terms can also be tracked to pick up trends and find influencers, let us know if we can help you with a Social Media Compass analysis.