Quote: “Blogging is existing, tweeting is connecting”

Interesting findings given by several French students, about the power of blogging for young scientists:

“

• The transmission of knowledge is a difficult task. You need to multiply the initiatives, and that’s where the blog plays an important role
• PhD candidates have little free time, but it is probably the period in their careers when they have the most time to spend “informing the public
• blogging is about sharing findings, sharing your work, and creating a digital e-reputation
• Blogging also means improving one’s writing skills, editing speed, and scientific analysis, which are all valuable abilities when it comes to writing your thesis
• If you write and publish online, make it so that you’ll be read. Post your articles on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. E-mail your texts to people likely to read them.

Read the full article from:

Science Blogs and Your PhD. A trump card for your scientific career; Available from: http://www.knowtex.com/nav/science-blogs-and-your-phd-a-trump-card-for-your-scientific-career_40002

Science article: post it on Twitter to be downloaded and cited!

A recent study has shown a “strong tie between social media interest, article downloads, and even early citations. (…)

Authors  ”also find that volume of Twitter mention is statistically correlated with that of both downloads and “early” citations“

Shuai X, Pepe A, Bollen J (2012) How the Scientific Community Reacts to Newly Submitted Preprints: Article Downloads, Twitter Mentions, and Citations. PLoS ONE 7(11): e47523

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0047523

 

Young scientists: social media to boots your career

New channels for your science communication :

These nice advises are especially addressed to young scientists
Social media for your career: http://www.biggerbrains.com/dissemination

Personal branding: your own website http://www.biggerbrains.com/creating-a-simple-and-effective-academic-personal-website

Blogs and Twitter: http://www.biggerbrains.com/the-value-and-how-tos-of-blogging-and-microblogging-for-disseminating-your-research

How to “google” your article? http://www.biggerbrains.com/optimize-your-article-for-SEO

Credibility of doctors messages on Twitter: a study

An interesting study on Health professionals reputation is published by Medical News Today this week:

Some findings:

• People are more likely to trust health messages tweeted by doctors who have a lot of followers, but not the messages they retweet
• People may perceive tweets and retweets differently depending on the source of the content
• In the social media universe, the number of followers that a layperson has seems to translate into trustworthiness

 

Read more on:

Study Of The Credibility Of Health Messages On Twitter, Medical News Today, 28th of September 2012. Available from:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/250768.php

 

Science communication : twitter and blogs have still to achieve critical goals

The actual user numbers seem a bit disillusioning: social media like blogs or wikis are still only used by relatively few academics (particularly in Germany and some other European countries).

Yet they offer enormous potential for those that give them a try. The Conference on Science and the Internet (#cosci12, http://www.nfgwin.uni-duesseldorf.de/de/cosci12) had a closer look at these developments from different perspectives. (…)

• novel online platforms as infrastructure for research collaboration, new ways for publishing and sharing information
• new learning environments based on social media and mobile technologies
• big data from social media as a subject of research

Read the full article at:

Weller, Katrin. Will Twitter, blogs and wikis change scholarly communication? Information Today Europe, 15th of August 2012. Available from:
http://www.infotoday.eu/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=84361&PageNum=1

 

 

 

 

74% of Pharma companies have adopted Social Media…

.. but could do it better… According a study by Cognizant.

“For the pharmaceutical industry, social media can bridge the gap between companies and drug end users. As a direct consequence, approximately 74% of pharmaceutical companies have adopted social media platforms (… ). However, social media is only one key component in a communication strategy, and not a complete replacement. The level of adoption and maturity in implementation of social media is relatively low and inadequate in the pharmaceutical industry because of various factors. In particular, the regulatory environment in which the industry operates is a challenge. (…)

The article mentions different innovative ways to use this new channel.

• Boehringer Ingelheim: The company’s Twitter feed is filled with articles and retweets about more than just prescription drugs with some high profile celebrity tweeters, such as Lance Armstrong and Stephen Fry. The content ranges from studies, articles, blogs and video interviews on YouTube promoted in twitter
• Johnson and Johnson has created an active social presence that utilises a blog focused on stories of employees, wellness information, and corporate content. The blog contains robust content and is supplemented with YouTube and Facebook pages on corporate social responsibility initiatives and its involvement in social causes

Read the full story at:

Bhaskar Sambasivan. Is Pharma Getting the Best out of Social Media? Pharmaceutical technology Europe, 1 June 2012. Available from: http://www.pharmtech.com/pharmtech/IT/Is-Pharma-Getting-the-Best-out-of-Social-Media/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/775154 [Accessed 13 June 2012]

The complete study at:

http://www.cognizant.com/InsightsWhitepapers/Adaptive-Social-Media-in-Life-Sciences.pdf

Twitter for Big Pharma: best practices

Source:

McCasland, Carla. Best Practices for Twitter for Healthcare and Pharma Professionals. May 2012, Presentation, available from: http://www.slideshare.net/carlamcasland/best-practicesfortwitterfinal [Accessed 25 May 2012]

Pharma jobs on Twitter (EyeonFDA)

Posts by Mark Senak are too rare: this one again is excellent…

“A highly regulated industry like the medical products industry is often perceived as highly inhibited when it comes to social media. While it is true that such industries have to take care in their use of all communications in general, and social media in particular, there is nevertheless an increasing use of these platforms by the pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device sectors – collectively herein referred to as “pharma”. (…)

Pharma has put Twitter to use on many fronts.  One is jobs and recruitment, both within the U.S. and outside of the U.S.  There are now at least 21 pharma-sponsored Twitter feeds set up, some with more activity than others.”

Read the full post at:

Senak, Mark. Pharma jobs on Twitter. EyeonFDA, May 22, 2012. Availale from: http://www.eyeonfda.com/eye_on_fda/2012/05/pharma-jobs-on-twitter.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eyeonfda%2FlpWT+%28Eye+on+FDA%29

[accessed 23 May 2012]

 

RSS Versus Twitter Versus Blogs!

Below a digest of some discussions reported in 2 blogs:

• May 2009, Rest in peace RSS: It’s time to get completely off RSS and switch to Twitter. RSS just doesn’t cut it anymore. (…) Suddenly everyone and their dog was convinced RSS was dead and we should all move on.
• In early 2011 RSS still wasn’t quite dead. (…) To me, anytime someone says a tech is dead it usually means that tech is not very interesting to discuss anymore, or isn’t seeing the most innovative companies doing new things with it.
• April 2012 – RSS still wasn’t quite dead (…) There’s a veritable explosion of companies removing RSS from their products … for whatever reason. Usually because it doesn’t directly benefit the bottom line – they prefer proprietary formats
• RSS will never die because of a simple reality: power users. (…) RSS is here to stay for at least a while longer – all those people doing most of the sharing? A lot of their stuff comes from RSS.
• Twitter is not a replacement for RSS. Not by a long shot. It’s too busy! (…) Consequently, RSS offers bigger exposure to your content.
• Twitter seems to be the place to have conversations now rather then on blogs. That’s not to say blogs don’t have a place in both finding information and having discussions, but it would appear they’re being used for more reflective posts, which individuals can comment on, rather then short conversations involving lots of individuals

 

Teller, Swizec. RSS will never die. Zemanta Tech blog, April 26, 2012. Available from: http://www.zemanta.com/fruitblog/rss-will-never-die/ [Accessed 4th of May 2012]

Mulla, James. The role of RSS and RSS readers. FUMSI, 30th of April 2012. Available from: http://web.fumsi.com/go/article/manage/68689 [Accessed 4th of May 2012]

Big Pharma: Social Media and camouflaged marketing

An excellent study about how pharma companies use of the internet through direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertisements on the internet and internet based “social media”. To identify examples of fraudulent DTC marketing they used 4 major sources of information: scientific literature, gray literature, PubMed and the FDA website.

Some findings:

• FaceBook: Pharmaceutical companies use this interface to promote drug sales. In July of 2010, the FDA issued a warning letter to Novartis for its Facebook advertising. Many companies removed their Facebook pages after August 2011, despite the fact that companies can delete these comments as soon as they are posted they were concerned that “open walls” would lead to the reporting of side effects, promotion of off-label use or inappropriate statements
• Youtube:  A number of pharmaceutical companies have established YouTube channels for marketing purposes, including Abbott, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Boehringer-Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Lilly, Novartis, Pfizer, Sanofi Pasteur… while the issues of advertising ethics and adherence to existing DTC advertisement standards are raised by these promotional outlets, of even greater concern are the unbranded (or covertly branded) YouTube channels that a number of pharmaceutical companies have introduced.
• Twitter: Novo Nordisk uses the branded Tweet technic that does not mention drug benefits to maintain its status as a reminder advertisement. Web reminder ads do not have to provide any information on side effects.
• Third-party endorsements: People are more likely to believe third party endorsements than identified corporate product advertising. To capitalize on this phenomenon companies have funded patient advocacy groups, disease specific expert panels and physician organizations to promote their drugs. Companies have transferred this clandestine marketing technique to the internet which is particularly well suited to support this subterfuge. Pharmaceutical companies have created websites for front organizations (labeled “Astroturf” sites – for fake grassroots) to promote their drugs. These pharmaceutical company-created websites appear to be unbiased sources of information.

Conclusion: “ Web 2.0 DTC is merely a subset of pharmaceutical marketing; however, as we have shown, it is more likely to be camouflaged, permits companies to directly gather data on patients, and changes rapidly. Internet DTC is difficult to monitor. (…) The majority of the public does not understand the possible side effects and ultimate purpose of DTC advertising; many believe that the mere presence of DTC advertising indicates that a drug is “perfectly safe.”

“FDA has repeatedly cited pharmaceutical companies for illegal Web 2.0 marketing. Pharmaceutical companies have repeatedly called on the FDA to regulate web based marketing but the FDA has refused to issue any regulations. Thus Web 2.0 marketing remains an unregulated threat to public health and the general economy that must be addressed“.

Egilman, David & Druar, Nicholas M. 2012. Spin your science into gold: direct to consumer marketing within social media platforms. Work, Vol. 41, pp. 4494-4502. DOI: 10.3233/WOR-2012-0751-4494