Values of Social Network for Scientists (by Comprendia)

“Here at Comprendia, we’ve never advocated that Facebook should be recreated for scientists, as there are 700,000+ life science graduates in the US already using the application,* and they are likely already connected there to lab mates and colleagues. Rather, we should broaden our idea of the ‘social network’ to include any online community of scientists, not just those which are similar to Facebook. The value of social networks for scientists lies in faster access to information relevant to their research and the communities that are made more available by new tools. Here are 6 successful examples which can be used to understand scientific social communities. (…)

1. Facebook Pages & LinkedIn Groups. Scientists have used mailing lists and forums for years. Facebook pages and LinkedIn groups are a ’2.0′ version of them with the benefits of centralization and easier access to participants. Life science companies, most notably Life Technologies, have fostered social networks in the form of Facebook pages centered on a topic.
2. Twitter Hashtags. Scientists use Twitter to share scientific blog posts and news, to find friends and colleagues around a topic or event, and sometimes to vent about their situation. Hashtags, which are text identifiers for status updates on a topic, allow a Twitter social network to form around it…
3. ScienceOnline
4. True Social Networks. (…) ResearchGate’s has 1.4 million users, as we know that scientists don’t have time for frivolous endeavors, especially when they’re under the watchful eye of their Principal Investigator. As we noted in our post a year ago, there has to be a value for them to participate, and the successful ones center around research publications. BiomedExperts, CiteULike, ResearchBlogging, andResearchGate had the highest traffic in our quick study, and they all rely heavily on publications. I like to say that PubMed was the first social network for scientists.
5. Publication Sharing/Open Access. Related to the last point is a subject that requires its own mention as it transverses from proper social networks to desktop applications, Twitter, and even a movement to make research publications more accessible.Mendeley is the rock star of the publication sharing/open access genre, boasting 1.77 million users who are sharing 169 million publications. When we speak with life scientists at conferences or client visits, we often hear about the application even from those who are not strong believers in social media. Additionally, these applications have whetted scientists’ appetites for more open access to publications
6. Blogs.  “blogs were one of the first forms of social media for scientists.”  Blog aggregators such as ResearchBlogging orScienceSeeker feature hundreds of blogs and likely a comparable number of communities focused around individual research topics.

(…)

At conferences and networking events today, we are seeing a transition, albeit slowly, to a new breed of scientists who understand the importance of scientific networks. We need to adjust our definition of scientific social networks to understand the next steps towards helping scientists use them to thrive.

What Is A Scientific Social Network? 6 Thriving and Inspiring Examples
Comprendia, March 12th, 2012

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Companies are neglecting Facebook

Surprising results of a recent study:

• Businesses are failing to get to grips with Facebook, according to research. Analysis of 1.7 million Facebook pages categorised across business, personal brands and interest groups, reveals that businesses have the lowest engagement rates and are ‘less social overall’. 
• Businesses are failing to optimize fan engagement and interactions due to a lack of basic education of platform familiarity and fan/page analytics
• 82% of Facebook pages have fewer than five posts a month, local business pages have the fewest; local business do not participate in 94% of conversations on their page and 91% of conversations on company pages are left unattended

According: IWR news desk, Information World Review 12/03/2012.
http://www.iwr.co.uk/social-media/3011248/Business-failing-the-Facebook-test

US Inc. 500: less blogging, more Facebooking

To read in Information Today Europe:

For the last five years the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s Center for Marketing Research has been conducting a study about the use of social media in the 500 fastest growing organisations in the US (The Inc. 500.)  The first study, conducted in 2007, found that these companies were much more likely to have adopted blogs than those in the ‘traditional’ Fortune 500.

The latest findings show that the use of blogging in the Inc. 500 companies is declining for the first time. Blogging had declined to 37% from 50% in 2010. (…)

However, as blogging reaches maturity in these organisations, the use of other social media, including Facebook, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Mobile apps, texting, Twitter and YouTube, is growing.  74% of responding companies were using Facebook, and 73% using LinkedIn. (…)

Read further:

Val Skelton, A blog post about the decline of blogging. Information Today Europe Blog, 2nd of February 2012.

http://www.infotodayeurope.com/2012/02/02/a-blog-post-about-the-decline-of-blogging/

 

 

 

European patients don’t want Big Pharma on Facebook

PharmaLive reports interesting findings from a recent study:

“Despite heavy restrictions on DTC advertising in Europe, nearly two in five online Europeans would like to be able to learn more about prescription drugs directly from a pharmaceutical company, according to the new Cybercitizen Health^® Europe study from pharmaceutical and healthcare market research company Manhattan Research. (…)

Online consumers show much higher demand for practical online resources from pharmaceutical companies, such as disease and treatment information and condition management tools, than for online contests and games. (…)

Among consumers who are already using or interested in online information and tools from pharmaceutical companies, only 13 percent want to access this content on Facebook and 5 percent on Twitter. In contrast, 43 percent of this audience would like to obtain pharma resources from websites about conditions and diseases.

New Study Finds European Consumers Show Considerable Interest in Learning from Pharma Companies – But Not on Facebook or Twitter. PharmaLive, Posted on 12th of December 2011.
http://pharmalive.com/news/index.cfm?articleid=816624&categoryid=43

eDTCA 2.0 for big pharma in the US

Study about DTCA practices by the 10 largest Pharma:

Pharmaceutical direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) is legal only in the United States and New-Zealand(…)

It is linked with inappropriate medication use, over utilization, and increased spending on expensive branded drugs, and it may endanger public health due to promotion of potentially dangerous products. (…)

With the Internet’s rapid development, users have migrated from passive information sources, using read-only “Web 1.0” technology, to interactive, dynamic, and custom-built relationships, using “Web 2.0” technologies.

Along with this digital revolution, new potential DTCA marketing opportunities haven recently emerged that include Web 2.0 social networking sites and other interactive systems (“eDTCA 2.0”), which cross geopolitical borders.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not issued guidelines on eDTCA 2.0 marketing, nor have regulators recognized eDTCA 2.0 and its potential global spillover.

Presence is strong:

– 100% are on Facebook, have blogs and provide RSS feeds

– 80% have dedicated YouTube channels and are developing mobile applications

The point is that social media are also used by illicit drug sellers to promote online sales…

 

Liang, B.A. & Mackey, T.K. Prevalence and global health implications of social media in direct-to-consumer drug advertising. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 2011, Vol. 13, N°3, pp. e64

http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/jmir.1775

Pharma and SM: one minute it’s on,…

… the next it’s off.

“Old familiar worries” are “about adverse event and off-label discussions compounded by the delay of FDA guidelines”.

“companies that abandon Facebook will miss out on a “powerful community that is already woven into billions of lives whose voices want and need to be heard“.

Business cases:

• Sanofi’s VOICES Facebook page
• Bayer’s tweets mistakes
• Roche SM guideline
• J&J Children with diabetes community
• AstraZeneca Twitter discussion

Read more on:

Houston, Peter. Pharma and social media: time to become better friends. Pharmaceutical Executive, Digital edition, September 2011. pp.68-72
http://digital.findpharma.com/nxtbooks/advanstar/pe_201109/#/72

Facebook closed wall: several Pharma to close down their pages

Pharmaceutical companies have lost the right to block public comments on their company page walls.  The privilege was previously granted exclusively to pharmaceutical companies who had been slow to set up company pages on the social media site.  

Several companies (AstraZeneca, J&J, etc.) have already closed down pages, expressing concern about the extra resources that will be required to monitor activity.

Sources:
http://www.infotoday.eu/Articles/News/Featured-News/Facebook-revokes-pharma-‘closed-wall’-privileges-77151.aspx 
http://www.dailytech.com/Facebook+Revokes+Drug+Companies+Use+of+Closed+Page+Walls/article22447.htm