Mary Canady's April 26 2014 presentation to the American Association of Anatomists Annual Meeting at Experimental Biology 2014. Video can be found at http://youtu.be/INOwJw7Rxjs and presentation at http://comprendia.com/xbio

1. Importance of Scientific
Social Networks
American Association of Anatomists Annual Meeting
Experimental Biology 2014
April 26, 2014
Mary Canady
Comprendia LLC
comprendia.com/xbio

2. © Comprendia, LLC All rights reserved.22
Who Am I?
•Then
–Trained as a biochemist
–Always gravitated to online tools & pretty
pictures
–Loved bench work and organizing events
•Now
–Comprendia/San Diego Biotechnology
Network
•Network of 20,000
•Marketing, events, writing, speaking
•Results
–People find me easily for business (and
speaking!)
–I have found my niche and am happy

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Charles Darwin’s Social Network
Preliminary draft of figure, all data from the Darwin
Correspondence Project. See interactive version at
comprendia.com/xbio

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2012 ScienceOnline Twitter Conversations
Visit scienceonline.com or follow #sciox
on Twitter

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Your Personal
• Strategy
– What’s your personal brand?
•‘Research’ your interests, goals
– How does your current work translate to
the job market?
– What gets you up in the morning?
• Tactics
– Follow news, publications in your area
•Use RSS, Twitter, Google Alerts
– Share information, build reputation
– Network, network, network

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David Shiffman
@whysharksmatter Danielle Lee
@dnlee5

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Don’t Forget, Etiquette
• It’s not all about you
– Provide resources first, promote yourself second
• Consider audience, reach and goals when
communicating
– Public? Scientists?
– What are my institution’s policies?
– “Test the waters” by watching and asking first
• Use “in real life” values when communicating
– Don’t rush to judgment or make rash statements
– The internet is forever
• Consider pseudonymity fully before deciding

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Statistics from Bioinformatics, LLC
• October 2013 “Digital Marketing to Life Scientists:
Social Media and Email Best Practices” Report
• 35% of life scientists use social media constantly or
frequently for their work
• Life scientists spend on average about two hours per
day engaged in social media for both personal and
professional use.
• LinkedIn and Facebook are the top social media
applications for life scientists
• Life scientists use social media to
• further their professional activities
• network with colleagues
• make contacts
• maintain their professional identities

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What Online Tools Should
I Use?
Application Description Good for How To Use
LinkedIn Professional
networking
•Personal brand
•Job hunting
•Leads
•Complete profile
•Join/start groups
•Engage
Twitter Sharing
information with
short updates
•Personal brand
•Connecting via
content
•Events
•Find a niche
•Follow
hashtags/users
Blog Dynamic website
with daily-weekly
articles
•Personal brand
•Connecting with
peers
•Create blog
according To brand
•Find others, interact
via comments/Twitter
Google+ Social networking
“back layer”
•Sharing information
•Increasing search
engine visibility
•Hangouts
•Add colleagues to
circles
•Join communities
•Use Hashtags
Recent presentation Academics Presence Online

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#Anatomy14 Tweets: Before, During, & After*!
*Add #xbio for added visibility & to meet other
disciplines!

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Basics
• Overview
– Provide 140 character updates, AKA
‘microblogging’
– @[user] to send a public message (reply)
– D [user] to send private message (DM)
– #[text] is a ‘hashtag’ to follow events,
subjects, or chats
• Follow based on content, don’t need to
know
– Hint: this is huge for meeting people
• Provide information based on your brand
• Should be a conversation if you’re doing it
right!

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Tactics
• Fill out profile completely and carefully
• Get followers
– Target: 1,000
– To be followed, you must follow
•Search Twitter, Social Mention for terms (e.g.,
‘virtual anatomy’)
•Conference hashtags (#anatomy14)
•Twitter will make suggestions for who to follow
• Use Web or Twitter app, Hootsuite,
Tweetdeck
Twitter Tips for Scientists

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• WordPress
– Hosted blog at wordpress.com, or get a
server, host your own ($7/month)
– Most flexible, our favorite
• Blogger
– Only offers hosted solutions
• Tumblr
– Less flexible, hard to write a post with both
image and text
• Join an existing blog network
– Anatomy Connected
Ways To

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Link and courtesy @brianreid
Finding blogs:
•ScienceSeeker
•Researchblogging
Blog Networks

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Google Yourself
• Google Author Rank
– Your Google+ network affects Google search
results
– Big for your personal brand
– Should lead to more online science credibility
• Google+
– Add colleagues using G+’s tools
– Share information
– Join groups, share hashtags
• Set up a Google Scholar Profile
• What’s working well for others?

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Facebook
• Living in the 10’s=professional FB
presence
– Manage privacy
– Change to work name
– Keep politics at a minimum
– No passed out photos
• Follow anatomy organizations,
news, engage
– Need to check “get notifications” to
get updates
• Live your brand? You decide.

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Getting Started
• Determine your personal brand
• Start small
– LinkedIn, Google+ Profile
– Share your brand on Facebook
– Tweet at #anatomy14 !
• Be creative
• Start NOW

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Questions?
• Twitter
– @Comprendia
– @SDBN
• LinkedIn
– www.linkedin.com/in/marycanady
• Facebook
– Facebook.com/comprendia
• Blog
– Sdbn.org
– Comprendia.com
• Slideshare
– www.slideshare.net/marycanady