Social  Media  Tools:  Where  Are  We  Now  and  Do  They  Work?

Michael  T.  Clarke,  PrincipalClarke  Publishing  GroupSSP  32nd  Annual  MeeDngJune  2,  2010  ●  San  Francisco    

CTSNet

• Tools such as Drupal and Ning bring the cost of experimentation down dramatically

• CTNet can now provide sophisticated ways of engaging their community and self-identifying subcommunities (and can generate revenue from industry sponsors who are interested in reaching the subgroups)

• Driving traffic to site via Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, etc.

CTSNet

• No longer worry about content development – packages dialog and discussion around it as a value-add

• Social activities in a social context build community

Science

• Word of mouth on steroids

• Two way communication

• 60K facebook fans, 6000 twitter followers

• 6% of traffic to ScienceNow comes from Facebook & Twitter

• 10K facebook and 4K twitter without doing anything – network effects (how much would it cost to buy that marketing!)

Nature

• Launch of Nature Chemistry – buzz generated by social media

• Share This – share this page with facebook, twitter, etc.

Cold Spring Harbor

• Great for SEO

• Gets links to your article everywhere

• CiteULike, Mendeley, etc.

• David Crotty is a huge social media booster*

* When discussing social media for marketing purposes.

Health Affairs

• Blog content amplifies what is in the journal

• Traffic generator – can exceed even the traffic from Pubmed

Neurosurgery

• Uses blog as SEO tactic, driving traffic to journal Web site

• Spends zero $

• Spends very little time (<8 minutes/day)

• Click-through rate of 20% and growing

Take-Aways

• Social media is a powerful marketing tool

• Tools are cheap and easy to experiment with

• The question as to whether STM community should employ social media tools in the same way that consumer sites do is not an interesting question. “Facebook for scientists” is both a bad idea and a strawman argument.

The StrawmanThe “Social Media Man” argument is a strawman argument as no one (in this room) is proposing that we attempt to replicate consumer social media behavior (e.g. Facebook for scientists) in the STM and scholarly space.

Take-Aways

• HOWEVER – there are applications in STM publishers where it does help scientific workflows

• Astrometry.net – imaging workflows and crowdsourced image aggregation

• Connotea/CiteULike/Mendeley – aid discovery and workgroup sharing

• CTSNet – Share tips and techniques, self-identify and connect

• UniPHY/CTS SciNet – helps locate expertise and career networking

Take-Aways

• Tools are just tools – it depends on how you use them

• How should you apply social media tools to help YOUR community of readers/authors/members/faculty do their work more effectively? There is no stock answer - what works in one community will not in another but likely some of the tools we’ve seen today can be brought to bear to help your stakeholders.

www.linkedin.com/in/mtclarke

www.slideshare.net/mtclarke

@mtclarke

Text

Michael  T.  ClarkeClarke  Publishing  Groupmichael@clarkepublishing.comwww.clarkepublishing.com