New Survey Reveals How Biopharma Professionals Are Using Social Media
Biotechnology Professionals, It’s Time to Jump on the Social Media Bandwagon
Our annual BioSpace.com reader survey* contains some surprising findings about how bioscience and pharmaceutical professionals are using social media in their professional lives. More accurately, how they’re not using social media. While we’ve seen biotech, life sciences and pharmaceutical companies increase their presence on social media channels in the past year, the survey respondents have not and in some cases, report that they are using social media less than last year. Biopharma professionals, social media isn’t a fad and it’s time to jump on the bandwagon.
Facebook claims to have over 900 million active users, but biopharma professionals are not embracing this social media channel for professional use. 44% of our readers tell us that they never use Facebook to find industry news or company information. Even more surprising,83% report that they never use Facebook to look for jobs. Pharmaceutical and biotech companies are on Facebook and they’re posting news and jobs daily. If you haven’t liked these pages, you’re missing some valuable career and industry information. To see the most active companies on Facebook, go to the BioSpace page and take a look at who we like and follow.
At BioSpace.com, we use Twitter as one of our main biotechnology and pharmaceutical news sources and we connect with industry professionals on Twitter more than any other social media channel. Yet, a little more than three-fourths of our readers tell us they never use Twitter. If you’re in this group, take a few minutes to set up an account, follow us @BioSpace365 and see what you’re missing—real time news, discussions, jobs and networking going on round the clock.Here’s our “Best in Biotech” list that you can easily follow to see what’s happening in our industry on Twitter.
Our survey showed that LinkedIn is used much more frequently by biotechnology professionals than Twitter or Facebook. 56% report that they use LinkedIn at least weekly to search for industry news or company information. This isn’t surprising given that LinkedIn is touted as more of a networking site for professionals than a true social media channel. If you’re not active on LinkedIn, join our group on LinkedIn here to see how your peers are using LinkedIn.
We realize that some biotechnology and pharmaceutical professionals are prohibited from accessing social media channels at work, which may account for the lower numbers of users in the industry. As the benefits of using social media professionally are realized by more industry professionals, we expect usage to rise significantly. Here’s your chance to be a trailblazer. Jump on the social media bandwagon and see what you’ve been missing.
*BioSpace.com polled registered job seekers for this 2012 survey.
www.biospace.com is the leading online community for industry news and careers for life science professionals. The online job board, daily biotech news feeds, and community features connect recruiters, job seekers, and life science professionals online.