WHY SHOULD LIFE SCIENCE EXECUTIVES BOTHER WITH DIGITAL PROFILES?
Your digital profile is an extension of your physical presence and that of your company’s.
All those pictures and sentences that compose your digital profile, they’re there for your customers, competitors, and potential investors.
Compiled and composed correctly, your digital profile can give your life science company free attention; which can lead to partnerships and investment opportunities.
If poorly constructed, however, your digital profile will be ignored—or worse—make for a negative, irreparable, impression on those who matter.
Learn how to harness the digital profile for your benefit and that of your company’s by following the simple yet effective tips below.
WHERE TO BUILD YOUR LIFE SCIENCE DIGITAL PROFILE
There are two main places where you should build a social media profile for yourself and your biotech company: LinkedIn and CipherBio.
For most of us, LinkedIn is a pretty familiar platform. It’s like Facebook but for professional social networking. It’s not geared toward any specific audience. So this is the perfect spot to build a pretty general social media presence for your company.
CipherBio is like LinkedIn but with an exclusive focus on life science executives and investors.
This is the place where a generic LinkedIn profile won’t do you much good. You have to custom-tailor your digital profile, or your company’s, to your audience: other life science professionals and investors looking for you or companies like yours in order to collaborate or invest in your science.
HOW TO CONSTRUCT AN EFFECTIVE LIFE SCIENCE DIGITAL PROFILE FOR YOURSELF
Now that we know where we should build our digital profiles let’s get to the meat of everything: how to do so effectively for your personal profile. We’ll get to the tips on how to create a great social media profile for your biotech company thereafter.
Here’s a simple step-by-step guide to a fantastic personal digital profile:
1. Include a good picture.
What makes a great picture? One that shows a positive—professional—person in a clear manner. That means: smile (but don’t grin), wear professional clothing, and ensure you (and only you) are visible clearly in the photo.
An excellent photo captures attention and radiates confidence to potential investors and clientele.
2. Always fill out every possible field in your profile.
People who are really interested in trying to help you will want to read every area of the profile to get as much background information on you as they can.
Profiles with little to no information may raise little interest—or raise red flags instead.
3. Custom tailor your message in the fields you do fill out.
This means you should only highlight relevant and promising skills and experiences that will resonate with your intended audience.
Think of the content you create as an advertisement. An unfocused profile—filled with trivia about your accomplishments in high school—will lead to far fewer responses and connections than one highly focused on addressing an audience’s current pain points.
Of course, your intended audience and/or their pain points may shift with time. That means you’ll need to stay on top of your profile and modify it as necessary.
In the end, your message should never be about what you want to showcase about yourself. It should be about what your audience wants to see and, given that, what you want them to take away.
4. Link to as much publicly verifiable proof as possible.
Your skills and experiences are “the promise”. They tell your audience what you believe you bring to the table that matters to them. But where’s the proof?
Savvy investors and clientele will look past your words and will look for hard, objective, evidence of what you’re really capable of instead.
That means you should link to or describe science milestones, numbers, achievements, and discoveries that support every “promise” made in your profile in order to strengthen your chances of making a great connection.
Feel free to use everything from successful fundraising campaigns to major clinical trial developments as examples.
5. Avoid clutter.
Avoid “bricks” of text and be as concise as possible. Try to think of it this way: you’re not writing your autobiography. You’re writing an ad that’s trying to sell you or your company to your target audience.
If your message is cluttered, your audience will be confused (at best) or turned off (at worst).
6. Add relevant keywords for search engine optimization (SEO).
Not everyone uses LinkedIn or CipherBio. But pretty much everyone uses search engines. So if they’re looking for an experienced life science executive with a background in computational biology, use those terms in your profile so you can actually be found!
7. Leave your contact info!
At least on LinkedIn, you’re forced to pay a hefty fee to connect with anyone who hides their contact info like a phone number or e-mail address. This is a large hurdle that many people may not want to overcome to simply get in touch with you.
So it’s wise to post some way by which you can be personally contacted. You may not want to reveal your personal or business phone or e-mail. And it’s understandable why.
In that case, create an alternate e-mail account used solely for “first-contact” with prospective clients, investors, and the like. This will help you screen out spam and will allow you to share your actual contact information more discreetly.
You may already have a digital profile but did you carefully optimize it as discussed above?
Did you create one on CipherBio to connect with a more targeted audience base?
Doing so might lead to a world of new opportunities none of us can afford to miss out on.
HOW TO CONSTRUCT AN EFFECTIVE LIFE SCIENCE DIGITAL PROFILE FOR YOUR COMPANY
Your company’s digital profile is no less important. Prospective employees, clients, and investors may look at it in order to help them decide whether to engage with your firm…or not.
As with your personal profile, keep a few simple but effective tips in mind when constructing the company’s digital profile.
1. Include a Logo
The logo should be crisp and undistorted. Imagine the kind of message a low resolution or distorted image will send to your audience. Like such a logo, it won’t be pretty. Algen biotech is a bad example = no detail on web.
2. Tell a Story
A company, by itself, is pretty faceless and boring. People love stories and will connect or identify more personally with the company if you can craft an amazing tale about it.
Here are some example questions to answer when crafting your company’s bio:
Why was your company founded?
How will your company save lives, solve an unmet medical need or make the word a better place?
3. Share the Successes
Has the FDA approved three of your company’s life saving devices or meds? Mention that and how many people it has helped. It’s ok to brag on your company profile so long as you’re succinct about it and use hard numbers or science to back it all up.
4. Add a Personal Touch
Although a company profile is about the company, the human element shouldn’t be forgotten. Add some quotes from team members that will appeal to your target audience.
5. Include Contact Info
The whole point of the company profile is to attract people; investors, collaborators, employees, and so on. Add a phone number and email to your company profile and a call to action that encourages people to easily get in touch with you for more information. Don’t make them search for it or they may just search for another company instead.
[/mpf_col] [/mpf_row]
