Building trust through social media for scientists

by Rusty Bishop

I just finished reading Meg Whitman’s (former CEO Ebay) autobiography, “The Power of Many.” One thing that really hit home with me, was how she described the deep trust that ebay developed with sellers and buyers through their online forum on their website and via third party forums.

Even as a tiny company they worked hard to build this trust by answering questions, testing ideas on clients, troubleshooting issues, and even admitting when they had made mistakes.

Through trust with their customers, they built the monster that is ebay.

Here’s a virtually free way to gain the trust of scientists via Social Media without manning a corporate blog or onsite user forum of your own. And you get to help people along the way!

Step One – Build Credibility by Caring

At Scientist Solutions, I spent a lot of time helping scientists with their experiments (1000 plus posts and responses).

One question I answered over and over again was about isolating primary hepatocytes for which I had published several manuscripts and posted the protocol on Scientists Solutions Protocol Finder. This post is hugely popular and still lives on the first page of Google Organic Results for “isolating primary hepatocytes” search string over 1 year later.

From my answers and concern with others problems, I built a reputation as being the master of “hepatocyte isolation”. And I still have lots of scientists contact me with comments, tweaks, and suggestions. Thats powerful trust!

ROI of Scientific Forums = Trust and Profits

16 months on page one of Organic results!

Consider 3 things

• The post above is on the first page of Google for profitable long-tail search.

• It cost nothing but a little time to achieve that ranking, goodwill, and reputation.
• I still have lots of scientists contact me about this procedure

What more could you want as a small company, product manager, or marketer?

First page organic, free, years of returns.

I bet you can’t get that with a full page advertisement in Science or putting your name on the bags at the Society for Neuroscience meeting.

What not to do

Keep in mind you are building trust.  Spamming these forums with buy my product rhetoric will get you in trouble fast. Blatant ads will be deleted.

Want to find some forum posts to show off your companies expertise and gain the trust of scientists?  Try our Science Social Media Tool its free and easy.

Want help?  Just comment below and we’ll do our best.

Rusty Bishop

Rusty’s expertise rests in his ability to apply his Scientific Experience to the Marketing and Sales Funnel. Something we call the Red Funnel. He has developed a deep understanding of the web and the toolset needed to analyze websites as well as sales and marketing tactics both online and in the field.

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