Social Media Tools Can Be Valuable for Tech Transfer Offices: Blogs and Microblogging

The task of developing a social media strategy for your organization may sound daunting. So much of the hype of social media tools appears to be focused on consumers or business-to-consumer (B2C) applications. After following this trend for the past several years, I am seeing many organizations beginning to analyze and even embrace social media tools for business-to-business applications (B2B).

There are an abundance of social media tools available today, but I am going to focus on two specific tools that can deliver real value to a Technology Transfer Office (TTO) – blogs and microblogging.

Blogs (or web logs) can be an effective vehicle for communications today in a time when information travels at the speed of the Internet. Blogs can be used by TTOs to:

• Communicate valuable expertise and experiences with technology commercialization
• Broadcast information on key intellectual property and licensing opportunities across your institution or enterprise
• Share critical needs for collaboration and partnerships—an important component of Symbiotic Innovation
• Improve overall awareness of your organization

While microblogging tools (dominated by Twitter today) have considerable limitations, they offer the potential to be an effective communications vehicle. Microblogging can be utilized to:

• Announce new blog postings and other relevant announcements
• Provide your organization with a communication tool to quickly and cost-effectively extend your reach to prospective licensees and partners
• Expand and extend your current professional network of contacts

Since some TTOs are uncertain about whether they should be microblogging, I will elaborate on that particular social media tool in another post later this week. And next week, I will share my guidelines for effective blogging and microblogging.

What social media tools have you used to enhance your B2B communications?