10 Free Tools To Get Started In SciComm And Life Science Social Media Marketing

Developing new content is actually easy. Of course, as a content creator within the life sciences niche, I’m comparing that to creating content consistently – now that, is slightly more difficult. Not an impossible task though! 

In a previous post, I’ve written about my secrets to creating content quickly. In this post, I provide some free social media tools that you can use to get started in SciComm and life science content marketing. These tools will help ease your creation process – whether in the life sciences niche or in all forms of science communication. 

Please note: This post is focused on free tools you can use to level up your social media game. Although some of these tools may also help you with your website content, I’m hoping to write another post on tools you can use for website-related content. Stay tuned for that one! 

4 Tools for Social Media Content Creation

1. Canva

Canva is a must-have tool that you really could do with, especially when it comes to creating beautiful graphics. Of course, there are other tools/apps you can use to create beautiful graphics. This includes the famous Adobe Illustrator and Procreate. Honestly though, the intuitive, user-friendly design that Canva offers is just unbeatable. I mean, there’s a reason they’re valued at $15 billion.

2. Biorender

As a scientist, chances are you have come across Canva. And truth be told, you’d quickly realize that Canva doesn’t offer the type of vectors scientists require. If this is a problem you’re faced with, Biorender has you covered. Whatever your needs, Biorender will provide you with vectors of anything you require from the SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins to the hippocampus of a mouse. If you’re looking for a specific render they don’t have, you can suggest one and they’ll make you a scientifically accurate, editable render. 

3. A Photo Editor Like Photoshop

Personally, I’m no good at editing photographs. However, I know for a fact that a number of people use Photoshop to edit their images. I frequently use Canva to remove the background of an image but really, that’s as far as my photo editing skills go. If I need something more heavy-handed, I’m most likely to hire a professional editor or find an appropriate image on Unsplash. Sometimes, I may slap a black and white filter on an image and it may work just fine. 

4. Procreate for illustrations 

I’m a big fan of using Procreate for illustrations. Although again, I have mixed things up and used Canva alongside the app. I also have a love for pen and paper, and even with illustrations, sometimes I can’t convince myself to simply replace a sheet of paper for a screen. But, for the record, if the illustrations are tricky (which they almost always are), I’ve spent afternoons frustrated at how much I have to use an eraser and revise something because I can’t copy-paste parts of an illustration closer together or further apart. 

4 Tools for Social Media Content Distribution

1. Later

If you post content on social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter, I cannot recommend Later enough. Especially if you post on these channels often! Later is a wonderful social media management app to help you visualize, plan, and schedule social media content. The app will also help you auto-publish posts onto all social media channels at once.  Permanently say goodbye to manually publishing the same post in a million different places!

2. Typefully

This is a tool that I have only recently learned about. This tool is exceptionally good at helping you write, publish, and schedule top-notch Twitter threads. Why use Twitter threads, you ask? Threads are a great way to write a series of tweets that are connected to each other. The Twitter algorithm seems to love threads and these tweets generally enjoy a larger audience and have better engagement statistics. So if you want your Twitter account to grow, and quickly, I recommend using Typefully to write (and publish) threads.

3. Twitter’s scheduler

Personally, a lot of my marketing happens on Twitter. As a writer, I find it easier to use and love that I don’t have to always create an image/slide for everything I want to put out into the Twitterverse. For this reason, I also find myself using Twitter’s own inbuilt tweet scheduler. Honestly speaking, I think Twitter can do a much better job with its scheduler, but as it stands, it does the job just fine. 

3 Tools For Content Inspiration 

1. Pinterest

Pinterest is a great space to bring together inspirations. As a content creator, this could be in the form of still images, or sometimes, even blog posts and articles. You never know how inspiration strikes! On Pinterest, you can quickly search the site for different topics and “pin” your favorites onto your own board. Pinterest may also really help drive traffic to your website and eventually get clients. This method of potentially driving traffic to my site and getting clients for life science and health content creation is still on my to-do list!

2. Answer The Public

As someone who always has a large list of ideas, but freezes when it comes to writing, I love AnswerThePublic.com. If you have never heard of them, trust me, they can change your content game for real. Let’s say, for example, you would like to write about gut health, but for whatever reason, you’re not sure about exactly what to tackle in your content. Should you write about probiotics? Prebiotics? Stress and the gut? Fermented Foods? Bloating? Or something else? A quick search on AnswerThePublic.com will provide you with top searches relating to the topic. Based on this, you can choose a topic that you not only want to write about but a topic that people search for frequently. Win-win situation, if you ask me!

3. SciComm Chat 

Big disclaimer here, because SciCommChat is not exactly a tool, but hear me out, please! When I am really struggling to find content that I want to tackle, I leverage the SciCommChat community on Twitter. Want to know about SciCommChat? Check out our previous blog post here. Through SciCommChat I am able to connect with top communicators globally and discuss topics with people. Somewhere, the inspiration strikes and the creative juices start flowing! Just give it a go!!! 

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What are some tools you use in your work? Are there some tools that you would really recommend? Tell me more in the comments below!