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Researcher Skills Toolkit

Promote via social media

... Prior to me blogging and tweeting about the paper, it was downloaded twice (not by me). The day I tweeted and blogged it, it immediately got 140 downloads. This was on a Friday; on the Saturday and Sunday it got downloaded, but by fewer people. On Monday it was retweeted, and the paper received a further 140 or so downloads...

Terras, M. (2012). The impact of social media on the dissemination of research: results of an experiment.

 

In this video University of Newcastle researchers discuss the benefits of using social media to promote their research.

Social media strategy

Create a social media strategy to plan how to use social media to promote your research.

The number one reason people waste time on social media is that they do not have a clear goal for what they are doing. If you want your time on social media to really count, you need to know exactly what you are trying to achieve.

  • Identify any strands to your impact that could be achieved via social media and write your impact goals for social media. Try and make them as SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely) as possible
  • Identify indicators that will tell you if your use of social media is taking you closer to the offline goals you have identified from your Impact Plan. Social media metrics is the easy part. Put some thought into easily measured indicators that will tell you if you are beginning to translate online influence into offline impact.

If you know your audience, you will be able to generate content that they love, and start to build influence online.

  • Systematically identify groups of stakeholders and communities most likely to be interested in your work, or who might benefit from or be able to use your work to help you achieve your impact goals 
  • Identify what aspects of your research these stakeholders and communities are most likely to be interested in
  • Identify which social media platforms are most actively used in your research area. If you are using a different platform, you will need to switch.

If you want your message to reach a wide audience, think about how to craft messages that are shareable, rewarding, and are likely to lead to actions that can help you reach your impact goals.

  • Consider the interests of your stakeholders and communities. What content, resources or opportunities would these groups find particularly valuable or rewarding?
  • What actions or activities could you promote via social media to encourage deeper engagement with your research, which might lead to conversations offline that could help achieve impact?

There are several ways you can get your message out without having a huge following.

  • First, identify the main social media accounts that have content linked to your impact goals
  • Identify what you can learn from their most popular material
  • Promote your work to their followers by directly requesting retweets/likes or following their followers
  • Consider taking a team approach to your social media. Colleagues may be naturally gifted at crafting messages on social media or already have large followings. Agree to promote each other’s material where relevant.

Source: www.fasttrackimpact.com/post/2016/12/15/introducing-the-all-new-fast-track-impact-social-media-strategy-template

Social media tools

Twitter is a social media tool used by millions of people and an easy way to engage and share ideas and information with other researchers beyond your close networks. Use Twitter to promote your research, share a link to your new publication or advertise any upcoming conferences/events in your field. 
Each post has a limit of 280 characters. The use of hashtags can group and link concepts and ideas easily. Twitter allows posts to include images, (photos, gifs, emojis, etc.), videos, and links to material.

Mills, J, Reed, M, Skaalsveen, K & Ingram, J. (2019). The use of Twitter for knowledge exchange on sustainable soil management. Soil Use and Management, 35. 195-203. https://doi.org/10.1111/sum.12485

Twitter mentions are tracked in Altmetric Explorer.

Blogging is a great tool for making your research more visible.  Content from blogs can be easily shared via social media, potentially reaching and influencing a much wider and more diverse audience, potentially increasing your network to share ideas and engage in discourse in your area of interest.  

Blogs are tracked in Altmetric Explorer.

Set up your own Blog via WordPress, Blogger or Tumblr or contribute content via aggregators such as ScienceBlogs.

How to use blogging and microblogging to disseminate your research

Upload to YouTube recordings of presentations or other videos to showcase your research.
You will need to be careful when using any third-party copyright material, including publications where you have transferred ownership to the publisher.

YouTube content is tracked in Altmetric Explorer.

Instagram lets you take photos with your smartphone, edit them with a variety of easy-to-use filters and share using hashtags, as with Twitter. 

Photo-based social media offers enormous potential for academics to share their research in a uniquely visual way. Instagram moves quicker than other platforms like Facebook but slower than Twitter.

Use Facebook for social networking with colleagues and for teaching groups.

You can follow Facebook pages or groups of interest.

Facebook posts are tracked in Altmetric Explorer.
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