Using social media to effectively promote research

Reflections on how one has been conducting research, sharing, publishing, and getting feedback can all be improved with the use of social media.

Importance of Social Media to Researchers & Innovators

• News is easy to share to a wider audience on these social media platforms.
• Good source of information from different personalities for example Direct messages.
• Good for building a personal brand for example some people are known for their special reporting in areas they usually post on their social media accounts.

The various steps you will have to consider in this effect

• On Social Media, people can be the content  creators, share it with others all around the world,  where everyone can interact, and engage with it

• contributes to demonstrating credibility and increasing reputation
• benefits of social media, however, do not come for free, but require active participation, fresh opinions, and new, personally created content among others
• the lightweight networking in Twitter helps to make new personal contacts to other researchers and relevant persons from industry and media
• presence in traditional media boosts social media following and vice versa; social media is not to be seen as an isolated area, but in continuous interaction with other ways of communicating and publishing

An Ongoing Commitment

The first question I (we) should ask yourself/ourselves is/are whether I (we) have the time for social media or not? Because we…

• Need time and work necessary to build an effective network.
• Need to spend time reading, writing, producing short videos or slides, taking pictures, and uploading files to the different platforms.
• Need to make good connections and keeping them is an ongoing commitment. It will be difficult to get a reasonable number of followers if you never tweet or post anything. Remember an abandoned profile can sometimes do more harm than good as it does not reflect well on the timeliness of your research.

Choosing the Right Channel

• You do not have to use every social media platform available. Some resources might be more suitable than others depending on your research field, experience, and free time
• If your time is limited, it might be a good idea to create a targeted profile on LinkedIn and improve it occasionally.
• Channels that can help you showcase your work without requiring frequent postings are ResearchGate, Mendeley among others
• In all these platforms, it is usually enough to add recent publications or other updates to your profile to keep it interesting.
• However, LinkedIn and many other platforms also allow you to post links, pictures, and articles to improve communication and interaction with your contacts.
• Other resources such as Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube are more time-consuming, requiring you to regularly produce and curate content (posts, videos, slides, etc.) to keep your audience interested. Since building a stable network on these platforms will take time and energy, you should carefully decide if and when to get started with them. Before choosing the right platform, it is important to look around and find out whether your colleagues are also active in those communities/platforms.

Guidance on the best platforms to use

1. Twitter: You can use this platform to tweet about the latest research, blog, conference presentation, and more. You can also link your work to your tweets.
2. LinkedIn: It is a professional networking platform. You can use it to share updates on your research or a paper in a specific group or publicly. You can also provide links to your blogs, articles, websites, and more.
3. Blogging: You can use different blogging platforms such as WordPress to share your research work. You can write detailed articles or research stories to engage your audience. You can also provide links to your work to increase visibility.
4. Mendeley: This platform can help you grow your network by joining groups of your interest. You can not only view your research impact but also view other popular works.
5. Facebook: Similar to other platforms, you can use it to update your followers and contacts with your latest work, blogs, presentations, and more.
6. ResearchGate: It is a social networking platform especially for scientists and researchers to share and interact on research topics. It can also be used effectively to collaborate with other researchers on a common interest area

Using Social Media Effectively

Once you have started, try to incorporate social media into your daily routine.

Go online, post, and comment on any content that might be of interest to your field of research, but remember to think well before you post anything to make sure that your comments are appropriate.

Checking your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts every day for five minutes is much more effective than going online for an hour once per month.

These five tips can help you promote your research on social media:

• Follow (or like) key figures and organizations in your field.
• Post regular updates on your research, adding pictures, videos, and relevant hashtags where appropriate. If possible, use a short, catchy text to attract your audience’s interest.
• Shorten hyperlinks using sites such as bitly.comor goo.gl.
• Provide links to your social media profiles on your homepage.
• Use analytics to measure your research impact.

Using social media to promote your research projects and innovation

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