10 tips for promoting your research online / Joshua Clark
Collection of useful tips for those looking to promote their work to a wider audience
Researchers and science professionals are active users of social media ...
Interesting infographic from Nature showing how researchers interact with social media
This resource is licenced under a CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence by Claire Sewell, the Office of Scholarly Communication, Cambridge University Libraries.
Once research outputs have been published and shared, it is important that the author(s) work to promote them. Even within academia it is no longer enough to publish something and rely on potential readers finding it, it needs to be marketed. This is increasingly important in an environment where research needs to make an impact both within academia and outside.
There are a range of reasons why researchers need to promote their work:
There are several ways for researchers to promote both themselves and their work (too many to go into in one module). The exact choice of method will depend on the individual researcher, the nature of their work and their discipline. It is likely that researchers will favour a particular method and keep returning to it for every project but this is not always the best course of action as different promotional methods suit different projects.
Some examples of promotion methods include:
Sharing work via a preprint server (which showcases papers which haven't yet been published) is a great way to get feedback on both the structure and ideas of the output. It also offers a way to promote upcoming publications to those within the subject area.
Adding the relevant keywords to the title and abstract of an article can help it to be indexed by the leading search engines and reach a larger audience. Advising on the appropriate keywords to add to an output is one area which librarians can advise on.
Many institutions have some form of digital signature in their email. Why not use this as an opportunity to highlight the latest outputs from a researcher or department? This can be done in either text or picture form and can be a surprisingly effective way to spread the message. If researchers are away at conferences they could also include the details of the event and a link to their paper in their out of office message.
Most institutions have some type of in-house newsletter or other publication which is likely to be looking for content. Unlike formal publications, these offer a way to write something short and low-pressure about a project such as a short synopsis of the results to date. This can help to engage colleagues and get them excited about the future outputs.
Making research accessible to a wide audience is key to creating a wider impact. There are a range of sites which help academic researchers adapt their work to a lay audience and these descriptions can be added to repositories and other sites. Writing a basic summary of a project without the specialist terminology can increase the chance that those outside a discipline will engage with it.
If the work is really significant then a press release can help to capture the attention of the media. Most institutions have some form of press office or communications team which can help with this.
Creating visual representations of work is often more eye-catching and is easily shared online. If the research lends itself to images or videos this is a good avenue to explore, especially the annual Dance your PhD competition!
The best advice for researchers is to be strategic. They should carefully consider what they have the time, skills and resources to accomplish as well as what is likely to make the biggest impact. This will help them to prioritise which method(s) they should work towards.
Of course, promoting research is not just about sharing the finished product. Competition for funding and roles is fierce and researchers need to work hard to promote themselves. In modern academia an important part of this is setting up and maintaining a strong online presence so that others who might be interested in their work can find them. At the very least a researcher should have an online presence linked to their institution or repository but it is likely that the format of this will be maintained by someone else. It's very simple for researchers to create their own online presence which then offers them the chance to control the information people find.
For some researchers, setting up an online presence can be an overwhelming experience. There is a huge choice of different sites and tools to use and the list changes all the time. It is important that researchers think strategically about which site(s) they want to use, especially if they are new to this area. They should think carefully about which sites are popular within their own discipline, those used by their current network and places they themselves use to find information. It is also a good idea to consider which sites will best suit the type of research they want to promote and how regularly it will need to be updated. These are all important considerations when choosing which tools to use and an area where library staff are often ideally placed to offer support.
Perhaps the most important thing for researchers to think about is what they want achieve and then select the right tool to accomplish this. It is important to be consistent when using social media and other tools to avoid confusion and researchers should also remember to make use of scheduling tools such as IFTT to make sharing outputs across multiple platforms easier. The following table summarises the main choices:
| Purpose | Service |
| Author disambiguation | ORCiD, ResearcherID |
| Personal sites/social media | Facebook, LinkedIn, personal websites, blog |
| Researcher communities | Academia.edu, ResearchGate, Google Scholar |
| Search engines with author profiles | Google Scholar, Scopus |
Based on a table created by Katie Hughes, Judge Business School, Cambridge.
One of the most important of these sites is ORCiD - Open Researcher and Contributor ID. This site offers a persistent identifier for researchers which can be carried with them across institutions. It offers a chance to link all research outputs to a single researcher and distinguish between researchers with the same or similar names. ORCiDs are used internationally and are increasingly required by funders before they will give out any grants. ORCiDs can be set up in three very simple steps and the accompanying profile can be as long or short as needed! Over time, researchers can add their works and career details to the page to create an online profile.
For an excellent summary of others social media tools, the Judge Business School Library at Cambridge have put together some useful guidance (including step by step cheat sheets) on their webpages.
