Sharing a link on social media is a common way in which researchers achieve more visibility for their work; using a trackable link generated by Kudos helps you see how well social media is working for you, and which sites are attracting more or fewer readers to your work.
But we know that some researchers remain unsure of the value of social media, or how to get started, so we've compiled some guidance here.
Why should I use social media?
Being active on social media helps in a number of ways. From interacting with peers in your particular areas of interest, to having a ready-made and relatively large group with which to share news about your work, social media adds a useful means of communication in addition to "traditional" approaches such as conferences or email.
Becoming better connected online allows you to keep in touch with a wider range of people and potentially find new readers for your work.
Over 2.1 billion people now have a social media account
47% of all Internet users are on Facebook
There are 500 million tweets sent (on Twitter) every day
There are lots of different types of social media accounts, and most are free to use. Registering as a user is easily done by following the step-by-step instructions provided on each website.
Here is a brief run down of the different types of social media which you might use to support and grow your readership on Kudos:
- Blogging (Wordpress, Blogger)
- Microblogging (Twitter, Facebook)
- Videos (YouTube, Vine)
- Images (Pinterest, Flickr)
- Datasets (Figshare)
You can find out more about what each of these channels do and how you can use them on Kudos, by watching this brief video:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvgURLN_BsQ]
Look out for our forthcoming posting about academic networks such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu and Mendeley.
Useful resources for getting started with social media:
- Science and Social Media: Some Academics Still Don’t ‘Get It’ (Kirk Englehardt, Vice Chancellor for Marketing and Communication at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga)
- Social media - help articles (Wiley Exchanges Blog: Alaina Levine President, Quantum Success Solutions; Nick Whitworth Social Communications Executive, Wiley; Meredith Katz Author Marketing; Helen Eassom Author Marketing;Puneet Bola-Moore Community Marketing Manager)
- 5 Tips to Make Social Media Marketing Less Overwhelming (Marija Hamed, Happy Marketing Club)
- Writing for Research (Professor Patrick Dunleavy, London School of Economics)
