Expanding article sharing on Kudos: now with Bluesky, Mastodon, and WhatsApp

We're excited to announce that you can now share your Stories on Kudos to three new channels:

• Bluesky
• Mastodon
• WhatsApp

These new options make it even easier for authors to expand readership across their networks.

Why these channels?

• Bluesky is rapidly gaining users and is seen as a friendlier alternative to X. Many users prefer Bluesky for its lack of ads, algorithm-free feed, and commitment to user control. 
• Mastodon has also grown its user base recently, and is particularly popular with researchers from specific disciplines. Given its decentralized structure, we’ve built an intuitive sharing tool that allows users to select their preferred Mastodon server and remembers their choice for future sharing. 
• WhatsApp groups play a key role in how research groups, co-authors, and professional networks communicate. Many researchers already use WhatsApp for collaboration, so adding it as a share channel simplifies the process of sharing new articles directly within those groups. It’s an especially smooth experience on mobile, ensuring quick and easy distribution.

How does it work?

Once you have a 'Story' on Kudos (a plain language summary of a research publication or project, like this one), you can use our sharing tools to track and compare the different ways you tell people about it:

1. In the "Edit page" screen, go to the "Share" section (picture above).
2. Click on / tap the icon of the channel to which you want to share, and hit "Generate link"
   
   
   
   
3. Hit "continue" (or "send" or "post") to open your chosen channel and have your link appear in your post – you will then be able add your own message before confirming your post.
   

    

   TOP TIP: If you want to share to a channel for which we don't have an icon, choose "link" and then you can add your own label, copy and paste the link we generate, and paste into email, handouts, business cards, posters, other social media discussions – anywhere!

We will record every link you generate, along with the label about where you shared it, in your table of sharing activities.

We will track how many times the link you have shared is clicked on, so that you can compare meaningful metrics in a consistent way, to better understand the most successful ways for you to communicate about your research.

Remember that the unique thing about Kudos is that we help you track the offline and private ways you tell people about your work (such as conferences, workshops or emails), as well as online and public channels (such as social media). With our sharing tools you can compare all of these on a like-for-like basis: how many views of your Story have there been as a consequence? 

Kudos sharing links are unique, trackable, and contribute to article metrics - links shared by Kudos are tracked by Altmetric, for example. Our metrics pages also map your communication activities against the citations for your articles, so you can track communication effectiveness and article discussion / citations all in one place.