How to leverage Twitter to spread the word about your research
Scientists are increasingly seeing the value of using social media to communicate their research both to colleagues in their field and to engage the general public. With 330 million active twitter users monthly, the combination of short-and-sweet posts and graphic media make Twitter ideal for reaching a large and diverse audience.
Twitter also allows researchers to create a community around a research topics and accelerate the exchange of ideas.
Best of all, it’s a free and effective tool for helping to inform the public about the research you’ve dedicated so many hours to producing.
Here are 5 quick tips for leveraging social media to spread the word about your research:
1. Clarify your message
Digital sociologist Mark Carrigan advises that the best way to engage your audience is to know what your core message is. So start at the beginning. What do you care about, and what do you think people need to know about it? You will be more likely to create engaging and quality posts if you have a clear vision of your message. You can think of Twitter as a supplement to your existing science communication efforts.
2. Find your community
In order to engage more people on Twitter, it’s important that the right people are seeing your tweets. The first step is to follow and interact with other similar accounts and engage them in discussion. This not only keeps you top of the twitter feed, but shows your community that you have something important to say. Use Tweetdeck to follow relevant hashtags and find more people talking about the things that interest you.
3. Stay up to date on science news
By following your favorite scientific institutions, you can stay updated on upcoming events, news, and other activity that might affect your work. You can also use the "Who to Follow" feature to find more organizations of interest.
4. Let people know ahead of time what you’re up to
This might seem obvious, but getting the word out early can help drum up excitement for your work. Post a link to your pre-print or announce you’ll be attending an upcoming conference. You may find other people attending that same conference who want to meet up and continue your discussion offline. Before you know it, you've found a collaborator! A Journal of Medical Internet Research study found that articles widely shared on Twitter were 11 times more likely to be cited than less widely tweeted articles.
5. Consistently post high-quality content
If you want to maximize your reach, it is recommended to tweet at least once a day in order to stay at the top of the news feed and reach a wider audience. Although there is no exact number, a Socialbakers study found that the sweet spot for engagement was 3 – 5 tweets a day. More important than frequency is consistency. You can use tools such as Buffer to maintain a queue of scheduled tweets. Twitter’s algorithm favors posts containing an image so consider using imagery to engage readers.
Do you use social media to communicate your work? What has your experience been like? Comment below and let me know.
Kelly