Today, social media allow us to interact in ways we could never imagine before. It’s so easy now to catch up on someone’s life or maintain business communication. People use social media mainly to keep in touch with their loved ones or engage in e-commerce. However, there is one more aspect in which social media can be extremely helpful. If you are wondering what it is, keep reading the article and see how social media promotion increases research citation!
Table of Contents
The meaning of social media for the academic field
Social media can be highly beneficial for academic institutions. They have transformative powers, allowing faculty to form valuable connections, promote events, programs or publications as well as reach new audiences. Researchers can view social media as marketing tools for their academic work. Networks give faculties a chance to inform about every stage of the research process and get a pulse on movement in their industry. They also provide an opportunity to receive feedback during research and assistance in the promotion of the published academic work.
Scientists can also use social media to better understand what issues are important to their colleagues and to meet other academics. Additionally, activities on social media networks can be seen as a way of building a reputation in a certain area of research. As you see, social media play a significant role in the academic field.
Social media promotion and research citation
Undoubtedly, social media networks allow us to easily connect to and communicate with people. However, the opinions about the effectiveness of using them to promote research are quite controversial. On the one hand, a study conducted at the Institute of Educational Technology revealed that social media has a positive effect on citation counts. Students who use the Turabian citation maker for bibliography tend to reference publications that were shared on social media. At the same time, there are some contrasting findings. Phil Davis recently summarized the studies on the influence of Facebook, Twitter, and blog promotion on research and found out that they don’t make any difference in research citations
Benefits and challenges
As mentioned above, social media can be effective for gaining professional visibility and credibility. Since online presence makes it easier to communicate with others, it benefits professional networking. It also helps to keep up with the relevant news anywhere and anytime as well as to easily find information about projects, new trends, or ideas.
However, there are some challenges experienced by academics when using social media. The major difficulty, from the researchers’ point of view, is the cultural “conflict” between the research world and social media. Since scientists want to be accurate in their publishings and share information only when they have something new and important to say, their chances for success in social media are quite low. Why so? Probably, the reason is that this doesn’t correspond to the dynamic nature of social networks, which require frequent presence and quick reactions.
To make the most out of online presence, researchers need to come up with fresh opinions and up-to-the-minute content. This requires continuous work and significant time investments.
Sharing research on social media
As a scientist, you probably want to share your research with colleagues once it’s published, so that they can read about your findings. Luckily, social media platforms have the potential for massive outreach to the scientific community. But before using them, you must ask yourself what exactly you want to get. Think if you need to use multiple communities and consider ways of how to stimulate discussions in them. Also, try to demonstrate your active presence and repost others’ works to bring more attention to your profile.
Some channels to consider for promotion:
- Twitter allows scientists to instantly link to and promote their latest studies.
- You can use LinkedIn to share research updates within a specific group or a broader audience.
- Blogging platforms are tools to share research and engage in discussions with readers.
- Facebook offers a wide range of ways to promote studies and link to other social media platforms.
- Mendeley allows joining groups in a certain field of interest.
- ResearchGate was created specifically for researchers to discuss diverse professional topics and promote collaboration in the academic community.
Final thoughts
Today, social media are one of the most influential and essential interaction channels. They provide numerous opportunities for researchers to spread information and adjust their own studies in accordance with audience interests. Online networks and social media promotion bring many benefits to academics, one of which is increasing citation rate. Hopefully, this article gave you a better understanding of the reasons why social media are important for the scientific world.
Author’s BIO
Julius Sim is Head of the Support Team at Edubirdie, whose main responsibility is to provide top-notch service to the clients. Julius works hard to satisfy all customers’ needs and keep them loyal. He believes that the excellent performance of his team is one of the major factors contributing to the company’s success.