Category: Social media

Disseminating my research

Publication in a peer-reviewed journal is no longer sufficient – research findings need to be disseminated more broadly to ensure (and demonstrate) that they have impact. This means that once I’ve submitted an article for publication I immediately start working on the dissemination plan (if I haven’t already done it as a form of ‘productive procrastination‘!)

There is no one-size-fits-all approach. However, I do have a standard list of dissemination options and a general process that I use. Here it is, in case it is useful for you:

Step 1: Write different versions of your article (during article writing/immediately after submission)

  • Blog post – I usually start by writing a blog post, and this is an excellent article about how to turn your journal article into a blog post, but I’ve also found this one useful.
  • Press release – The University press office has been really helpful in structuring the story and using appropriate language for my press releases in the past (although they sometimes need help making sure the essential message isn’t lost).
  • Talking points – talking points are a great way to prepare for a media interview. In addition, the process of identifying and refining my talking points helps to identify and refine the message, audience and purpose for my dissemination strategy. I usually come up with about 5 talking points, for example: a short sentence and a short paragraph about the main result(s), a short sentence and a short paragraph about the implications, and a short sentence about what might come next.

Step 2: Circulate your pitch (before acceptance)

You may need to modify your pitch for each of the sources below, but you can base all of them on your press release. You need to circulate your pitch to these sources before your article is accepted, because often things move quite quickly after acceptance and you want to have time to work with these people to craft the best piece, and to coordinate the release dates with them.

  • Send a pitch to The Conversation (to do this you need to log in, and use the link on the left hand side of the dashboard)
  • Send a pitch to podcasts that might be interested. Podcasts usually have a longer lead time than the general media, so better to contact them early. There are some health-specific ones (e.g. 2SER Think:Health, the Research Roundup podcast by PC4) or more general ones, such as the University of Sydney podcast ‘Open for Discussion‘.
  • Send a pitch to any other magazine, website, etc that might be relevant. For example, in the past I’ve published summaries in Cancer Professional and have flagged oncologynews.com.au and Croakey as a possible media to approach in the future.

Step 3: Prepare for release (once accepted)

Once you know your article is accepted you should get a timeline for when it will be released. At this point you should let anyone who you’ve worked with on an article (e.g. the Conversation, etc) know the date and coordinate the release. You can also:

  • Contact relevant journalists with your press release. The press office can do this for you, and/or you can use informal approaches such as twitter (list of tweeting journalists below)
  • Contact relevant professional associations about circulating a short article about your research in their newsletter etc. I usually approach groups like the HSRAANZ, AHES, ESA.
  • Finalise your talking points for any media interviews. This includes the talking points drafted earlier, as well as notes on the different ways journalists or readers could misunderstand my research, and any sticky questions I’m nervous about. Then I draft responses to these (which I usually never need, but it makes me feel less nervous knowing I’m prepared).

Step 4: Disseminate (once published)

At last! Today is the day to…

  • Publish your blogpost on your blog
  • Publish your blogpost on LinkedIn
  • Write a post with a link to your blogpost (on your blog or LinkedIn) to Facebook
  • Tweet about your research – over the day or two after publication I usually tweet a link to the original article (with a sentence summarising the main finding), tweet a link to my blog post, tweet a link to any companion pieces (e.g. an article in The Conversation), and retweet any press coverage I get. I haven’t tried this yet, but I was recently told to tag relevant journalists in some of these tweets, and so I’ve compiled the following list of potential options:

Step 5: Tracking your dissemination

As we increasingly need to report our impact, it will become more important to be able to track how and to whom our research was disseminated. Tools like Google Alerts and Altmetrics can be very useful, but I’m also going to try and take screenshots/links/copies of any press coverage etc that I get and save them in the project folder, so that I can easily find them later.

Getting started with social media to promote your research

Imagine a newspaper where you get to choose the sections to include (front page, finance, politics, entertainment, sport etc), and also who writes the articles in each section…  Welcome to twitter…

Is twitter a social media fad for tween girls to share their love of Justin Bieber, or is it a social media tool that can no longer be ignored?  Twitter is now used by health officials to track disease outbreaks, and monitored for security threats in the US.  Worldwide, 21% of internet users actively use twitter each month, and over 55’s are the fastest growing demographic on twitter. So how can academics use it to promote themselves and their research?

First of all, what is twitter?  You create a profile of who you are, and then you ‘follow’ people to see what they say.  By following people who tweet about topics you’re interested in you get a twitter feed filled with information, links, news and updates tailored for you. 

For 50% of twitter users, this is all they do.  But to get the most out of twitter, you need to interact.  You can retweet things you find interesting, as well as creating your own tweets.  Tweets can be about things you hear at conferences, get by email or simply your own thoughts (see hints below on writing good tweets). You now have a global network of people who are interested in the same things you are.

For example, my profile says I’m a health economics PhD student examining costs of cancer care.  I follow organisations like ISPORorg, CHEyork, simplystats, Healtheconall and NCImedia, and people who tweet about health economics, writing and being a PhD student, like Inger Mewburn (thesiswhisperer), James Hayton (3monththesis) and Arthur Phillips (MPH_adapt). 

So why are many academics nervous about getting involved in twitter?  It seems to me to be a combination of misconceptions about the benefits available, and a fear of losing control.

Much of the public perception of twitter is that it is photos of what people ate for breakfast and the inane thoughts of music superstars.  But I conceptualise twitter as my personal newspaper.  I choose if I want to include a food section or an entertainment section in my health economics newspaper.  And if I do want some of these sections, I chose how big they are and who writes the stories that get published.  In addition, twitter also allows me to publish news that forms the content of other people’s newspapers.  And it is this aspect that can get my name, and my research, known internationally. 

The perception that academics will lose control of their content is an interesting one.  Some are worried that unpublished work, such as that presented at conferences, should not be tweeted.  But a conference is a public event, so a presenter wouldn’t present their work if they didn’t want it heard.  My perspective is that while you do potentially lose some control of who hears your message and when and where and how, the benefits of having your work seen by a potentially much larger, more diverse audience than would be in a conference session far outweighs these potential downsides.

Tips for using twitter to promote your research

  • Use your real name
  • Tweet a 70:30 mixture of professional and general interest/personal information
  • Use hashtags when you tweet , and to find people to follow
  • Be active and engaged, but  remember that you don’t have to be ‘on’ all the time
  • Everything you tweet is public and forever
  • Don’t use all 140 characters (to allow others to retweet)
  • Follow the conventions for acknowledging sources of your information
  • If something is said in public, it can be tweeted. But it might sometimes be nice to ask permission first (or let people know you’re ok with it if it is you presenting).
  • For an excellent guide to getting started with Twitter, check out the Mashable guidebook

The most re-tweeted image of all time (817,000 retweets & 300,000  favourites)