Clinical Guides: Research Promotion &amp; Impact: Social Media & Marketing

Social media networks can be valuable spaces for researchers to promote and share their research, as well as learn about and connect with other researchers in their field. As more and more scholarly work is published online, it is becoming more important for researchers to promote their publications in the digital space.

Social media networks may be used for personal or professional means. Not all channels available will suit everyone and it is not necessarily essential for you to be active on all social media channels.

The following video about social media sites considers Academia.edu alongside similar networks such as ResearchGate, Mendeley and others.

ResearchGate, Academia.edu, and Social Networking Sites, John Bond, you tube video, July 2017.

ResearchGate is a social network for researchers to endorse other researchers and share/upload research publications not restricted by copyright. You can follow other researchers, comment or review their research and track your own work through citations, views and downloads. Full-text publications you upload to your ResearchGate profile are indexed by Google Scholar.

ResearchGate is a commercial platform so you should consider the risks and issues involved, such as security, confidentiality and copyright before you create a ResearchGate profile or upload your research as publishers are increasingly vigilant about infringement of their copyright on commercial platforms. For more information, please visit: How Can I Share It.

Why use ResearchGate?

Also see:

Academia logo

Academia.edu is a social networking platform for researchers to share research publications and monitor analytics such as the number of views of uploads or profile. Academia.edu is a commercial platform so you should consider security, confidentiality and copyright before you register or upload your research. Publishers are increasingly vigilant about infringement of their copyright on commercial platforms. For more information, please visit: How Can I Share It.

Instructions:

Go to Academia.edu and sign up by entering your name, email and password.
Add research publications to your profile.
Follow people in your field.
Click here for instructions on how to add a paper to your profile.

LinkedIn is a social network for professionals and its primary purpose is to connect business contacts. However, it is much more than an alternative to business cards or a job seeking site. It also offers researchers a peer to peer networking tool. In particular, Linked is an ideal tool for re-connecting with past colleagues and other professionals, local and internally, working in a similar field to you.

The groups option in Linkedin can be very useful for researchers who need a place to communicate and share knowledge on a particular topic. Groups can be public or private - discussions in private groups can only be seen by other group members whereas public group discussions can be seen by anyone through a web browser, and they may be shared on other social networking platforms.

Some key tips for Linkedin are:

Always use a professional looking profile picture
Clearly state your expertise
List all previous and current relevant positions
Include your publications in your profile
Upload and share links to any slideshare presentations you have done.
List your relevant skills

Mendeley is free to use and has two main functions: citation management and networking.

It is a reference management and bibliographic software that also provides potential for social communication and collaboration with other researchers. Mendeley encourages you to create a personalised list of references and research which you can then showcase to other researchers worldwide. You also have the option to manage your own reference library and collaborate with colleagues through private or public groups online.

See our Referencing guide for how to use Mendeley.

The Mendeley YouTube channel contains numerous procedural videos and webinars for Mendeley users. The following video provides an overview of Mendeley's basic features.

Mendeley, 2020, The new Mendeley Reference Manager, YouTube, 29 September