1

What should you get out of this presentation?

Answers or at least ideas for questions as:

- Why have a communication strategy as a researcher of research group?

- What tools should we use to fulfill this strategy? Are social media an option?

- How should we go about communicating and actually using these tools? When

should we communicate about our research? Who should do the communicating?

Another outcome might be that you feel envigourated and ready to shift your

communication into a higher gear!

Now, doing this for a group of communication scientists is rather scary. And you can

interprete this in two ways.

On the one hand you should be the people telling me what to do – there’s a slight

imposter syndrome sneaking up on me.

On the other hand you should be the people telling me what to do – so why aren’t you?

2

Let’s start with context.

There seems to be a new punch line in academia: Publish or Perish has become

Be Visible or Vanish.

From funding to citations to digital footprint and media exposure: research

seems to be about getting noticed and making an impact. And this is more than

having a high H-index – which is an indicator for scholarly impact based on

publications and citations.

But science is of course so much more than this. It pays to consider who are the

real stakeholders of science and how this affects the way you work. Something

we call ‘societal value creation of research’.

So the question is: do you work with your door close or open?

If you are serious about being a researcher in today’s context of science for

society, online academic tools and high impact and visibility, it might be

interesting to pay attention to this talk and get a few pointers on how to

approach this in a strategic way.

3

A good way to help you along in this environment of high visibility is investing in

networking – offline and online.

3

Goodier and Czerniewicz adapted the functional building blocks of social media

(‘Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of

social media’ by Jan H. Kietzmann, Kristopher Hermkens , Ian P. McCarthy , Bruno

S. Silvestre in Business Horizons, Volume 54, Issue 3, May–June 2011, Pages 241–

251) and applied them to what is called ‘the networked scholar’.

Central to your attitude as a networked scholar is your identity, and in this case

we focus on your online identity - defined as ‘the extent to which others can

identify you online as a scholar’. This is why it is critical to become aware of your

online presence and to shape and maintain this presence.”

And this makes sense when you consider that 7 out of 10 people use online

search tools when they look for information on other people.

4

Does this mean that only online communication counts or that you should just

throw everything online?

Of course not!

It means approaching your online identity – whether as an individual or as a

group – strategically.

Have a care about both:

- digital footprint is your active contribution to and interaction with the online

world

- digital shadow is content about you posted and uploaded by others, as well as

automatically generated and collated content

Especially this last one is difficult to control. The best way to drown out content

about yourself that you may not like is to upload content of your choice and

maximize your digital footprint.

If there’s one clear rule, it’s that having an online presence is a time

5

commitment. Think about how much time you can commit to keeping your

profile(s) current and then decide if you should have just one profile with links

from other services, or whether you should replicate your profile on a number of

services. In any case, online profiles that are not maintained or updated do not

create a good impression.

5

Another element in your strategy should be making your scholarly outputs reach as

many people as possible and making them easily accessible and findable. So invest in

discoverability – not just within scholarly areas but also through public engagement and

more popular output/activities.

So think Open Science. Science Europe identified three essential aspects of Open

science: its relation to digital technology, the idea that it explores changing research

practices and their impact on the research system as a whole, and the fundamental

importance of “a certain vision of science as a community of practice”.

6

7

How I see it, to take you to the next level you need to look for productive interactions.

This concept is important both in research as in communication.

You only have so much time and energy so investing it wisely is key.

In communication, setting up PRODUCTIVE INTERACTIONS means looking for partners

within your university.

- Communication Office

- Unit for Science Communication

- Research Communication (incl. scholarly communication)

- Faculty Communication

- Dedicated person with research group

It also means identifying external stakeholders:

- Of your research: general public and specific target groups

- Of your communication: media

When it comes to social media: FIND YOUR INFLUENCERS (people that can act as your

megaphone)

8

9

Link: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2014/08/27/academic-

storytelling-risk-reduction/

You must accept that details important to you may not resonate with other people –

even other researchers.

Is there anything in your research which may though?

When considering this question, be honest with yourself, and try to embody someone

else who hasn’t spent years toiling over your niche subject area.

Story telling is essentially about the heads and hearts of your audience, about making a

lasting impression, making an impact.

Resist the temptation of covering too much of your research. Don’t get bogged down

in the details. Find that central image that people can connect with.

Rigorous researching and attention-grabbing storytelling are very different trades.

However, by finding that point of connection in your research you’ll go a long way.

10

11

Although I’m focussing on communication in the context of research and the academic

environment, some rules are universal.

Besides the overarching competences that are fostering interesting networks for your

communication and the art of story telling, using the right tool and content is pivotal.

The academic environment is one where you’re already being asked to write and

present a lot. Why not use this to your advantage?

Re-use this content, adapt it to the specific communication goal and target audience and

choose the right tool.

A note on working with media: TIMING!

Let’s see what online tools are available…

12

Many more but these are relevant to impact of science

- Website: profile page but more importantly, news items

- LinkedIn: profile outside academia

- Visual platforms: Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest

- In between visual and blog: Tumblr (E.g. Congrats – you’ve got an all male panel! And

Academic Bird Watching http://errantscience.tumblr.com/post/116460277480/birds-

of-academia-an-often-hard-to-spot-selection)

- Commenting

- Reddit Science

- Ik heb een vraag

- Opinion pieces for all kinds of media

- Wikipedia as a means to open up science:

https://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2014/10/using-wikipedia-to-open-up-science/

- Data visualisation

- Infographics: http://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcblog/2014/08/11/the-power-of-

pictures-how-we-can-use-images-to-promote-and-communicate-science/ > the

importance of visuals (academic poster becomes infographic)

- Twitter

- Online book reviews including popular books based on science:

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/category/disciplines/media-studies/

- Blog: separate, group, guest

13

- Explanimation: e.g. Crash Course Biology

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3EED4C1D684D3ADF > Choose your

audience / Deliver in style / Stay focused / Get to the point / Be part of the community

/ Give the audience an anchor / Be a person not a company

- Ted talk (start locally with TedX) – Scientists Popularizing Science: characteristics and

impact of TED Talk Presenters (PLOSONE April 2013): “Presenters are predominantly

male and non-academics. Although TED popularizes research it may not promote the

work of scientists within the academic community.”

- Podcast

Missing: Mendeley, Figshare, GitHub, SlideShare

13

14

Timing and complementarity are everything in social media but what about the

actual impact – scientific and otherwise?

For those looking at hard evidence let’s look at the science about science.

1. April 2012: article by Melissa Terras showing increase in downloads after

tweets

2. Reminiscent of article by Eysenbach 2011

3. What about blogs?

4. Which led to age-old discussion ‘association is not correlation, which in turn

is not causation’

Tweets tend to associate with citations but not correlate > but the more people

start tweeting their research the bigger the correlation will get?

In any event, interest was sparked and more people were talking about

‘altmetrics’ as the new saviour of science.

15

ALTMETRICS > An umbrella term for spectrum of social media-based metrics:

- often proposed as alternative to citation-based indicators

- And as a tool to measure the impact of science outside academia

But… “most studies show that, although citations and the new metrics are to some

extent positively correlated, these correlations are very weak.” Quote from a recent and

very interesting article by scientometricians concluding that at the most, social media

metrics may function as complements to other types of indicators and metrics.

Some more findings from this same article: (see looking glass and circle)

16

Also, questions are raised about a certain bias. A bias in topics: do social media only pay

attention to the sex, drugs and rock and roll of science? A bias in broadcasters: social

sciences and humanities are the most often found on social media platforms.

Or is a matter of shouting the loudest?

“Just like a taller, more powerful radio tower will boost a signal so it can be heard at a

greater distance; it makes sense that more people will read a paper if the writer is active

on social media. Of course, because we wrote it, we think it’s great that our paper has

proved so popular, but we have to ask: in the future, will the highest quality papers be

read most? Or will it be only those papers backed up by the loudest voices?” - Academic

blogging is part of a complex online academic attention economy, leading to

unprecedented readership, I. Mewburn and P. Thomson for LSE Impact blog (Dec 2013)

Let’s wrap this discussion up with the four words scientists love to hear: more research

is needed!

In the meantime things are evolving… (see tweet)

So let us ask that question again: why should we be interested in social media as a tool

for research?

17

I’ll mostly be focussing on communication in the context of research and the academic

environment.

18

Besides the obvious benefits:

- Connect with peers and building a scholarly network. Quote: “It’s allowed me to

open up new communities for discussions and increase the interdisciplinarity of my

research.” (A network boost by M. Baker. Nature, 12 Feb 2015)

- Reputation management

- Dissemination

Conferences:

- Back-channel: (capture content & provide feedback) share questions and resources

- Connecting and networking

- Virtual participation

Jobs & prof. development:

- “Following institutions, companies and individuals on Twitter can offer clues about

workplace culture and ongoing projects in a way that static website do not.”

- “Junior researchers are creating identities that don’t have to be routed through the

principal investigator.” (A network boost by M. Baker. Nature, 12 Feb 2015)

(crowd-funding for research)

Social:

19

- Break isolation

- Look over the fence

- Find fellow victims

- Real-life scholar

- Sheer fun of it

19

20

There’re great benefits to integrating social media into your research – not just as a way

to communicate but also as a means to become a better scholar.

Although it can be great fun and many of the social media look flighty (eg. half-life of a

tweet is 18 minutes) it should not be taken lightly but approached in a strategic and

professional manner.

It’s all about finding the right balance:

- Not overthinking it but using it to your advantage

- Getting into the spirit of sharing while keeping focus in your own research and not

losing yourself in procrastination

- Giving it a natural place in your time management and approaching it so you feel

comfortable with it

It might even offer you some release from the incessant publication and promotion

pressure (although the current academic system

is not yet in tune with outreach and online activities)

21

22

23

24

25

I’ll mostly be focussing on communication in the context of research and the academic

environment.

26

27

Take care of your network: most mentions and interactions don’t come from power

users (your biggest advocates have the fewest followers)

Science is not clear about best time to tweet (8am-6pm, not Friday pm, late night best

for retweets, lunch break): it’s all about getting to know the habits your

network/stakeholders and trying out some stuff

28

29