Social media

Social media is an integral part of the marketing mix, particularly when we are all increasingly spending time online. There are many benefits to using social media as an academic, including but not limited to:

• Networking:engaging with similarly minded people within and without your field, building connections and building opportunities for future collaborations
• Sharing: sharing ideas, debate and discussion
• Showcasing: promoting your research and achievements, such as recently published works, and getting them out into a globally recognised audience
• Reputation building: building an image for yourself online
• Influence: track the engagement of your posts using the analytics tools provided by most social media platforms

While that all sounds really exciting, it can also be daunting, especially if you’re starting off from scratch. But there are a few things that you can do to help manage your time and expectations with social media marketing, such as only choosing a few platforms to be engaged with, and setting limits to how often you engage (e.g. 10 minutes every morning, or an hour a week, etc).

Take a look at our summary of platforms below. You might decide to stick to one platform, and that’s absolutely fine. You will probably find that X has the largest active community in your field, or perhaps your field is more visual and you’d prefer to stick to Instagram. Whatever you choose, just remember that building audiences can take time, but you will find your rhythm and your effort will begin to pay off if you are consistent. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day!

Speaking of building audiences, don’t be afraid to create an account specifically to promote or discuss your research. It’s very common for people to have a personal account on X, Instagram or Facebook to connect with friends and family and another account on the same platform for their academic work. You can even create an account specifically for a book, as well if you want to.

And don’t forget the absolute golden rule of social media - always be respectful of others. What you put out there online is ultimately your responsibility. Your institution may have guidance or policies on promoting work via social media – it’s worth checking those, just in case.

Jump straight to:

• X (formerly known as Twitter)
• Facebook and Instagram
• Academia.edu and ResearchGate
• LinkedIn
• Personal website

X (formerly known as Twitter)

X/Twitter is one of the most popular social media platforms out there. In the academic world, it’s used for a multitude of things, from promoting books and papers to discussing the latest research trends, debate, and networking. It’s an excellent tool not only for getting the word out there about your research, but for lively discussion and making genuine connections, too.

You may already be an active user on X – great! This is a fantastic platform to promote your work and build your contacts. Or you may wish to start an account from scratch, solely for the purpose of building up a research network. Wherever your starting point, the tips below are sure to help you in your journey in using X to promote your research:

Be clear about who you are – ensure your profile reflects what you’re doing. What are you researching? What are your qualifications? What are you interested in?

Build a network – Take a look at who the big names in your field are following, and if you already have an X account but want to build up your network, take a look at who your key contacts are following and who they’re engaging with, and follow anyone who you think might be interested in your work. Following hashtags is also a good way to find out specific discussion around events or themes. You can sometimes find conference hashtags on the dedicated conference website.

Engage – X is used primarily as a discussion platform, so don’t be afraid to use it for that! Let people know what you’re up to. Engage with other posts. You might even make a new connection. Invite people to engage with your posts by making sure you use quick, snappy language. Maybe even consider posing a question (what do you think about x subject? etc).

Get noticed – use hashtags, but do some research to make sure those hashtags are meaningful – use the search function to search for a hashtag to find out who is using them and what’s being discussed to make sure it aligns with what you want to say. Use images to make your post more visually appealing. Often when you post a hyperlink, X will grab the featured image from the website and use that to decorate your tweet, but you can upload your own if you think it will make the post more appealing. You could even use a free online graphics programme like Canva to create an X card. These tips are particularly useful if you’re new to X or have started an account specifically for your book.

Be authentic – the golden rule on X is to stick to what you know and be respectful of others. Remember that anything you post online is ultimately your responsibility. The internet is written in ink, after all.

Promote – and of course, use your platform to shout about your work! Post about your newly published book, show off the cover, link to your published paper – and don’t forget to tag your publisher so that they can repost! Your institution or department may even have their own X accounts, and it’s a good idea to send your posts to them for sharing and reposting.

Facebook and Instagram

Facebook can be another good platform to help you promote your work, however it may get less engagement than other platforms due to its primary function as a personal connection platform. While its best use is to promote your research to friends, family and close peers, there are some things that you can do to reach a wider audience. The advice for engaging on X also applies to Facebook, but there are a few other things you might want to be aware of on this platform.

Groups – posting about your research on your personal Facebook profile won’t get the word out very far beyond your personal network. If you post on a relevant group though, you can speak directly to an interested audience. Make sure to note why your research will be interesting to that specific group and include a direct link to your article. Some groups require an admin to check and approve posts before they become publicly visible, so don’t worry if yours doesn’t show up immediately.

Tagging people – another way to connect to people via Facebook is to tag them in your post. This is something that you should only do sparingly and where there is a good reason to tag the account. For example, it’s always a good idea to tag the account of the journal that you’ve published in. Relevant societies are often happy to share posts about research, as well. If your department has a Facebook account, that’s another good option. As far as actual people, it’s best to limit it to people who are included in the acknowledgements section of your article. Framing this as a ‘thank you for your help with my paper’ sort of post is often a good idea.

Length of the post – you can get a lot of words into a Facebook post, but it’s not always a good idea to do so. It’s generally best to limit yourself to a couple of sentences followed by the link to your article. All of the important information should appear before the ‘… More’ link people would need to click to expand the post. 

Scheduling your post – social media management platforms like Hootsuite allow you to schedule posts ahead of time and post across all of your social media platforms at once. This can be a great timesaver, but it’s not great for posting to Facebook. While we aren’t able to say definitively that posts from these sorts of services are downgraded by the Facebook algorithm, content posted directly to Facebook does seem to be prioritised. If you need to schedule a post ahead of time, you can do that through Facebook directly as well.

Again, due to the personal nature of Instagram, it may not be the most appropriate place for you to promote your research, but it’s certainly a great way to show off book covers. If you do, remember to use hashtags, tag anyone who was involved in the book (the publisher, your institution/department, any co-authors or even colleagues who gave you notes on an early version) and link to wherever your book can be bought from on your profile!

Academia.edu and ResearchGate

Many academics and researchers use Academia.edu, a platform that allows you to share your work globally (note that most publishers, like Edinburgh University Press, will not allow you to share full papers on this platform – if in doubt, read our self-archiving guide for more information about this). ResearchGate is a similar service which will allow you to build a profile, link to your research, and connect with fellow interested researchers and scholars.

Both of these platforms tend to be better tools for promoting your full portfolio as opposed to individual articles or books. They’re a great way to help build your web presence though and can lead to more collaboration opportunities.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a business networking tool that allows you to build an online CV and connect with a professional network. It’s a great place to look for new recruitment opportunities as well as engage in posts and articles about what’s going on in institutional spaces and any other places of employment.

Personal website

Creating a personal website can be an excellent way to passively promote your research. While it takes more time than sending out a tweet or posting on Facebook, a website will generally need less maintenance and can be a great way to improve your web presence. There are plenty of places where you can set up your own website for free – Wix and WordPress are the first ones that came to mind for us, but they aren’t the only options.

In most cases, creating a site through those services is fairly intuitive and their comprehensive instructions are usually available if you need them. We won’t go into the technical aspects of how to create a website here, but there are a few things you should include on your site that we wanted to highlight:

• Name and contact details: This is a very basic one, but having your name on the website is very important. It makes it easier for people who are specifically looking for you to know they’re in the right place and easier for people who are looking for research in your area of expertise to find out who you are. It’s also a good idea to make it clear how you prefer to be contacted, so you don’t need to worry about checking multiple emails or social media accounts if you don’t want to.
• Research blurb: A brief blurb explaining your areas of expertise and interests is really helpful in making your site discoverable. Having a couple of key phrases and repeating them (in a natural way) can help to get your site listed higher in relevant Google searches (and on other search engines, too). The blurb on your homepage should only be a paragraph or so, but if you want to go into more detail, you can always create a longer version on a different page in the site and link to it.
• Publications/projects list: Finally, and perhaps most importantly, make a list of all of your publications and projects. In general, you’ll want your most recent publications to appear at the top of the list, but if an older book or article is more representative of your work (or has won a prize, received great reviews or been featured by the journal or publisher or anything like that), feel free to play around with the order. For journal articles, make sure to link to the version of record on the publisher’s website (this will help to improve the SEO for your article and make it more likely that people will cite it correctly). For books, you should link to the best place for people to buy a copy (this is usually the publisher’s website, too).

Where to now?

• Back: Promoting your research
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• Return to the ECR Hub homepage
• Ready to submit your article? Find the full list of Edinburgh University Press journals that you can submit to here
• Ready to submit your manuscript? Discover the step-by-step guide to publishing with Edinburgh University Press