Social media can change the ways in which you undertake research and open up new forms of communication and dissemination. It can allow you to bridge disciplinary boundaries, engage in knowledge exchange with industry and policy makers, and provide a channel for public communication of your research.
Benefits of using social media for research purposes are outlined below
Identification of knowledge
Creation of knowledge
Dissemination of knowledge
Participating in social media does not mean you have to be a major producer of content. Your participation could be limited to tagging or liking a resource or responding to someone else via Twitter or Facebook.
Google Scholar citations profile
Create a profile and add your publications to enable researchers to find your research more easily. You can also track citations that your papers have received.
Make the most of your email signature
Add the details of your latest research to your email signature.
Make your research open access
Papers that are available open access can be accessed by anyone and are not hidden behind fee-walls.
Share your data
Research suggests that including the data underpinning your research can increase readership and citations.
Network
Networking via conferences and events is an excellent way to raise your profile and get your research known.
Talk to Marketing and Communications
DMU's Marketing and Communications Directorate can advise and help you with promoting your research. They have access to "the conversation" a service allowing journalists to write articles about your research for news outlets.
Each service offers different functionality and has its own culture.
Check out what your peers are using and choose the most appropriate tools. Remember, it is often better to do more with less.
Some of the main tools and services are listed below:
Social and professional networking services
Tools that enable groups of people to communicate, publish information about themselves, and build networks and collaborations. Examples include:Facebook; LinkedIn
Researcher-specific social networking services
Networking sites aimed at researchers that enable collaboration and sharing of knowledge. The sites also enable you to share open access versions of research papers and search for full-text access to other researchers' papers. Examples include:ResearchGate: Academia
Social bookmarking
Tools that allow you to store, tag, organise, share and search for bookmarks (links) to resources online. Users can see all items that share the same tag and discover resources that may otherwise have been missed. Examples include: Delicious; Diigo; BibSonomy
Blogging
A type of website maintained by an individual or small group. Blogs present a mix of opinion, news and other content and the comment feature enables two-way communication. They can be useful to build your profile as a researcher, gain ideas and help with collaboration and building of networks. Examples of blogging tools include: Blogger; Wordpress
Microblogging
Microblogs enable small pieces of writing or data to be made available online. They enable you to build up a network of followers and facilitate many-to-many communication through the comments features. Although they only allow you share a small amount of text, you can use microblogs to share links that point towards more substantial resources. The most well-known example is: Twitter
Citation sharing
Tools that enable you to store and manage references and automatically create bibliographies. You can also share what you are reading with others where copyright allows. DMU supports RefWorks as its reference management system, but open source tools also exist such as Mendeley and Zotero.
Multimedia sharing networks
These networks allow sharing of multimedia objects. Examples include: Presentations: Slideshare; Photographs: Flickr; Instagram; Video: Vimeo; YouTube.
Bit.ly and other services allow you to shorten URLs and use within tools such as Twitter.
Kudos provides tools to help you maximise readership and citations for your work by helping you: