It is easy to discard social media as another gimmick for big international companies to collect information about us or as a platform to promote insignificant exchange of information about our daily lives.   The point has been made before, social media is a vast network and, yes, it promotes the dissemination of futile information, but it has something traditional media do not always offer: it is democratic – if you have access to the internet – and it is free.  The question is: can we use it to increase academic research impact and accelerate innovation.

I am not an expert in social media.  Indeed, a few months ago, like many academics I have met, I was the biggest sceptic.  Like many academics I meet, Catherine Manthorpe had similar concerns about social media.  Indeed I thought that social medial as a waste of time, a waste of my time.  I had no intention to tell the world what I do with my private life, and I still don’t.  At the same time, I could see that, ignoring the largest platform of networking in the world would mean, for my team, missing the boat… and it would be a long swim to catch up.

How to begin?

So I took the plunge, literally.  I gathered information – I am still gathering information; enrolled in a workshop given by Victoria Tomlinson from Northern Light PR and I created a social media strategy for my team.  It is a slow process, mostly because I am careful, but also because I want to do it right.

You can ask: why bother with the efforts it takes to use social media when most of us have websites?  Surely that web presence is more than enough to leave our mark on the virtual society.  Websites are great portals to our world but are they sufficient?  Let’s be honest, most websites are not that brilliant at reaching target audiences and at giving ‘informative’ and succinct information.  Furthermore, people have to find it when they search the web.

Fair enough, rich content will get your website at the top of the Google search, but if you end up on the second page, most of the time, you have missed your chance.  I do look at the first couple of pages, but not everyone will do.  In other words, you need to take a good look at your website and place yourself in the mind of your target audience, make it attractive to them, not to you.  As a end user, I like to find the information quickly; I don’t like reading lots of detailed information – best to link to another page for more details; and I certainly don’t have time to search through a website forever.  If you want to attract your target audience, that’s where social media can be useful.

Where to go?

So let’s suppose I follow you on twitter.  You let me know about your discovery in 140 characters; that has to be catching and informative enough to attract me to the right page on your website with a link.   If you doubt it would work, I have a very good example: I follow @MIT: they posted their discoveries and you can find out about them before they get picked up by the BBC.

There are dozens of social networks and I see little point in signing up to all of them.  Firstly, it takes time to create effective profiles and develop networks.  Then those networks have to be nurtured.  Belonging to a network is not enough.  Like any other relation, collaboration, partnership or business, you have to work at it.  I’m not saying you have to spend all your time talking; a lot of it is listening and approving (or not) what you read.  Hence the like/dislike and follow buttons are useful tools to nurture your relations.

The essentials: objective and contingency

There are 2 aspects to your social media strategy.  Firstly, what is your objective – i.e. what do you want to get out of it and what is your target audience?  Define your target audience: find out what they want, what they need. Don’t sell yourself -which seems to be contrary to logic – but be there to help, let them know what you are doing, what you are organising – ok that’s a bit of selling- and, most importantly, what’s in it for them… then you tell them what it was like (those who were there are more likely to remember you next time you organise an event!) Pictures are worth a thousand words and, let’s face it; twitter only gives you 140 characters to send your message.  So, think about a great punch line, maybe add a picture and definitely a link to your website.

Secondly is your contingency plan. Social media gets people talking about you and it has a vast reach for good and bad things.  Of course, we all want good publicity but not all kind of publicity is good.  I don’t want to be the scaremonger but there is one thing we tend to forget about the internet: when you click sent, even on private settings or even if you remove it right away, the information is out there forever.  So use social media wisely and include a section in your strategy about dealing with negative outcomes.  Forgetting it or burying it is not the best option.  The internet has such a wide reach, things can turn out to have worst outcome that you envisaged and it can happen very fast.  I cannot give you a contingency strategy, it has to be aligned with your own organisation, but do remember to prepare one, or, at least, to think about it.

Academic Research Impact

That brings me to one last issue I would like to raise: does vast reach means great impact?  From an academic point of view, it would be great if the number of followers and ‘likes’ would be proportionate to the impact a research project has had on society, but is it a true indicator of success?  Personally, I don’t think it is always the case.

Fair enough the quantity is important but, paraphrasing the answer Victoria Tomlinson gave to a similar question after her talk at the Health and Pharma UIST conference 2014, the true metrics of research impact is not on the thousands who know about it, but on the few people on which the research has had a direct and significant effect.  In a way, the more people read about the scientific discovery, the more likely it will reach the person for which it will have a true impact.

I work for Research and Innovation Services at the University of Southampton, and, although I wish it was different, I know a large proportion of the academic impact will not bring direct financial gain.  However, letting people know what you have done can allow you and your expertise to be identified by industry and, who knows where it could lead… I’m here to help and keep the virtual dialogue going!

Dr Brigitte A. Lavoie, Collaboration Manager for Health and Pharma

Research and Innovation Services, University of Southampton