How to help your research change the world
You undertook your research because you believe it is important and will make a difference – to your colleagues, your clients, your practice and your discipline. Publishing a research article is just the first step in this process; now you need to make sure people are interested in reading your article and applying your findings. Often this means reaching an audience beyond those who would traditionally be interested in your article, such as professionals in adjacent fields, policymakers and the public.
One of the most common questions I get from researchers and authors is, “What can I do to make sure my article makes an impact?” Many authors are surprised to learn how much they can affect the discoverability, readership and impact of their work. Let us talk about some of the key actions you can take to ensure your research makes the impact it should and you get the recognition you deserve.
Understanding SEO
The bad news first: SEO (search engine optimisation) means extra work for you while writing and preparing your manuscript. The good news? It is worth it. Did you know that nearly 60 per cent of your readers will find your article via a search engine like Google and 75 per cent of people never scroll past the first page of search results? (Ahern, 2019). These statistics mean that you cannot ignore SEO if you want your article to be discovered by your audience.
Main considerations
Keywords.Choose between five and 10 keywords or phrases. Use these in your title, abstract subheadings and keyword fields. Let them flow naturally to avoid ‘keyword stuffing’, a practice that could lead to Google de-indexing your paper.
Title. Keep it to 15 words or less and put the main concept or findings at the beginning.
Abstract. Place your main findings in the first two lines. You need to convince your reader that your article is more relevant to them than the other results they have found.
Build links. Google ranks content according to how relevant and important it seems and it judges this with an automated web-crawler (not a human!). Link to your article from your institution’s website, your professional profile page(s) and add a link to your article as a reference in relevant Wikipedia pages. The more high-quality links Google sees pointing to your article, the higher it will rank it in search results.
I cannot overstate the importance of good SEO practices. Keep this infographic handy when writing your papers.
Sharing post-publication
Often, authors assume they lose all control over their paper once it is published. Of course, publishing an open- access paper under a creative commons licence means you, as the author, retain full copyright of your article. But even with a ‘traditional’ copyright transfer agreement, where you give your copyright to the owner of the journal, you can still share your article widely and employ effective promotional tactics to increase the readership and impact of your work. If your article is in Australian Journal of Psychology (AJP), Australian Psychologist (AP) or Clinical Psychologist(CP), you can use the Wiley Content Sharing feature to create a link to a read-only version of your article that you can share via email, social media, online profiles, websites, blogs and institutional repositories.
Engage your audience
Engagement is about connecting with your readers. If you want to engage with readers outside of your specific research field, you’ll need to enhance your article with other pieces of content in different media formats. The following are some ideas to consider.
Write a blog post. A blog can give you a chance to summarise your findings in simple language, or highlight a particular point for a specific audience. Post on a friends, colleagues or your own blog. This has the added benefit of creating another link to your article to boost your SEO efforts.
Create a podcast. Does your institution, professional society or colleague have a podcast? Offer to discuss your research for an episode.
Write for The Conversation. This is a great way to build your profile and reach a more general audience. If you’re wondering how to write for a lay audience, check out some tips on the Wiley Network.
Add a video. Research clearly identifies videos as an especially effective way to connect with your audience.
- Articles on the Wiley Online Library that have a video averaged 111 per cent higher full text views and 447 per cent higher Altmetric Attention scores than articles that don’t.
- Data shows that video is a trusted source of information for 40 per cent of millennials (Hall, 2019).
- More than 70 per cent of internet users in Australia accessed YouTube in 2019 (Chaffney, 2019).
If you are publishing in AJP, AP or CP, visit Wiley Author Services to learn how you can create a video abstract for your article.
If you are promoting your content on social media, all of these extra pieces of content will be useful in creating posts and encouraging conversation about and engagement with your research.
Promote via social media
Social media is a great way to reach a global audience of people who would be interested in your research. It can help you connect with researchers who might otherwise not see your work, or to explain your research to the general public, clients, advocacy groups and policy makers. The major social media networks include Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Each will serve a different purpose and achieve different goals. I want to focus on Twitter here, as the number of scholars, academics and researchers using this platform has increased rapidly in the past 10 years (Lupton, 2014; Priem, 2011; Veletsianos, Kimmons, Belikov, & Johnson, 2018).
Half of the global Twitter users in 2019 were between the ages of 25 and 44, which means this is a platform you can use to engage with early-career researchers and those who will be shaping the policy and practice of your discipline in the future.
Again, it is important to think about how you can create engaging posts about your research. There are many components to ensuring that you use the platform effectively, but keep the following points in mind.
Be brief. Although you can use 280 characters, shorter tweets get a higher engagement rate. It also ensures others will be able to retweet without editing your post.
Add value. Share relevant content that acts as a resource for your audience.
Tweet regularly. You need to tweet at least several times a day to build up an audience. Experiment with different formats (facts, questions, discussion points) to find out which format engages your audience the most.
Use hashtags. Hashtags make your tweets more searchable. Use specific hashtags and limit them to two per tweet.
Be social. Follow individuals, news outlets and organisations. Interact with your community, retweet and comment on others’ posts.
Use multimedia. Add images, GIFs and videos to your tweets.
Measure your impact
After putting in all this extra work, you want to make sure it is all worth it, right? There are many ways to measure the impact of your article, but one of the most comprehensive (and easiest to use) is the Altimetric Explorer. You can look up your article and see all the activity that has occurred online around it – tweets, blog posts and mentions in news outlets.
This is a great way to see if you have reached your intended audience. It can also help you identify useful connections on Twitter to grow your profile and community.
The work you do is so important and I hope I’ve helped you learn more about how you can help ensure your work continues to change the world.
The author can be contacted at [email protected]