Social media is the new frontier. It’s the place to share knowledge, discuss research, and promote your in-progress and completed work. While all of this is well and good, the scope of social media is also daunting. How can you make an impact in oversaturated spaces? How do you know what part of your research to share and when? Most of these issues can be solved with this simple advice: just post daily.
Goal-setting for beginners
Before crafting your first perfect post, or even generating a profile, it’s important to determine what your goal is. This could look different for everyone, but generally, you’ll be choosing between three options: promoting your work, looking for jobs, and establishing a community. Of course, you can tackle all three pillars, but if you’re new to posting on social media, it’s best to start small.
Choosing your main platform
It’s tempting to stick to strictly academic platforms, such as SciProfiles and LinkedIn, and for good reason. These spaces are tailored to academics and professionals looking to boost their careers and make business connections. Discussion centers around progress, research, and community building. And these are the best places to test the waters when it comes to your content and workload (because posting on social media, even if just for yourself, is work). Additionally, because they prioritize written content over video, the barrier to entry is even lower. Anyone can type into the designated “create post” box, but there’s a steeper learning curve to filming and editing a video. Learning how to create all forms of content will come with time, especially if you’re consistently posting. But worrying about every possible outlet for your research today is not necessary.
Trial and error: social media engagement
The internet is a fickle place. Even on sites like SciProfiles, where your target audience is pretty much baked into the platform, the algorithm isn’t always going to showcase your posts. You have to train the platform to recognize your posts and boost their engagement. You do this through repetition and dedication: posting daily.
Your to-do list, provided by SciProfiles
Now, posting daily doesn’t mean putting anything that comes to mind out there. Maybe that works on platforms like X or when you’re not trying to build a community, but on social media for academics, this is not guaranteed to work. You can follow this handy checklist, though, to make sure you have set yourself up for maximum viewership:
- Your following and followers lists. Have you curated these to suit your interests and intended message? If you’re sharing your research, you’ll want to connect with other academics in your field. If you’re looking for opportunities, you’ll want to focus on people who work for the institutions you want to join. If someone can go to your profile and see that their research and network align with yours, they’ll be more inclined to keep checking your page. This will help you get more clicks on your posts.
- Be thoughtful. Are you typing just to type, or do you have a content strategy you’re following? Social media users appreciate well-made content. They’ll see you as an authority, will be more inclined to develop a relationship with you, and more keen to keep following your work. While the internet is full of funny and viral moments, if you’re after a professional goal, you’ll want to maintain a professional edge in your posts.
- Speaking of strategy, with your goal in mind, how are you building your content around it? If it’s drumming up excitement for your research, consider speaking about your daily progress. Maybe it’s a failure you want to share, a question you have to ask, or a breakthrough. Share the highs and lows of your progress. This invites people into a narrative they can easily track and engage with. Even if you’re looking for work, making yourself relatable has its perks. Not every resume will be chosen, and being honest with your audience about your rejections and where you want to improve can spark conversation and make you seem approachable. Everyone was a beginner once. You yourself may be one. Embrace that.
Monitoring your social media posts’ metrics
Not every day of the week is ripe in terms of engagement. Notably, weekdays during the morning and evening, especially in the earlier half of the week, are the best times to post. So if you’re committed to posting every day (and you should be, since the algorithm rewards activity, and the more you make yourself known to the platform, the more you’ll be made known to their userbase), expect to see dips in your progress. That being said, posting at a prime time doesn’t guarantee success.
Keep note of how many comments, likes, and messages you receive after every post. Did people respond better to your content when you focused on a certain topic? Certain angle? Is there a format they prefer, such as long-form written content over brief updates? Some platforms track these metrics for you, and others may require you to write them down by hand. Either way, these metrics will also help you cross-post. If a short-form post performed well on SciProfiles, it can easily be translated to X. If a long-form post saw success on SciProfiles and LinkedIn, review the comments you received, and determine what the highlights of your post were. What points did people gravitate towards? Take those points and make them short-form content suitable for Stories on Instagram and Facebook.
Some things to consider
Social media, even if you’re not making money from it, is a job. You have to stay up-to-date, continuously expand your network, and maintain professionalism. It’s a lot, especially when you consider the other stressors in your life. Like all jobs, balance is needed to avoid burnout. Here are a few ways to ensure you meet your goals without impacting your mental health:
- Create content for a few posts at once. This way, you can schedule your content to post on a daily basis without having to actually craft them every single day. You’ll know that the information is unique, well-created, and ready to go. This gives you much needed downtime throughout the week.
- Limit your screentime in general. You don’t need to be on 24/7 in order to boost your career or research. It’s okay to have a set time to solely dedicate to building your social media pages. Some people may need an hour, others less. Find what works for you. And maybe don’t doom scroll between your dedicated hours. That can drag you down, too.
One last thing: being thoughtful means determining what information can and should go out into the world. Open science is an invaluable resource that social media promotes. Much like preprints and open access publishers, posting your research on social media gives the general public access to your insights. This is a blessing, since more eyes means more viewpoints to engage with an learn from, as well as knowing that you’re breaking down barriers to information. It also means you can be misinterpreted or have your work stolen. Make sure you know your rights, what’s considered “published” on the internet, and what can be kept under wraps if you’re working on something particularly sensitive. Share! And share most everything. But use your discretion, too.
Post now, not later
We’ve all been exposed to social media, meaning we all know what we like to see and what we want more of. Use your preferences to your advantage. Create content that best represents who you are as a researcher and a person. Be strategic, but also have fun. At the end of the day, you’ll be collaborating with academics from all over. This is an exciting time to be online. Embrace those connections and just post!