Open and reproducible research can benefit from being communicated to a broad audience through social media, blog posts and newsletters.

These types of communication are informal, and typically published directly by the writer without little or no editorial processing. The target audience thereby differs from that of journal articles and other formal publishing or research communications. Good enough practice for publishing blog posts, tweets etc. therefore differ from those for formal scientific communication.

In the next section you find pointers useful to consider in when using different social media channels: newsletters and blog posts on the one hand, and social media (such as LinkedIn and Twitter) on the other. Following this, are some common practices for various types of social media dissemination.

Newsletter and blog posts

  • In a newsletter, summarize the research ‘news’ in a Lay Summary. Link and reference to the original work, and give attributions to contributors.
  • In a blog post, you can write a longer popular science summary of the research, or describe some aspects of it – e.g. a case example, an impact it is already showing, or a story on where and how it was presented. Link and reference to the original work, and give attributions to contributors.
  • In newsletters and blogs ensure there is continuity. A blog with only one blog post is less efficient in communication than a blog where new blog posts are added every so often. The same goes for newsletters. It may be better to find or create a newsletter or blog with a broader scope, if news are regularly posted there. Include blog maintenance time in your plan to ensure that comments are answered and new blog posts/newsletters are published at the frequency you want.

Social media

Here, the purpose is to ping on the radar of a big audience, and make sure relevant stakeholders and interest groups notice your research. Therefore:

  • Go for short key messages, and insert a link to a blog post that describes the work in more detail (preferably) and/or to the original journal article/research output.
  • ‘Mention’ contributors by naming them with links to their relevant social media profiles (important for both attribution and broader reach).
  • Add relevant, subject-specific #hashtags, for example to the project or program that the work is part of, but also to topics that have established hashtags on the social media channel and are subject to living discussions or trending topics (obs: that are relevant).

Note that some audiences, such as certain interest groups or people in a specific location/profession/etc. are more important to target than others. The tweet that is seen by the largest (general) audience may not always be the one that is most impactful. Having your posts shared or re-tweeted by key members, or in important groups can be an effective way to reach a wide audience. Being active on the social media channels where you want to use, interacting with relevant people there, including re-sharing their content (that is of relevance to you and your work) can therefore be a helpful practice “in-between” your own postings.

You may be interested in the following relevant practices for blogs, newsletters and social media.

Using social media, newsletters and blogs to communicate your research is valuable when you want to disseminate your work outside your scientific community. However, since everyone is editor of their own posts on social media, it is important to share content in a way that supports its reproducibility and protects its integrity.

In these informal communications, use a less technical language, adapt your writing style to the audience and make it accessible to non-experts. Avoid jargon and abbreviations that are common within your discipline but not known outside your field of research.

You don’t have to wait until the end to communicate. While journal articles report on completed research output, social media communication can be used to communicate during the project, to solicit stakeholders interest, and to increase collaboration.

Be careful though, to not disclose scientific contributions before they are published as formal academic publications!

Licensing

Ensure the information shared is referenced correctly and that it is licensed under a CC BY license that dictates how you and others are allowed to use and share the material.

This is particularly important for images and pictures, as they are often (re-)shared via social media potentially contravening a license - e.g. in the case of a plot or diagram taken from a paywalled publication.

For more information, please refer to the Licensing practice

Attribution

Make sure all contributors are attributed fairly. This increases in importance the more comprehensive the material shared, e.g. more important in a blog post or newsletter than a tweet. In shorter formats, it is good practice to attribute to the contributors by adding links to their profiles on the social media platform of choice (e.g. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook). Attributing contributors there also helps to gain and provide visibility.

For more information, please refer to the Attribution practice

Referencing

This is digital communication. Therefore, use hyperlinks to guide your readers to more information, and always to the original articles and open science outputs.

For more information, please refer to the Referencing practice

Useful resources

From The Turing Way handbook to reproducible, ethical and collaborative data science: