Social media can serve a useful and direct purpose for businesses looking for ways to sell their products and services and promote their brands. Of course, there are other ways to take advantage of social media. Most people use social media to socialize, communicate with family and former colleagues, and keep in touch with old classmates. Facebook grew out of the idea of a technological way to keep in touch with people. Facebook adds 500,000 new accounts every day. This equates to 6 new profiles per second (Smith, 2019). So who exactly is on your Facebook friends list? Who is subscribed to your channel on YouTube? Who is retweeting your tweets?, If you want to extend your influence beyond your area of expertise, you need to establish a strong connection base within your network. The average person has 5.54 social media accounts (Smith, 2019). Whatever their purpose, will these accounts be projected across multiple platforms? Who is engaged? These are all important questions about your potential reach as an individual. The point is that if you want to be involved in community activities at work, you must first be active in that particular community.
Research Communication relies on scientists and faculty contributing research papers, chapters, and proceedings. Now let's turn around and focus on another way scientists are using social media to advance their research. All social media channels have the potential for massive reach, but it all depends on who you connect with and who you hire. However, while the rapid and active aspect of social media may deter skeptical researchers from publications, good response and rapid responses may increase the researchers' credibility. Research is about generating new information, and social media offers a unique opportunity to showcase new content. As scientists, once we publish our research, we want to share it with as many colleagues and people as possible to read new insights. I want to share my hard work with many people. Nearly all researchers send emails to colleagues and individuals within their institution. This is essentially the first step in promoting your research. What if you could take it one step further and reach out to the scientific community through social media? Perhaps you already have social media accounts and have accounts that are relevant to the scientific community. Research Gate is a popular academic social media portal. Research Gate is a website that provides a forum for scientists to share and discuss research and find collaborators. Share your research results on your personal account so only those you contact can see them. However, if she is active in various communities related to her field or on sites of special interest and participates in regular discussions with other researchers on those sites, potentially wider reach. Again, it all depends on what you want to achieve with your research.
Social media can be useful and direct purpose for businesses that sell a product or service and are searching for ways to advertise their brand. Of course, there other ways to use social media. Most people use social media to be, well, social, and communicate with family, former colleagues, or keep in touch with old classmates. The idea of a technological way of staying in touch with people is how Facebook was created. Facebook adds 500,000 new accounts each day, which equates to 6 new profiles every second (Smith, 2019). So who exactly is in your friends list on Facebook? Who is subscribing to your channel on YouTube? Who is re-tweeting your tweets? If you want to broaden your impact beyond your discipline, you need to have a strong base of connections in your network. The average person has 5.54 social media accounts (Smith, 2019). Of those accounts, whatever one’s goal is, is it being projected across multiple platforms? Exactly who is engaged? These are all important questions that deal with your potential reach as an individual. The bottom line is if you seek community engagement in what you are doing, you must first be active in that particular community.