Abstract
Social networks are a very relevant tool for businesses to connect efficiently with many users at the same time. It means that in the second decade of the 21st century, companies have strengthened their strategies to expand their influence. In the higher education context, social media can help develop teaching strategies. Nevertheless, are they also relevant to expanding the professional capacity of researchers? Given this, this research aims to determine whether they are relevant within the research field and how they use them according to the researchers' position and the professional objectives set.
TopOrganization Background
In a volatile market like the current one, understanding users is fundamental to determining their preferences to adjust brands' services and products (Nieto, 2015). However, users' behavior is affected by objective, psychological (Gómez & Prado, 2014), or subjective factors, as the impact of the publication of a news item on users (Fisher & Statman, 2000). Furthermore, this increases with the emergence of social networks in the 21st Century, which has had significant relevance in consumers' behavior (Owyand & Toll, 2007; O'Connor et al., 2008; De Moya & Jain, 2013; Pérez, 2017).
The constant evolution of the market has caused traditional communication channels to manage the well-known web 2.0 (Martínez & Sánchez, 2015). The relevance and evolution of digital networks are undisputed. They are considered meta-media both for their digital characteristics (navigation, search, reading, interaction) and presenting different multimedia content (Jensen, 2013; Campos Freire, 2015a).
Digital development allows meta-media to keep its basis on traditional markets' main characteristics but making continuous evolutions implementing simple innovations for users (Manovich, 2005). Among them, social networks have a relevant impact on the communication market (Manovich, 2008).
Social networks (arising from Web 2.0) are now powerful communication platforms: allow interaction between millions of users, thus becoming relevant media ecosystems (Beer, 2008; Stenger 2009; Campos Freire, 2015b). However, it is necessary to point out that social networks' germane impact on the communication sector relies on both tangible and intangible society's dynamic exchanges (Allee, 2009).
Therefore, traditional media and meta-media have become a fundamental part of companies' communication strategies (Carpentier, 2016).
Due to it, organizations expand their interest in social networks regarding the evolution of their role in communication channels (Barthel et al., 2015). Companies increasingly rely on mobile communication strategies to significantly impact users through social networks (Mitchell & Page, 2015). So much so communication managers have increased since 2010 their strategies to improve their impact within social networks (Lasorsa et al., 2011; Paulussen & Harder, 2014).
On the one hand, social networks have outstanding benefits to improve communication and interaction within a vast number of users simultaneously. On the other, they also present significant challenges requiring companies to make critical adjustments in their communication strategies (García, 2013). For this reason, their efforts have to focus on presenting content that allows them to capture and maintain their audience's loyalty (Lee, 2015).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Meta-Media: This term embraces the new communication meanings concerning the form, the contents, and their relations, in the development of new communications media and technologies.
ResearchGate: ResearchGate is a scientific, social network. It hosts more than 19 million researchers worldwide of all the scientific fields and over 130 million scientific publications.
Personal Brand: This concept refers to one person's fundamental characteristics that make him/her different and attractive to others. It is a common term in working contexts and implies the added value of the worker.
LinkedIN: LinkedIn is a social network addressed to put in contact professionals, both companies and employees. It gives job and career opportunities and has almost 700 million members all over the world.
Publons: Publons is an academic, social network. Its focus is mainly on scientific publications. It has over 200.000 researchers and 25.000 scientific journals.
Faculty: The whole academic staff in the university. They usually develop academic activities, like teaching, or organizing courses or seminars, and researching ones, like developing scientific publications or holding conferences.
Social media: Social media are online communication platforms in which their members also create content. They are based on Web 2.0 and social influence and interaction.