This document discusses how social media can be used to strengthen visibility as an expert. It notes that while social media is a good match for research through collaboration and sharing knowledge, many researchers are uneasy with self-promotion. However, the document provides examples of researchers who saw career benefits from blogging and tweeting about their work, including increased downloads, reads, and citations. It encourages researchers to make their work open, accessible, and visible to broader audiences through social media in order to increase its impact and benefit more people.

1. Visibility Matters
How can I use social media to strengthen my visibility as an expert – and why?
Ilkka Olander 2013 | @olanderil |
sometek.fi

2. Social Media + Research
 Social media + research = match made in
heaven?
 Isn’t science all about collaboration & sharing of
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knowledge?
 You need citations to advance your career. To get
citations you need readers. How about social media?
 Yet there are not too many researchers / artists
active in social media. Why?

3. Why are academics uneasy using social media?
1. Who has the time anyway?
2. Fears: Danger of oversimplifying, loss of
objective image, others will steal my ideas…
3. I don’t like self-promotion  "Shouldn't the
quality of my work speak for itself?"
 Most of us want to "be found" (myth) and let others
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praise us for our work.
 Build it and they will come. No they will not.
 You need to put effort in getting your work in front of
people.

4. And yet many of us feel deep inside…
 "My work is important. Too few
people appreciate it."
World is full of talent that don't get the
attention they deserve
 Because they don’t have the visibility.
 ”It’s not about what you can do, but who you
know”
 Don't let it happen to you (lack of visibility).
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5. So…How can I strenghten
my visibility with social
media?
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6. = Better Career.

7. Case: Research papers + blogging & tweeting
 Professor Melissa Terras tested how blogs and
Twitter would affect her career. She blogged
and tweeted about all her 26 scientific
articles.
 The articles where published and already available
from the internet open access archive.
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9. Case: Research papers + blogging & tweeting
 Terras quickly became the most popular
author in her department.
 7/10 of the most downloaded articles was hers.
 She was the only person in her department to share
her work in social media.
 It is OK to publish your past work. Just make
it easy to access & digest (“re-package”).
 You may get readers, but what about
citations?
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10. “Highly tweeted articles were 11
times more likely to be highly
cited than less tweeted articles”
Eysenbach, G. [2011] “Can Tweets Predict Citations?”

11. My experiences – Sometek.fi
 I’ve been blogging for 2 years at sometek.fi,
written total of 59 blog posts.
 I share every blog post in social platforms such as
Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ & Facebook
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 Result?

12. SOMETEK.FI - STATS
2+ Years of blogging. 1-2 articles / month
96645 PAGE VIEWS
34052 VISITORS
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13. Blogs & site traffic
 Business blogging research by HubSpot 2012
(data from 7000 companies):
 Blog can increase site’s traffic up to 5 times
 Companies with over 200 blog articles create 5 times
more leads than those with 10 or fewer.
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14. ”Content is the King”
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CONTENT:
Interesting
entertaining
useful
• SOCIAL MEDIA
SHARES
• BETTER SEO
• REPEAT VISITORS
RESULTS
IN THE
WEB

15. sometek.fi

16. Academia doesn’t reward yet for social media
activity.
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17. But there are other benefits..
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18. But there are other benefits..
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19. Readers & Impact
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20. sometek.fi

21. Research =
Open? Accessible? Visible?

22. Who’s listening?
 It doesn't matter how brilliant your research
is, if nobody (except a handful of colleagues) is
listening
 Ethics: if society funds science / art, it deserves the
benefits. Results should be open, free and accessible.
 Knowledge should be packaged so that it is easy to
digest for a broader audience - not just for a small
circle of collegues.
 Tiina Raevaara's thoughts on open science
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23. Case: World Bank Reports
 What if someone has figured out the answers to
the worlds most pressing policy problems, but
the solutions are buried deep in a PDF that
nobody reads?
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24. Reports – readership

25. How come?
 Most of the reports are
 Long & highly technical. Tough reads even for a
journalist specialized in business.
 Published as PDF on organization's web site.  no
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Google love 
 Or even worse: they are behind publisher’s paywall.
 This study says, that 90% of scientific articles have 0
citations and 50% is read only by the referees &
journal editors.
 Is there a better way to communicate? Well..

26. ”If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t
understand it well enough.”
– Albert Einstein
wwsowm.seotmeke.tfeik.fi

27. Avointiede.fi - Open Access Publishing
 Research is published immediately in web and
is accessible for all. It has at least 3 benefits:
1. Better visibility of research
2. Research has more effect on society
3. More innovations (research gets applied to all
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sorts of projects)

28. Where good ideas come
from?
Networks & Connections
”Half ideas”, remix, serendipity
Open, free, visible
Photo by Nina Matthews Photography - Creative Commons Attribution License https://www.flickr.com/photos/21560098@N06 Created with Haiku Deck

29. CONNECTIONS  IDEAS
Photo by Nina Matthews Photography - Creative Commons Attribution License https://www.flickr.com/photos/21560098@N06 Created with Haiku Deck

30. PERSONAL. IT
ACTUALLY MATTERS
TODAY
Photo by Haags Uitburo - Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License https://www.flickr.com/photos/8816624@N08 Created with Haiku Deck

31. OLD SCHOOL: BRANDS
WERE BUILT FROM
TOP-DOWN.
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32. NEW SCHOOL: BRANDS
ARE BUILT FROM
BOTTOM-UP.
Photo by Haags Uitburo - Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License https://www.flickr.com/photos/8816624@N08 Created with Haiku Deck

33. In Social Media Personal = Better
 Each person’s personal visibility contributes
to the visibility of the whole organization.
 In social media brands are built from the
bottom-up, not top-down.
 Persons beat organizations in social  It’s common,
that people have more followers than their
organizations
 @mikko (F-secure), @alexstubb (Kokoomus),
@tuomasenbuske (Radio nova, MTV)…
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34. P2P = Person to Person
sometek.fi
 It’s P2P not B2B.
 We love people, that are passionate about their work and
show it with their ideas, actions and views.
 It’s important, that personnel give face to the
organization.  Something to relate to.
 What kind of people you are and what sort of things you
do? What is your working culture?
 What are your interests, what are your views about issues
in your field?
 What’s actually happening there?
 Students, partners & clients want to know this stuff!

35. We are all marketers in social media
 Traditional roles in organizations:
1. Experts feel that their work is done, when the report is in
press. Communicating the work to the outside world 
"not my business".
2. Journalist / marketer doesn't have the time to go through a
hundred page (boring) text to find out something
newsworthy and interesting for the audience.
 Does it have to be this way?
 Social media has made us all citizen-journalists.
 Communication is a key skill, needed in almost any
profession. No reason to say proudly ”I’m not a marketer”..
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37. The Google Test
 What do you get when someone Googles your
 Organization, department
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 Your name, your work
 Terms in your field of expertise = niche
 Is there any stuff out there? Do you have a
digital footprint?
 Nothing found?  suspicious
 Instantly visible track record  trust

38. Thank you!
I L K KA OL ANDE R
SOME T E K . F I
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