Unleash your brand! using social media as a marketing tool in academia

Abstract

This article presents a guiding framework on how to use social media as a marketing tool for academic researchers. We present fundamentals of a modern communication strategy, which is tailored to the needs of scholars and highlights the importance of personal brands, especially in academia. We offer concrete recommendations regarding target audiences and discuss various social media channels, including researcher-specific platforms such as SSRN, Mendeley, or ResearchGate. We then present an organizational approach to managing social media activities on a daily basis. In particular, we outline a workflow that can be used to efficiently manage social media activities. Because various social media sites differ fundamentally not only in their architecture but also in regard to their optimal use, we finally point out operational recommendations to increase effectivity throughout a researcher’s portfolio of social media channels.