Science Communication: Tips for promoting your research

If you have an ORCID profile, a university page, or any other public page or social media account that connects you and your research, an easy place to start is just making sure it’s up to date and your latest work is there.

You can grant Crossref permission to automatically update your ORCID record with future publications, saving you time and helping you keep it up-to-date.

If you’d like to go a step further, you can also add these accounts and your latest articles to your email signature. Every email you send now provides recipients with quick and easy access to your work and professional profile. How many emails do you send each week?

Your journal or publisher will likely have their own press and marketing team with their own plans for highlighting research. If you’re interested in helping to promote your research it can’t hurt to drop an email to let them know.

• Create or update your ORCID profile
• Keep professional pages and social media updated
• Add links to your email signature
• Let journal or publisher marketing teams know you’re interested

When writing plain-language summaries, think about your intended audience. Is this something that might be of interest to researchers in related disciplines or interdisciplinary researchers, or is it something you want to be understood by a wide general audience. How much detail is useful for this audience and what can you take for granted?

Together with thinking about your audience you should consider where these summaries are going to live and how you’re going to put them in front of your audience. Your publisher or institution might run a blog or magazine which could be a good fit. Perhaps you have your own blog or website. And of course there’s a wide range of social media options too – we’ll come to these later.

Another thing to consider is how analogies can make complex topics understandable. Well known examples are “DNA: the building blocks of life” and “Mitochondria: the powerhouse of the cell”. We might lose some specificity or accuracy in doing this but we also open the doors to more people. In doing this it’s important to not overstate any claims or inadvertently mislead.

If you’ve published your research in eLife then there’s a chance it will be picked up for a digest. We can’t do this for every article but the eLife features team have also shared a collection of articles on what they’ve learned writing plain-language summaries if you’d like to try this yourself. There’s even more advice on offer in our plain-language summaries collection.

If you’re struggling to find the time you could see if other members of your author team are interested in this too or try using LLMs such as ChatGPT to help you distil your research quickly. If you use AI-based tools be sure to double check that the final outputs are accurate – you are, after all, still responsible for what you choose to share – and be transparent that you’ve used AI to help.

While plain-language summaries can be a useful exercise and help you learn how to explain your topic in different ways to different audiences, what do you do with them once you’ve written them?

• Cut the jargon or explain terms simply
• Use analogy to make complex ideas relatable
• Think about who your intended audience is and write for them
• Think about how and where you intend to share the summaries
• ChatGPT and other LLMs can help

If you want a deeper dive into how to get the most out of sharing your research on social media, and how to practise responsible science communication, check out our seven tips for discussing preprints on social media.

When you start thinking about using social media some useful questions to think about are:

1. Is there a conversation in your field already taking place on social media, and if so, which platforms?
2. Which social media platforms are you most familiar and comfortable with, and where do you already have a strong network?

Ideally the answers to these questions will be the same platform or two, but if not, think carefully about who you’re trying to reach and where they are.

If the buzz of the usual channels seems to have died down, check if the conversation has moved elsewhere, perhaps to newer channels like Mastodon or BlueSky.

Once you know who you’re trying to reach and where they are, plan how you’re going to communicate.

Snappy headlines and intriguing questions can help catch people’s attention and create engagement but this needs careful balancing so as not to overstate your claims or create unwanted ambiguity. Deciding on one key message for each post can help keep things brief and focussed. What’s the one thing you want your reader to take away from your post? Or what’s a question or statement that’s going to pique your reader’s interest and make them want more.

Placing your research in its wider context can also make your story more compelling as well as aid understanding. Bring in discussion of the significance and broader implications of your research and findings.

Depending on the platform you might be limited in how much you can say in any one post. Can you explain your topic in a few short paragraphs? Can you explain it in 256 characters?*

*Well, yes, the limit’s 280. But if you want to include a link to your research and a space it’ll take up 24 of those.

If character limits and the struggle to be brief is feeling too much, you can often convey information quickly and easily in a visual format. Images can also help get people’s attention. You can create something new or if your research includes eye-catching images or videos these can be a great addition to your posts. Put those gels and blots out there!

Tagging your research team and institution on social media can help boost your message and get it in front of new audiences. Use hashtags relevant to your field and research to join in ongoing conversations and help people interested in your topic find you.

Where you can, work your hashtags into your post, but if that doesn’t work, you can easily add them on at the end. Using camelcase hashtags (e.g. #EvolutionaryBiology) where each word is capitalised, can help readability and accessibility of hashtags.

While social media can sometimes feel like shouting into the void, don’t forget it’s a conversation. When people engage with your posts, try to respond helpfully, answer questions or clarify misunderstandings.

• Think about which platforms to prioritise - where is the conversation happening?
• Convey your message simply and succinctly
• Use images to help convey information and stand out
• Use hashtags and tag your research team and institution
• Don’t forget it’s a conversation

If you’re interested in publicising your research, start by letting your institution’s and/or publisher’s press team know about this once your paper has been published or accepted for publication. When you reach out to them, it would be helpful to share a plain-language summary of your work, as well as letting them know when you will and won’t be available for press interviews in case the opportunity comes up.

The press team should then be able to let you know whether or not they’re able to work with you on some media outreach for your work. If they are, they may want to collaborate on a press release and accompanying media kit that they can share with their relevant media contacts, and will work with you to gather any information, quotes and other materials they may need for this.

You can draft a press release and prep your media kit by yourself, or if the step above proved successful, by working with a press office. Whichever of these approaches you take, your press release should clearly state the findings of your research, the significance of those findings and any important implications, and some description of how the research was conducted. You could also include two or three quotes from yourself and other authors or experts to add individual voices and ‘colour’ to the story. If you’re looking for examples or inspiration, you can find hundreds of press releases our team has created for eLife papers.

Once you’ve prepared your press release, you can add it to your press kit – a shareable folder or space that can also include more background information such as your research team’s bios and affiliations, and any images, videos or graphics (as well as the appropriate credits and captions for these materials) that can help tell the story and catch people’s eyes. The press kit should be linked somewhere at the end of the release and included in any emails to journalists when it comes time to pitch.

If your press team has agreed to work with you on a press release, they will also help with pitching it to their relevant media contacts to gauge interest in your findings. They should then inform you of any media interest in your research and work with you to respond to any requests for other materials, interviews, or anything else that journalists may have asked for.

If you’re pitching a press release yourself, you may already have an idea of who you’d like to contact. Pull together a contact list and brief email explaining why you think they might be interested in your story, including a summary of your findings in two or three sentences and a link to your media kit. Add a line at the end offering yourself up for interviews and providing an idea of when you’d be available to speak further.

When pulling your contact list together, remember to keep your desired audience in mind. Who are they and which publications are likely to reach them? Be wary of working with controversial outlets or media outlets that may exaggerate stories to achieve juicy headlines, and only consider those that will reach your audience in a way that you’d prefer and is appropriate for your research. If you’re unsure about any outlets you’re considering, you should feel free to speak to your institution's or publisher’s press team to get their advice.

If you do get press interest in your research and a journalist reaches out to you for an interview, either in person, over the phone or via email, think about the key messages you’d like to get across and how you can consistently frame them. Messages in the media and marketing tend to be effective partly through repetition.

After pitching your work and/or participating in any media interviews, keep an eye out for any potential coverage (although remember that this is never guaranteed). If you do achieve a noteworthy mention anywhere, you may wish to share your success on social media or anywhere else as you prefer.

Even if your research doesn't get its own story in the press right away, you might be able to give useful commentary on other stories under your expertise or a story might eventually break that brings your research into the spotlight. Follow relevant news publications, stay up to date with the latest developing stories, and let journalists know that you’re willing and available to comment on stories and why you are well placed to give expert commentary.

• Have your plain-language summaries ready
• Make contact and let people know you’re available
• Draft a press release* and get basic information ready to go
  *Or work with your institution’s or publisher’s press team on this
• Be consistent with your talking points and key messages
• Look for other stories your expertise would be valuable to