A guide for academic self-promotion on Twitter and other fora

This is an expanded version of a thread I did recently on self-promotion. Many academics find the concept of self-promotion on social media somewhat icky, but it is often necessary, especially for junior academics. I find self-promotion by others very useful because it gives me the opportunity to learn new things from them, especially outside of the fields I am working on. 

 

While it's possible to be obnoxious in self-promotion (a topic for another time, perhaps) I think many people err on the side of under-promoting their own work. Here is a list of what I deem best practices, by which I mean, practices that are most helpful for the recipient. Since attention is a limited resource, these practices help the recipient to more efficiently decide: is this something I could be interested in? Writing from the perspective of the recipient, I do not intend to speak for everyone but it's a datapoint you can consider. 

1. Where to promote? I am a fan of Twitter. Facebook etc. is also fine though they are mostly to people who already know you. Twitter helps you to also reach new audiences and expand your network. Put in your bio your scholarly interests, maybe your bylines (recent book published, journals published in). I tend to follow back people who put something professional in their bio (e.g., "Early modern philosophy", "Chinese philosophy", "PhD student at XX"), but it's up to you. 
2. Do not hesitate to use the "pin" feature on Twitter. You can pin one link and you can change it to whatever you want your audience to find. I've found so many wonderful papers and books because people pin them! Especially something that will appeal to potentially a wider audience, you should pin. My personal sense is that a piece of public philosophy in a good venue (such as Aeon or Boston Review) is more useful to pin than a specialist academic article, because you reach journalists and people from other fields this way. Monographs are always good to pin.
3. When you link to the paper/book you wish to promote, put a brief description. I'm likely not going to click on a bald link or "My paper in [journal] just appeared," unless it's centrally in areas that interest me. Better is 1-2 sentences on what your main finding/idea is.
4. Paywalls are horrible. Many people you are in conversation with are not academics and still want to read what you have to say (e.g., alt-ac people, journalists). It's good practice to put a link to a freely available version, such as a latest draft on PhilPapers or your own website. In a second, linked tweet, you can put a link to the published version. This might matter for Altmetric and also for those people who want to see the final published version.
5. If you want to go above and beyond, you might consider a little thread (of linked tweets) summarizing the main points of your paper. I know it's effort but it is effort that pays off.  That helps viewers decide if they want to put in the effort of reading the entire paper, especially if it is not central to what they're working on.
6. If the research is in collaboration with junior colleagues, and you are senior, here's also an opportunity to lift them up. This is especially important for grad students/postdocs e.g., "lead author is [twitterhandle]--see their website for the cool stuff they're up to!"  Similarly, you can tag members of your team.
7. Attention is a zero-sum game, but it always pays to give credit generously. If you work with communities e.g., Indigenous communities, refugees etc, also important to make link to any web presence they have and amplify their voices. 
8. Worries about how often to promote yourself? While it may start to look self-aggrandizing at some point, the fact of the matter is there is so much out there, so much competition for attention, that I think it is OK to repeat-tweet something that had little uptake (don't retweet, just make a new tweet). The pin feature also gets rid of this worry.
9. I like to tweet works by others I find interesting. While this seems like it competes with self-promotion it makes your profile a more interesting place to spend time with. What I've seen some people do (but I don't have the discipline for that) make a challenge of reading/tweeting a new paper every day for a set period of time. It is also just nice to help to amplify work you find valuable, also work you had no hand in creating.
10. When to tweet your new publication? To me it seems fine to pick the following moments: when the paper is accepted (note, I like to play safe and not when still minor revisions are pending, YMMV) you could write "my paper [title] just got accepted in [journal]. If you like a copy, DM me". Once it appears you tweet a link to the paper and your own archived copy (see above). You could even be cheeky and reamplify once it gets assigned an issue. 

There's a lot competing for our attention--while there's only so much research people read in a day it's important to reach the widest potential audience. We benefit from reading widely, especially outside of our normal areas.

 

Good synergy happens.  So don't feel shy to self-promote. 

Comments

[sisyphus]

Any advice for those of us who have no social media and don't use it out of principle?

[Chris]

I'm in your category, Sisyphus (you can still do #4, of course, but without the tweeting).

What I've found, if you're not in principle also opposed to self-promotion, is that you can do some "old fashioned" things.
1. As a matter of routine, when you publish a paper, email copies to all of those you've thanked in the acknowledgments, thanking them again.

2. When you see someone publish a paper to which you think your work is relevant, you can send them an email (I found your argument X of interest, you may find my argument Y of interest...) This is of course especially good to do if you discuss that other person's views in your article (whether pro or con).

3. Go to conferences (virtual or on line). Participate.

4. Form informal on line (or in person, if you're located in the right places) reading groups in your subject areas. My impression is that these have flourished because of the pandemic. Start one by inviting a couple of your friends or colleagues you know who work in the same areas. Take turns presenting work in progress. They'll learn about your work and vice versa.

Maybe these are all obvious, I don't know. And perhaps my career would be better if I did use social media (I don't know). But I think lots of philosophers do just fine without it.

[early career]

I'd like to get my voice out there so that I might possibly speak for anyone who might be worried that they ought to do what his post recommends in terms of social media presence.

I find professional philosophy twitter utterly insufferable. From my vantage, it appears as nothing but obnoxious self-promotion, a place for fragile egos to be nurtured. I tuned in when the pandemic started out of boredom, and within two months had to unfollow every philosopher I had started following. There is just too much in-crowd energy for me; too much bad exclusivity that reminds me of the most absurd parts of high school.

Maybe that should all be endured for the sake of the benefits of self-promotion. Maybe. I'm not about it.