Research Thing 5 - Social media for researchers

I just read the article by Inger Mewburn and Pat Thomson: Academic attention economy. 

I chose this post to read because I follow Inger Mewburn's blog the Thesis Whisperer, and I am doing her MOOC on Suviving the PhD.

Should academics blog? That is the question. I just listened to a podcast the other day from the Australian Writers' Centre and the impact on sales of books that people recommend on social media is amazing. So economically, it pays to blog, but the impact comes from the audience passing it on as a "word of mouth" form of marketing.

So what about academics? In this climate, it is said it is not about quantity published, but about the quality of the articles. However, if no-one knows about it, what's the point? What impact will that have? The experiment of the blogged article that was also open access in Studies in Higher Education saw a massive readership / views  and had impact in mainstream media too. For those academics who are more "traditional", they may be missing a huge market / audience that can also further market or recommend the work and thus get societal impact and be known as an expert in their selected field. So in this case, quantity, in terms of impact, does matter.

As humans, we like to engage in conversation. Academics, who prefer to remain it their ivory towers, and not evolve and adapt to this new social enviroment, may just become non-existent. It is true Darwinian theory here of survival of the fittest. Those that are more proactive and social in various online forms of medium will have more impact. Some might say those with the loudest voice, but I think the quality will still have to be there and be relevant for the audience that is targeted, for the publication to gain readership numbers and "get noticed" and create dialogue.