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Unless you’ve lived under a rock over the last few years, you know content is king, and online content marketing is the new black. Good content is incredibly effective, particularly when it comes to scholarly content.
The Importance of Content Marketing in Academia
But with every content producer on the planet—from the individual researcher to The Lancet—producing scholarly content and getting your research, blog post, infographics, etc., noticed is an ever more challenging task. That amazing piece of content that you spent time and money on may find itself on the back shelves of that online journal or in the deepest corners of the web, waiting to be discovered…
So, how do you ensure your content reaches its target audience?
Unless you’re basing your dissemination plan on your scholarly content ‘going viral’ (that’s about as likely as you answering — ‘What’s the meaning of life?’), you should start with a content distribution plan, which would typically combine a number of free and paid distribution methods. Here are some of the key ones for you to consider:
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Strategies for Increasing Content Visibility with TrendMD
Post Content on Your Blog
The most obvious place to start is your own blog. If you don’t have one yet, get one. Ensure your content is easy to find, and use large thumbnails and clear headlines to drive clicks. Encourage website visitors to share your content through a social sharing toolbar, such as AddThis, ShareThis, and Shareaholic.
Leverage Social Media Platforms
Always share your content on social media channels like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. If you’re a scientist, you should establish a presence on Academia.Edu, ResearchGate, and Mendeley.
Utilize Email Marketing
Good old-fashioned email can be a powerful and free distribution channel for your scholarly content. Just make sure it is actually of interest to the people you plan to include on your list.
Promote on Content Discovery Platforms
Using a content discovery platform such as TrendMD, you can get your scholarly content recommended alongside other relevant articles on some of the top scholarly publisher websites. If you want a general audience, take a look at Outbrain and Taboola. All of these platforms use mathematical algorithms to recommend your content to those most likely to be interested in it. They typically use a CPM or CPC model and are used in addition to or as a replacement for traditional display or paid search ads.
Advertise on Display Networks and Paid Search
Although banner effectiveness is on the decline, experiment with advertising your content on different networks. Check out PubGrade for a targeted audience for your banner ads.
Simplify Your Content
Science can be complicated. No matter how many people see your work, it won't have an impact if they can’t understand it and see the clear message. If you have published content, check out Kudos. Kudos is a new and free service for researchers that allows you to explain, enrich, share, and measure your work. According to their data, authors using the Kudos sharing tools saw 19% higher downloads for their published work.
Engage with Media and Bloggers
Issue press releases about key content items, such as interesting survey results. Pitch your content to reporters and share it with influential bloggers you have a relationship with.