Blogging - why bother?

The benefits of blogging for academics have been well described and listed.

See these posts in the LSE Impact Blog http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2013/01/14/advice-for-potential-academic-bloggers/

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2012/02/24/five-minutes-patrick-dunleavy-chris-gilson/

and our own University of Kent advice http://www.kent.ac.uk/socialmedia/reasons.html

But in her workshop for PSSRU Kent, George Julian put a slightly different slant on it........

As an academic the likelihood is that the specific area of your research is only of direct relevance to a handful of other researchers worldwide.  The trick is to use social media to capture this small but significant audience.  This way you have a ready-made list of potential collaborators or reviewers.

This is in the context of research by Mewburn and Thomson which found that the blogs which academics write are read mostly by other academics. 

So how do you attract these followers? You’ve written a post, how are you going to get anyone to see it?

·         Tweet about it, link to it from other social media sites such as Linked In

·         Reference your blog in your email signature, presentation slides etc

·         Guest blog on other relevant sites

·         Comment on other people blogs

·         Think about the timing of your post.  Publish it to coincide with a national event (eg. an awareness week) and make sure you have sufficient time in your own diary to answer queries, respond to comments and engage immediately afterwards