How to Raise the Visibility of Your Academic Paper After Publication
Conducting your research and writing your paper were tough jobs, but after countless hours of work and sleepless nights, you got published in an academic journal. It’s easy to file that project away as “done” and move on to your next big study, but it isn’t quite over yet. Simply getting your paper published isn’t enough—you need eyeballs on it. You want the academic world and the general public to read it. You worked hard on it, and you want it to have an impact, but where do you start?
There are millions of research papers and scientific articles published every year, so you have to put in some extra effort if you wish to be noticed. Otherwise, your paper can easily get lost in the sea of research publications, even if you offer some ground-breaking revelations. Your work won’t market itself—it’s up to you to get it in front of the people you want to read it.
Using the right keywords to make your paper easily discoverable and submitting it to both general and discipline-specific academic indexes are crucial steps to increasing its visibility. Still, this doesn’t guarantee the kind of exposure you might be hoping for, which means you have to keep actively promoting your piece even after publication. Getting your paper in a journal required great effort, and you want all your hard work to pay off, which is why you need to be proactive if you want to increase public interest in your article.
If you’re still writing your research paper, check out our deluxe academic package, which includes exclusive services such as extensive feedback and advice from a professional editor, a requirements review to ensure you’re following the publication’s guidelines to the letter, thorough proofreading that guarantees an error-free manuscript, and lots more. You want to make sure you produce a high-quality piece of work that you’re proud to promote once you publish it, so professional support during the writing stage can be invaluable.
If you’re past that stage, let’s take a look at some of the ways you can make your academic paper stand out after it has wound up in a journal
Boost your online presence
If you already have your own website or blog or a solid social media presence, you can use your existing online platforms to promote your work to colleagues, academic institutions, media publications, and specific researchers. You already have followers who like your work, so this is an excellent way to drive more readers to your papers. Remember that online exposure is all about interactions, so the more people your work reaches, the harder the algorithm will work for you—it’s all about exponential growth.
Personal websites are great because you can catalog all your published works, post your CV, and run your blog all under one umbrella. Moreover, they can be connected to your social media accounts for optimal cross-posting. A personal website is entirely customizable and lets you easily build your online brand, molding it into your vision and letting it work for you, so make sure its visual design is aesthetically pleasing and the UI is simple to navigate.
If you have a profile or a personal page on your university’s website, use that platform to promote your published articles. Use your social media posts to tag universities, companies, publishers, institutions, and NGOs to give your work more exposure and get people talking about it. This will help you reach new readers, not just the people who already follow you on social media.
If you aren’t on social media and don’t have a website or a blog, now is the time to get started. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to find and read your work, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it all at once—you don’t want to overwhelm yourself or your audience. That said, do at least create one social media account or a personal website with basic information about yourself and links to your published work. You can build up your online presence over time, cultivating a loyal following to which you can easily market future articles.
When posting online, always keep your audience in mind. If you’re posting somewhere more industry-specific, such as LinkedIn or a research-focused website, you can use technical jargon in your captions and summaries without worrying about people failing to understand what you’re saying. This allows you to craft more precise and detailed descriptions of your study and creates an opportunity for a more in-depth discussion in the comments section.
If, however, you’re blogging or posting on social media platforms such as Twitter or TikTok, we suggest making your vocabulary more accessible to a general audience, to people who might be interested in your work but feel intimidated by the language. This will often result in presenting only a broad view of your work, but all you’re aiming to do here is draw new readers to your paper, which will then give them a full picture of your research.
Seek institutional support
You can use your online presence to make your research stand out, but it doesn’t compare to what institutional support can do for your visibility. If you work for a university, a non-profit, a media company, or a research facility, you can use their platforms to draw attention to your paper—chances are that these organizations already have a much larger audience than you do. Furthermore, a large and well-respected institution projects more credibility and trustworthiness than an individual academic, so having the support of an established name can do wonders in elevating your profile.
If you work at an academic institution with a library, you can recommend your publication to it so that students and colleagues have access to your work and can cite it in their own research. You could even suggest including your paper in the syllabus or pitch it to the PR department, which could promote it on behalf of the institution. Of course, your options depend on your institution, your discipline, and the nature of your research and paper, but get creative—there are likely lots of ways to increase your visibility through your employer.
Applying for awards is another way to gain exposure and institutional support since employers are usually more than happy to promote the achievements of their people through their official communication channels. Even if you don’t work or study at an academic institution, it’s worth reaching out to universities and colleges and suggesting your paper for coursework or supplementary reading material. You will, of course, have to back up your suggestions with concrete reasons why your paper adds value to the existing literature, so be thoughtful in your requests.
Getting more people to read your work will require being proactive, resourceful, and thorough and using all options you have. To make sure your work is error-free before you submit it for publication, check out our combined editing and proofreading service.
