The social journal

Like it or loathe it, there is no denying the steadily increasing presence of social media in all aspects of scientific research. Social media has radically altered the pace at which scientific ideas are developed and shared, both within scientific communities and with the general populace.^1,2 Among the stages of the research lifecycle, social media has facilitated the fostering of research collaborations, ³ dissemination of research to a wider audience,^4,5 recruitment of study subjects^6,7 and the crowd-funding of research.^8–10 Because of the vast reach of social media, ¹¹ its potential for journals to gain publicity and readership cannot be ignored.

From the perspective of the reader, a social media presence of a journal is a welcome addition. The exponential proliferation of scientific literature now means that it would literally take years to remain current if one were to adopt the strategy of reading every single published paper. ¹² Social media makes this task much easier and faster in helping to filter out the immense volume of information and identifying key articles for viewing. ¹³

From the journal’s (and author’s) perspective, the additional reach that social media provides could lead to increased visibility and citations (and all of the concomitant advantages associated with that).^14–16 Although the evidence for an enhanced reach (in terms of the number of views and downloads of an article) is ambivalent,^17–20 it is generally acknowledged that social media is able to expand the readership of a journal beyond its traditional confines.^16,21 Other advantages of adopting a social media platform for journals include its use as an educational platform, an increased brand recognition (particularly for smaller journals), and the rapid sharing of public commentary on published articles. ²¹

With social media being seriously applied at all points of the research lifecycle, ²² now is the opportune time to consider its role in the development of the Proceedings of Singapore Healthcare.

In June 2016, the Proceedings of Singapore Healthcare went live on Facebook (www.facebook.com/singhealthproceedings) and Twitter (@proceedingsSG). Because of their widespread use, Facebook and Twitter were the natural social media channels of choice for the journal. Furthermore, these are also the two most widely used social media sites for most general medical journals. ²¹ The twin goals in our adoption of a social media presence for the journal are to build brand visibility, and to generate awareness of its content. Our Facebook presence is largely targeted for brand building, and our focus on Twitter is to increase the visibility of the journal’s content.

The content strategy is similar for both platforms. Our foremost priority is posts with content from the journal. These posts are short, informative excerpts that are usually accompanied by an image. Facebook’s best practice tips recommend posts with image and video, as they get the attention of the audience. Facebook’s algorithm also favors image-based posts, increasing the likelihood of them appearing in newsfeeds.

Between such posts, we intersperse third-party posts (mostly from pages we follow) on scientific developments, research, scholarly publishing, and academic writing among other topics. By adopting a general focus, we hope to attract a wider audience. This is in line with studies that show that medical journals boasting the largest social media following have a general, rather than a specialty, focus. ²¹

Our engagement strategy for Facebook differs from that for Twitter. At its core, Facebook is driven by friendships and personal connections. Connections are a leverage for us. In this case, it is our affiliation with other healthcare institutions under shared ownership. The fans amassed by the Facebook pages of these institutions number in the thousands. These pages are influencers that give the visibility of the journal a boost when they like, share, or comment on the posts on the journal’s page. Forging these connections widens the organic reach (not paid for) of the journal’s content. The potential word-of-mouth influence Facebook wields makes it a vital tool in building brand awareness.

Unlike Facebook, Twitter’s culture is not anchored on personal friendships. Twitter users explore the network differently from how Facebook users do. In its content-driven world, users follow users who tweet about things that interest them; you do not have to be friends. Arguably, this is an advantage for a Singapore-based journal that aspires to let the scientific community beyond our shores know about the research we publish.

Twitter is a tool of content discovery, and, for scientists, it is an information filter. ¹⁶ Our goal therefore is to make our tweets as discoverable as possible. Each tweet is a pithy repackaging of journal articles, crafted to inform and to entice the user to like and retweet it. Tweets are always peppered with hashtags of topics of the tweets (e.g. #dermatology, #cancer, #anesthesiology, etc.). These filters increase the discoverability of our content. We also actively engage influential Twitter users – for now, other medical journals and scientific publications – via mentions, retweets and liking their tweets. The payoff is when our tweets get retweeted and liked. The bigger payoff is if it piques the interest of other scientists and researchers enough to perhaps cite the study (we always include a shortened link to the full study), or even restarts the lifecycle of a particular study.

Coupled with the rise of social media usage by scientists and journals alike is the notion that article-level metrics (altmetrics) are equally important as traditional journal-level metrics (such as impact factors) in assessing the reach and impact of a scientific article. Altmetrics are non-citation based metrics that essentially measure the social media references of any given article. With the rising importance of altmetrics,^23,24 the influence of social media on scientific publishing is set to increase. At the same time, social media affords new possibilities in reshaping the interactions among authors, journals and readers. We hope to tap into the tremendous potential of social media, which may one day become a major delivery vehicle for all medical communications.^21,25