Generally, people do research because they want to make the world a better place – either through scientific discovery, technological improvements or generation and improvement of people’s knowledge and understanding. If research is publicly funded, it’s even more important that the public should benefit from it – after all, they have (albeit indirectly) paid for it. The more you can promote you can share your research and let people know about it, the more the public can benefit from it – people can see your ideas and develop them and perhaps use them in ways you may not have thought of. Sharing research can lead to collaboration and innovation.

Nowadays, it’s imperative to be up to date with the latest communication technologies and to be able to use them effectively and thoughtfully. Learning to use social media efficiently is a great way to improve your knowledge and understanding of digital technologies without spending hours reading manuals. Social media tools are (or should be) intuitive and user-friendly, but they require thought and care if they are to be used effectively and without harming people’s wellbeing (including your own). Thinking about and using social media helps us think more generally about the digital world and how what we do online can affect our ‘real-world’ lives.

People often shy away from self-promotion, but it’s becoming more and more necessary for researchers to be ‘out there’ and communicating with one another and the public. We may not like it, but it doesn’t have to be arduous, as social media tools make it easy to share and disseminate our research. The harder part is to know how and when to share it, and who with. This is why it makes sense to have a dissemination plan. If it makes you feel better, think of it as promoting your research, rather than promoting yourself.