Scholarly writing is a time- and energy-intensive activity. Scholarly research products often reflect years of hard work, from initial grant writing and funding to data collection, analysis, writing, and working through the publication process. Whether it is a literature review, case study, or reporting on a quality improvement project or research study, getting your manuscript to publication requires hard work and persistence. Then, finally-publication! But, that's not the end. The purpose of all of that time and energy is to make change. Change only happens when people know about the work. Promoting your work to maximize readership by a broad audience is a critical aspect of ensuring maximum impact. In today's world of social media, the opportunities for promoting your work are considerably greater than in previous years. Using an example of my own scholarly publication, I will share ways in which I harnessed the power of these platforms, as well as more traditional platforms, to increase awareness and impact of my work.
In 2019, I published an article called "Know the Flow: Milk Flow Rates From Bottle Nipples Used in the Hospital and After Discharge" in Advances in Neonatal Care.1 At the time, this was the third article that I published on the general topic of flow rates from bottle nipples. Knowing this was a topic of relevance to multiple disciplines and to people working in the hospital and in the community setting, I intentionally published these 3 articles1-3 in different journals, with target audiences that reflected the people who needed this information to make change at the point of care. Prior to the publication of the 2019 article, I had also spent several years sharing flow rate information with different audiences at national and regional conferences of neonatal nurses and speech-language pathologists. I knew this would be a major topic of interest when I presented data at the NANN Research Summit where the overwhelming response was-"Wait. WHAT?!! NICU nurses need to know this!"
Having sparked interest in the topic over the course of several years, I was thrilled when "Know the Flow"1 was first published online in 2018 and then in print in 2019. At each of these time points, I shared the link to the publication with audiences on social media. With concerns about data privacy, I have moved away from using these platforms for sharing personal and family information, but I have continued to use them for professional purposes, especially for professional groups with large audience numbers.
In March of 2020, I was featured in an article in the Boston College Magazine.4 When this publication was due to be released, I requested that "Know the Flow"1 be made open access for a short period of time so that anyone who was interested could read the full article. Later, At the NANN conference in 2020, it was announced that "Know the Flow"1 won Research Article of the Year from the previous year for Advances in Neonatal Care. At the time of this announcement, the article was made open access for 30 days. During each of these open access times, I took the opportunity to share widely and often to maximize exposure.
As of the day of writing this editorial, the "Know the Flow"1 article has an Altmetric score of 20, which is among the highest-scoring articles (#19 out of 556) from Advances in Neonatal Care. More importantly, all of this exposure has made an impact on practice and the infant product industry. Many institutions have used these data to guide decisions about the products used to feed their most vulnerable infants. Data are powerful and it has been important to share these data with people in leadership positions who were able to enact change. In some hospitals, products that have historically been used in the NICU (eg, the red nipple) have been removed from inventory because of my work showing the flow rate compared with other products.
In the infant product industry, one company is now testing their products using my flow rate testing methodology and is advertising these flow rates on their Web site. Another company that produces single-use nipples has created a new product with slower flow rates than the other products in their line. The added effort to promote this work after publication has been incredibly important in facilitating this impact. So, when your hard works pays off and your scholarly work is published, don't stop there! Promote your work to ensure it has maximum exposure and impact.5,6
Recommendations for promoting your work:
* Share your work on social media and don't be shy-share often and widely! Give a quick summary or most important finding to entice readers.
* Get your work in the hands of the people who need it to make change. Present at conferences locally, nationally, and internationally. Email professionals who you think may be interested and share your publication with them.
* Keep professional profiles updated with your publications and include hyperlinks for people to access your work easily.
Sincerely,
Britt F. Pados, PhD, RN, NNP-BC, CLC, FAHA, FNAP
Assistant Professor; Boston College School of Nursing
References