Wiley reports that articles with videos such as video bytes and video abstracts get on average 447% higher Altmetric Attention scores and 111% higher full text views on their Wiley Online Library. Video really is worth the extra effort to do well and gain a lot more attention for your research. But what is this altmetric and what can you do to improve your visibility?
Altmetrics are metrics about the content relating to your research such as social media, news reports, online referencing, and so on. One of the major tools used to measure altmetrics is, rather unsurprisingly named, Altmetric who serve publishers, institutions, researchers and funders. This company tracks a variety of sources including the mainstream media, blogs, citations, policy documents, reference managers, YouTube and many social media sources, and many others. It is becoming an increasingly important metric for researchers and their stakeholders.
So how do you increase your altmetric score (which simply means how can you become more visible across multiple channels)?
Altmetric.com give us some tips on how to attract more attention to your work. Given that video content is one of the best ways to garner attention online (we are much more likely to click on that 1-minute video BEFORE diving into that 30K word document) we have added some extra ideas to the Altmetrics basic tips:
1) Write a lay summary of your research and introduce it via relevant discussion lists and online forums. (And develop a 1-minute lay summary video of your research and post it on all your social media (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube), websites, and link to in in forum discussions).
2) Upload and make available data, images, posters and other files to sharing platforms such as figshare. (And make sure you upload a short video abstract or summary and make it prominent – it’s likely to be the first thing people will pay attention to).
3) Post on your blog or the blog of your lab or other blogs in your industry. (We would highly recommend that again, video content is featured when you blog. Embed your YouTube or Vimeo video content into the blog along with any supporting text and images).
4) Look for similar research and articles on key blogger sites and make them aware of your work – point them to your video content!
5) Email signatures, online profiles and CVs should all have links to your latest research (and your YouTube or Vimeo channel).
6) Work with the communications officer or press office at your institution (or publisher) to set up timely announcements about your research.
7) Share and link to your work on all your social media platforms you have individually, as a lab or research team, and at an institution level. (Video works extremely well on social media and should be exploited as often as you can).
8) Register for an ORCID iD and complete your profile so you can be discovered easily.
9) Make your work available via Open Access wherever possible, share links to full text outputs (like on Research Gate) and on social media.
To make sure Altmetic picks up your mentions you need to ensure you mention your research’s unique identifier (DOI, arXiv ID, PubMed ID, etc).
