The Internet offers a myriad of ways to get out information about scholarly research. Websites are one obvious source; search engines and services are another. But is this enough? In a competitive world, probably not.
What can a blog do for your research organization?
- A blog can consistently make available summaries of both work in progress and published works.
- Blog posts offer an important opportunity to present complex ideas that affect public policy in simpler terms, thereby increasing the likelihood of ideas reaching mainstream thinking.
- Unlike a static website, blogs change — and search engines love change, always looking for the latest news and putting that near the top of search results. This means that your work is more likely to be found near the top in search results.
- Publicize what else you do — participation in seminars, workshops and conferences, for example, which is important to the success of the organization.
- Highlight the expertise of your team and introduce new team members quickly and easily.
- Publicize workshops, seminars and conferences that your organization hosts — and provide a platform for getting out important results quickly.
- Serve as a record of what your organization has done. Many groups publish annual reports, but they are just that: annual. Moreover, they are restricted in length and, of course, summaries of all your best work just won’t fit. A blog that is carefully designed with appropriate categories and tags is a running record, both of all your work and of particular themes/topics. A blog really is about the only place this can be done online easily.
- Provide a platform for special projects or issues. Changing a website often can be complicated; blog pages can be added quickly and just as easily taken down, if appropriate, once an event or issue has passed.
- If your competitors are doing it, they are gaining more attention for their ideas and research.
- If you used LinkedIn, Tweet or have a Facebook Page, a blog offers material for those pages, too.
In subsequent posts, we will discuss how to go about creating and maintaining a blog for a research group. In the meantime, please enjoy our our series of posts on blogging and see an example of the blog we ghost write and maintain for one research group.
The Mattison Group provides a range of services, including advising on blogs and ghost writing blogs for research groups.
