Pitch Science

This year, I've curated 40 (soon to be 42 by the end of December) editions of the brilliant Sarah McKay's email newsletter 💌 These newsletters share the latest and greatest neuroscience updates from the past week through easy to understand summaries. To round this year off, I collated all of the click to open rates for included neuro-news from each of the 40 email newsletters to see what her audience has been loving most throughout 2024! There's been some *really* interesting insights from the data (including the graph Sarah shared below) that will help inform how we curate and frame the newsletters in 2025 and beyond. It's also fascinating to see which pieces of neuro-news performed particularly well... For example, 3 out of the 5 top performing updates of 2024 came from a SINGLE news outlet 🤯 So, if you want to find out which outlet that is and discover all of the top 5 brain updates from 2024, make sure to sign up to Sarah's mailing list through the link in her post below. And if you want help in 2025 with writing email newsletters that get people more engaged with your science, check out my science content creation services here: bit.ly/49tLzg5

Do you feel like you belong in academia? The ‘old white men in lab coats’ stereotype doesn’t just impact the public’s perception of academics 🥼 It also leads to academics with marginalised identities feeling like they don’t belong (and then leaving their research careers!) But in this carousel (👉 swipe to read), I share a new 2024 study that has found that science communication allows diverse scientists to feel a greater sense of belonging, especially postgraduate students The study also identified two core science identities within participants’ responses... so tell me in the comments which one you identify most with! 💡 Remember that neither of the two science identities is inherently better than the other! Does the sense of belonging from science communication ring true for you? It certainly does for me! 😅 #phdstudents #academia #scienceresearch #scientists

A Saturday afternoon with neuroscientists 🧠 Thanks to Sarah Hellewell and the 2024 Australian Neurotrauma Symposium for asking me to speak on the weekend. I chatted all things personal branding as a scientist, such as your brand assets, academic websites, social media, and engaging with other forms of media. I also encouraged the audience to reframe the concept of a personal brand to a self-portrait 🖼️👩🎨 Because whether you have a highly detailed self portrait or something more abstract with fewer brush strokes, the most important thing is that the canvas isn’t left blank! It was great to hear from the other speakers in the session, which focused on why and how to reach the wider community as a scientist — with a focus on brain injury and spinal cord injury research that was so interesting as a fellow neuro-nerd and ex-neuro researcher. I hope my talk will have inspired some of the researchers to take those first steps (or brush strokes) into sharing themselves and their work online! 🎨🖌️

Getting your science featured in the news is exciting and valuable... There's a reason why institutional PR teams typically send out press releases when a big paper is about to be released 😅 And why I'll be sharing my top tips for finding opportunities to collaborate with the media in my upcoming Personal Branding for Scientists course (the link to that course waitlist is in the comments) BUT getting in the news is not the *only* way to disseminate your work and shouldn't be your sole strategy for getting the word of your research out there Why? 📰 You can't control the news cycle... if something far more important or newsworthy comes up, you might lose your spot 👫 You'll only be reaching the portion of people who get their information through the news – or even that particular news outlet – which will skew the demographics and limit your reach 🔬 Not all studies are destined to get attention-grabbing news stories written about them (a sad but true reality) but that doesn't mean there aren't still people who'd be interested in learning more 🎙️ You can't easily open up a two-way dialogue with your target audience through traditional media and this one-way dissemination approach is not always ideal Instead, have a multi-pronged approach that also includes social media and a strong website strategy to consistently connect with people interested in your work 🎉 If you don't over-rely on the news and traditional media, and actively meet people in their own online spaces, you'll boost your impact and actually build a relationship with the people you're trying to reach! Are you a PhD candidate, post-doc, or even a PI who wants to effectively reach the people who care about your science and boost your overall research impact? Definitely get on the waitlist for my upcoming course, which is infused with my secret sauce for creating a well rounded and effective scientist personal brand 🥫

Did you know that there’s not just one type of science communication? The way we share and discuss science can vary based on how we view and interact with our target audiences There are actually 4 core models of science communication, each having a different communication approach and end goal 🤯 🫥 Deficit model Solely aims to fill gaps in public knowledge, under the premise that any hesitancy towards science within the public is caused by a lack of knowledge and information 🧐 Contextual model Understands that the needs, beliefs, and existing knowledge of an audience will alter how they receive the science, as well as the wider societal, political, and cultural context 🤓 Lay expertise model Emphasises the lived experience of communities or individuals over scientific knowledge, placing those with first-hand experience at the forefront of the conversation 🤝 Participation model Equal collaboration between scientists and the public, as well as policymakers, in science discussions, tied to the ideals of democracy and equality Both the deficit and contextual models are one-way communication – scientists communicating to the public without further interaction or dialogue with audiences Meanwhile, the lay expertise and participation models are two-way communication – opening up a conversation with audiences about science 💬 There isn’t a hard and fast right way to do science communication Yes, of the four core science communication models, the deficit model has been shown to be less effective... Because if you’re not empathising with or talking to your target audience, your communication to them is inherently going to be less effective 😅 BUT the deficit model is a useful tool for quickly sharing large amounts of new information to broad and varied audiences – looking at you, 2020 – especially if it’s a starting point for opening the lines of communication before moving to another model These 4 models can also work in tandem and collaboration to create a more well-rounded communications strategy Ultimately, it’s all about using the model, or combination of models, that’s going to help you achieve your science communication goals! 👩🔬👨🔬

Have you been wondering recently whether or not to hire a science communicator for your brand? How are you supposed to know when the time is right to make that leap? 😰 Well, you need to be on the lookout for any of these five signs: 💬 You want to improve public engagement & participation By fostering a sense of engagement & participation, you can build a more loyal following over time that is invested in the scientific outcomes you're achieving 📊 You have a breakthrough that you want to share Sometimes sending out just a press release to communicate a new paper simply isn't enough, & instead you need to craft the scientific narrative yourself to maximise impact 💰 You want to prove research impact to funding bodies By communicating your work openly & clearly, you can build a reputation as a thought leader in your field that will ultimately help to attract funding & philanthropy 👩🔬 You’re only sharing the scientists, not the science While acknowledging the hard work of your scientists is essential, it should not overshadow sharing the actual research they are conducting 🤩 You want to stand out with engaging science content You've realised that it's through combining both science communication & digital marketing that you can grow your reach & impact The best part is that you don't need to hire a full-time or even a part-time science communicator if you notice any of these signs – though you definitely can if you want to! I understand that the need for scientific content can fluctuate in line with research output & funding cycles, so I produce specialised scientific content only when you need & request it. This makes my science content creation services perfect for brands that want to share their science through engaging online content, but don't necessarily need full-time assistance yet. 💌 Want to learn more? Read about each of the five signs in more detail & submit an enquiry form on the Pitch website:

Are you a scientist who wants to become more active here on LinkedIn? LinkedIn is an often slept on social media platform 😴 Yes, depending on who you follow, it can become more of an echo chamber with other likeminded scientists so you’re sometimes less likely to be communicating your work to the public... BUT LinkedIn is designed for users to establish thought leadership within their fields, enhance their employability, and build strong personal brands 💡 Plus, when you do grow an expansive network, you will also be reaching people outside your field too and sharing your science with a much wider audience. The question remains though, what should you be posting? To give you a head start, I've curated this short list of 8 LinkedIn post ideas specifically for scientists: 📰 Share interesting science news relevant to your research topic 📖 Write a book review about a science book you've read recently 🤓 Provide a non-academic summary of your latest research paper 🤝 Talk about your volunteering and public outreach experiences and initiatives 🔬 Share relevant tips and skills you've learned during your research journey 🏅 Celebrate any recent career milestones you've achieved ✈️ Discuss your insights from a conference you've recently attended 💡 Give insight into how you approach leadership within your lab or even your field You could 100% use these ideas for content intended for other online platforms, but they're the perfect place to start when curating LinkedIn post ideas! If you've got any other LinkedIn post ideas, make sure to drop them in the comments below and follow Pitch for more tailor-made tips and tricks designed exclusively for scientists like you 👩🔬👨🔬 #ScienceCommunication #Researcher #Scientist #PhDStudent #SciComm #ScientificResearch

Repeat after me: impact does not equal citations 🔬❌📑 A 2024 study looked at whether tweeting about a paper can boost it’s citations 3 years later & spoiler alert: it didn’t 😅 The researchers tweeted about random papers from a journal of their choosing over the course of 10 months. All tweeting researchers had at least 5,000 followers each, so they certainly weren’t tweeting into a follower-less abyss. When they compared their 110 tweeted papers to 440 control papers, they did not find statistically significant evidence that their tweets had boosted citations 3 years later. (Though they did acknowledge the study did not have enough statistical power to detect a significant difference 👀) Honestly, I don’t think this result even matters... Because their tweeted papers DID have significantly higher Altmetric scores at both 30 days after tweeting & 3 years later. In fact, the tweeted papers had an 81% increase in Altmetric scores over the control papers at the 3 year time point! 🤯 Plus, the daily download rate for tweeted papers was almost four times higher on the day of the tweets. So people were indeed reading & talking about these papers far more than controls! Yet Nature News described this result as the ‘nail in the coffin’ for sharing science on Twitter. Did we read the same paper?! Don’t get me wrong, Twitter/X isn’t the best platform now for *other* reasons – but not because of anything scicomm related 😂 It really comes down to why we share science online in the first place. Because science communication is not solely about sharing your work to people who could cite it in the future! It’s about sharing your science with people outside of your niche. We should be celebrating increased Altmetric scores for the achievement that it is – real knowledge sharing & effectively making science more accessible to all I also wrote about this in more detail on the Pitch blog 👇

Does your science brand need it's own custom branded hashtag on social media? Short answer: majority of the time, probably not 😅 A branded hashtag, aka #BrandName, #BrandTagline or #BrandedCampaign, can be a useful tool for giant companies, like Coca-Cola and Nike. That's because these large corporations have a correspondingly large audience that can be incentivised to use the hashtag in their own content to raise brand awareness. But the chances are that your brand tagline is less recognisable than #JustDoIt (no offence) and you're less likely to get consistent user-generated content or UGC (again, no offence). For a smaller-scale brand, there's far better alternatives: ＠ Ask people to directly tag you instead (the best case scenario) 📌 Set up a brand location that people can also geo-tag Both of these options are clickable and will be a more direct route to your socials pages – the less clicks it takes people to get to your account, the more likely they are to actually make it there! As with much of life, there's no truly hard and fast rules. So, there are a couple of scenarios where a branded hashtag may indeed be needed or useful: 📅 When you're hosting a specific conference and event 🎁 For tracking specific giveaways or prize draws 📱 A specific content series that's highly likely to get UGC too Notice that all three are reliant on some form of UGC and need hashtags that are specific to that unique use case? Because if it's just you adding #BrandName onto the end of all your content, without any UGC or campaign to support it, then it's really only acting as visual clutter that's not giving any tangible benefit back. Oh and two more bits of bonus advice: 1. You can tell if it's redundant if you're 99% of the posts under your branded hashtag. 2. If your branded hashtag is currently your entire hashtag strategy – please rethink your hashtag strategy because I promise you that it is not effective right now! 🙏

I’ve seen a new podcasting trend emerge recently from science organisations & I’m a little baffled in all honestly 😅 I can see the value of podcasts and do understand why other people enjoy creating & listening to them. Podcasts can be a great way to share in-depth information with an audience who is dedicated & passionate. However, the dissemination approach being taken by many these scientific podcasts isn't effective given the nature & competitiveness of the podcasting space. In this blog post, I talk about how these institutional podcasts can be taken even further through – what I feel are – no-brainer changes that will truly maximise impact 🙌 Read the post here: https://lnkd.in/eZgCBkYQ #ResearchInstitutes #ScienceCommunication #Research #Podcasting #SciencePodcast