Explicant la recerca fent servir xarxes socials

A The Guardian hi ha un interessant reportatge titulat Going viral: Using social media to publicise academic research on esmenten que és ben habitual que la bona recerca no arribi als mitjans de comunicació de masses (i més en aquests temps amb poc paper i molta competència entre creadors de continguts):

there are increasingly new techniques for sourcing, and promoting, stories using social and digital media.

En aquest post s’hi esmenten alguns exemples bons de com un relat adequat (una història que comporta una emoció) aconsegueix ser difosa de forma viral per la xarxa.

However, I think we could all agree that the use of images is hardly a new way of promoting research stories. What interests me the most is what we can do with social and digital media. The ability to promote research directly to the public, and hear their feedback, while connecting academics and their wider audiences is an unparalleled opportunity for universities. I might not be able to persuade every academic I work with to join Twitter, but I think it’s important that those of us working in public relations in HE are able to explain and identify the benefits of using such tools to connect with wider audiences.

O sigui, que més que tenir bones imatges i un bon relat, és la capacitat d’interactuar amb el públic el que importa. Però primer cal tenir un bon iniciador del procés… si la notícia és bona i atractiva, els usuaris a la xarxa ja s’encarregaran de difondre-la.

When I work on a story, I’d give anything for it go viral, but the best social media strategist on earth couldn’t force this. But our university, like most, has a presence on the right channels, giving us somewhere to initially promote the story. If the content is good enough, your users will do the rest, and you might find out some stories via them too. We can’t rightly see a story as unsuccessful if it generates a small amount of media coverage, but creates a storm of tweets and comments.

Una notícia que generi poc interès a la premsa, però molts de tweets i comentaris, es pot dir que ha estat un èxit?