Recently I read an argument in favor of researchers using Twitter to promote their research. It doesn’t make sense.
It’s true that you can reach a wider and non-scientific audience. But why would an audience understand the real value of research through a Tweet, with a limited number of words? Maybe yes, maybe not.
The reason why people swipe is to have the feeling of being informed, assuming what you share ever gets to someone’s feed. You don’t know.
Last year, Will Koehrsen, a data scientist at Cortex Intel, wrote an excellent article with a much better approach. Write blog posts.
Blog posts are thoughtful writing and people who find them are actually reading, not swiping in search of the next dopamine rush in “like”-form. And platforms like medium.com are better than Twitter.
Thoughtful writing builds a long-lasting cultural drive to develop our learning mind. In my experience, a tweet isn’t enough. Excellent blog posts appear to be a better investment of your time and attention and remain longer on the internet. A tweet gets easily outdated to promote enduring and transformative research.