By curating the scientific literature and ensuring its quality, academic publishers have a central role in advancing the scientific frontier. Similarly, research societies support the development and dissemination of knowledge in various disciplines. They publish journals, develop professional excellence, raise public awareness, and recognize and award significant achievements. Together, publishers and scholarly societies help define and set standards for their professional fields and promote high standards of quality. In clinical research, these standards also include aspects of ethics, privacy, and mental and physical well-being of patients. Safety is needed for patients involved in clinical trials, as well as for the secondary use of data and biological samples. Further, publishers and societies need to consider benefits and risks to individuals and the public.

Let’s look at how research societies and publishers contribute to patient safety through various practices.

1. Curating and disseminating reliable research

Scholarly publishers and societies are established channels for disseminating medical knowledge through their journals, conference proceedings, and various fora. These publications pass through mandatory peer review, academia’s quality control process. We frequently hear how peer reviewers are “gatekeepers,” in that they judge the novelty and importance of studies. But peer review also helps in identifying potential risks and flaws in research methodologies that could impact patient safety. Peer review must ensure strict scrutiny to uphold current laws and guidelines around ethically sound human research.

Remember how non-peer-reviewed preprints and rushed peer review during the COVID-19 pandemic caused potentially misleading information to spread? Swift retractions of spurious COVID-19 literature in both preprints and peer-reviewed papers, including those from high-ranking journals, served to prevent public health risk by curtailing the release of information that could harm patient safety. Thus, journals and societies must maintain responsible research practices during global emergencies.

Further, peer reviewers should be alert to overt unethical research practices like ethics dumping. In a classic case of ethics dumping, in clinical trials conducted in India from 1998 to 2015, thousands of women were placed in a control group without access to proper cervical cancer screening, despite effective methods being available. These women were thus knowingly exposed to the risk of developing and dying from cervical cancer. Research with poor ethical standards should raise red flags in pre-registration, grant review, and peer review stages to prevent the exploitation of vulnerable populations and protect the rights of research participants.

2. Making research advances accessible and understandable

Research is rapidly becoming more complex and interdisciplinary, and efficient sharing of information between researchers and the public has become more important now than ever before. Open Science calls for collaboration between diverse knowledge systems and highlights the importance of “open engagement” and participatory research. Involving patients in research can enhance the quality of healthcare provided and foster mutual learning, as patients gain a deeper understanding of fundamental scientific research, while researchers broaden their perspectives to better appreciate what matters most to patients. Patient partners can also help disseminate research findings, facilitating communication with the public and enhancing trust in the clinical research community.

Open access (OA) is one of the elements of Open Science. To be truly successful, advances in medicine must be accessible and understandable to patients across demographics. Moreover, OA publishing increases the accessibility of patient safety–related research to a wider audience. Numerous journals in the field of patient safety follow some form of OA, e.g., Patient Safety in Surgery and Journal of Patient Safety. In fact, the Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews (JPCRR) is a Diamond OA journal, which means permanent and free access to published scientific works for readers and no publication fees for the authors.

3. Educating and training healthcare professionals about patient safety

Professional societies are well positioned to provide educational resources and training to researchers regarding ethical considerations and patient safety. As early as 1984, the American Society of Anesthesiologists established the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation (APSF). The APSF champions anesthesia patient safety and aims to improve the safety of patients during anesthesia care by identifying safety initiatives and creating relevant recommendations. The American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Heart Association provide online resources to help patients obtain information about research relevant to their health concerns. Societies such as the Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research routinely organize workshops, seminars, and short courses focusing on patient safety issues.

4. Transparent reporting of errors, adverse events, and negative findings

Journals and societies are bringing about initiatives to promote transparency in reporting negative outcomes. For example, after noting the deficiencies in the reporting of adverse events in manuscripts submitted to the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia, the journal declared its commitment to accurate and transparent scientific reporting, endorsing “CONsolidated Standards of Reporting Trials” (CONSORT). Now, most journals encourage authors to follow “Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research” (EQUATOR) reporting guidelines. However, a recent study showed that the CONSORT checklist is not adhered to in a large number of published trials, underscoring the role journals can play by mandating critical reporting practices.

Besides reporting the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions against associated risks, it is crucial to broaden the scope of reporting to include near misses or close calls. Research societies and publishers are also encouraging the publication of negative results and failed clinical trials to prevent the duplication of studies on potentially harmful treatments or interventions.

5. Meaningful collaborations for developing safety regulations

By working alongside regulatory agencies and collaborating with healthcare professionals, scholarly societies and publishers can help develop and implement research-based safety regulations. They can facilitate communication between researchers and clinicians to ensure that research findings are translated into safer medical practices. Working closely with patient advocates can be immensely beneficial too. The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) includes patient representatives on the ASCO Cancer Research Committee and ASCO Expert Panels for their inputs on developing guidelines, and the American Association for Cancer Research fosters connections between patient advocates and researchers. Patient advocates can guide researchers on making studies more patient-centric, e.g., regarding the frequency of biopsies or treatment logistics. Such feedback is instrumental in designing studies with a better focus on patient satisfaction and safety.

Closing thoughts

Scholarly publishers and societies have a moral imperative to uphold patient safety in medical research and practice. They can contribute to this by establishing and inculcating ethical standards for research involving human subjects; fostering openness and knowledge-sharing among researchers to ensure safer medical practices; and collaborating with researchers, healthcare professionals, and patient advocates.

Collective and evolving efforts by publishers and societies can drive healthcare policies and safety measures to meet patients’ needs and preferences, while building and maintaining support, trust, and transparency.

The post <strong>How Scholarly Societies and Publishers Champion Patient Safety</strong> appeared first on CACTUS.

What is Threads?

Built by the Instagram team, Threads is a new app meant primarily for sharing text updates and joining public conversations. It’s considered a rival to Twitter, and marketing experts believe it is intended to capitalize on the growing migration of Twitter users who’ve been disappointed by Twitter after Elon Musk’s takeover. As of July 10, Threads had already crossed 100 million users.

Is Threads the Same as Instagram?

No, Threads is a different app and needs to be downloaded separately from the App Store or Google Play. But as of now, an Instagram account is required to log into Threads, and once you log in, you get the option to follow users whom you already follow on Instagram. Also, your Instagram username and verification will carry over to Threads, though you can customize your profile specifically for Threads.

What Can be Posted on Threads?

As Instagram is meant primarily for photos and videos, Threads is meant primarily for text (though photos, GIFs, and videos up to 5 minutes long can be included). Posts can be up to 500 characters long and include links. A Threads post can also be shared on your Instagram story or as a link on any other social media platform.

How Can Academic Publishers and Societies Use Threads?

Threads presents a unique opportunity for academic publishers and societies to enhance brand visibility, drive readership or engagement, and nurture relationships with relevant stakeholders. Here are some potential ways Threads can fit into your social media strategy:

1. Building Communities: Use Threads to establish vibrant communities centered around specific academic disciplines or subject areas. Curate content and foster meaningful discussions to attract scholars, researchers, and authors, providing a platform for disseminating academic publications and fostering collaborations.
2. Promoting Scholarly Content: Share snippets, abstracts, or summaries of academic publications within relevant discussions. This approach piques the interest of potential readers and drives traffic to your website or publication platforms, ultimately increasing visibility and readership.
3. Thought Leadership and Expertise: Engage actively in discussions on Threads to establish yourself as a thought leader and industry expert. Share valuable insights, engage with scholars, and provide guidance to enhance your credibility and position your publishing brand as a reliable source of scholarly content.
4. Real-time Engagement: Take advantage of Threads’ emphasis on focused conversations to engage in real-time discussions. Address queries, respond to comments, and promote your publications directly to interested users. This instant and interactive engagement fosters stronger connections with the academic community.

What Are the Future Plans for Threads?

Instagram has announced plans to make Threads compatible with ActivityPub, which is an open social networking protocol established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C, which is responsible for creating the open standards that drive the modern web). By implementing ActivityPub compatibility, Threads will be able to seamlessly connect with other apps that also support this protocol, including popular platforms like Mastodon and WordPress. This means that people using compatible apps will be able to follow and interact with Threads users without having a Threads account, and vice versa (i.e., your posts would be accessible from other apps, which enables you to reach more people with minimal effort).

The post Five Questions Academic Publishers and Societies Have About Threads: The Latest Twitter Alternative appeared first on CACTUS.

However, a “build it and they will come” strategy is not a sure winner in the crowded social media marketplace, where each account is jockeying for the limited attention of users. Furthermore, since your social media presence will often be the first place the public will encounter your organization, it is vital to ensure that the image of your organization presented on social media is congruent with your organizational goals.

Staying competitive in the digital age: Why publishers and societies need a social media strategy

 For publishers and societies, a strong social media presence can drive engagement, build brand awareness, and increase reach. In this section, we explore why having a social media strategy is crucial for these organizations.

To reach new audiences

A key goal of scholarly societies and publishers is promoting their field of research. By leveraging social media platforms, societies and publishers can engage with a wider demographic of individuals who may be interested in their research or publications. Through targeted content creation, such as sharing research highlights, news, and educational content, research societies and publishers can capture the attention of these individuals. Social media also provides opportunities for organic or paid promotion, enabling these brands to amplify their reach and engage with users beyond their existing followers. Additionally, social media can facilitate collaborations with influencers, industry experts, or other organizations, leading to cross-promotion and exposure to new audiences.

To drive engagement with research

It’s becoming difficult to count just how many scholarly papers are published each year, but it remains true that most will receive very few citations in the increasingly crowded information marketplace. A social media strategy can help overlooked publications become known to the wider research community. Social media allows for a variety of rich content formats, such as infographics and videos, which can make a research study accessible and engaging to a wide variety of audiences, including laypersons and researchers in other fields.

To understand trends in your audience and research

Social media is not just about putting out your voice; it’s also about taking input from your audience. Audience engagement trends, comments, and messages from readers can all guide you towards understanding the content they would like to see, allowing you to formulate new plans to meet current trends and get the best return on your invested time.

To create a sense of community for your brand

Social media can foster a vibrant community for research societies or research publishers by providing a platform for engagement, networking, and knowledge sharing. Through social media, these brands can share updates on their latest research findings, upcoming events, and publications, creating a sense of excitement and community among their followers. Moreover, social media enables research societies and publishers to highlight the achievements of their members, acknowledge their contributions, and celebrate milestones, building a sense of pride and loyalty within the community.

See also: The Importance of Storytelling in Brand Building for Research Societies

Creating a strategy that is aligned with your goals

Define your goals

Project management professionals are familiar with the mnemonic SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) at some point. As a society or publisher too, it is vital to ensure that your social media goals are SMART and that each parameter has been clearly defined before moving forward. This includes ensuring that your posts are congruent with your brand image and long-term goals. For instance, if the overall organizational goal is to increase brand awareness, your social media goal could be to increase the number of your followers on X platform by a certain percentage over Y time period.

Select relevant channels

Facebook might be a great platform for much of the world, but it is banned in China. In China WeChat is the indisputable king of social media applications; meanwhile, it is rarely used outside of China and overseas Chinese communities. The topic of selecting a platform is too large to cover in depth here, but it is crucial to decide your target demographic(s) and then decide the platform that best captures their attention.

See also: What Twitter’s Newly Revealed Algorithm Means for Your Online Presence

Develop a content strategy

A distinct strategy for content is vital. It outlines what content you will post, why it will be posted, and how it will be created and distributed. This strategy will serve as the roadmap for executing your social media campaigns.

Engage with the audience

Responding proactively to audience engagement can provide a positive feedback loop, wherein your positive reactions to their comments can drive further engagements, making it more likely that the audience will return. This greater engagement helps you achieve your goals by allowing your audience to speak up and provide with you with more information on their preferences, thus allowing you to better target their peers.

Monitor and re-evaluate

Virtually all social media platforms have a dashboard for checking your metrics, including impressions, engagements, and conversions. Even better, there are dashboard platforms that allow you to coordinate campaigns across multiple platforms. Using these tools can help you understand where your efforts are making the most impact. For example, if you notice that engagements for video content are much higher than those for your articles, it may be worth revising the content strategy to better meet audience needs.

Five social media goals for societies and publishers

As mentioned before, goals are crucial. Here are five goals that can be applied in a SMART manner and easily monitored using the built-in metrics from social media platforms.

Raise brand awareness

Raising brand awareness is all about impressions. By providing easy, shareable content with your branding, more people can become aware of your brand, even if they do not directly engage.

Drive website traffic and improve engagement with content on your homepage

Research societies and publishers need to drive website traffic to increase engagement, expand their online presence, and ultimately promote their research findings or publications to a wider audience. To drive website traffic and increase engagement with your homepage content through social media, you can provide links to your most important articles, courses, events and more along with attractive images and copy. You can measure the impact by checking your click-through rates and use those insights to guide future changes.

Generate leads

By creating compelling content, offering valuable resources, and utilizing lead generation forms or landing pages, you can generate potential leads. You can also engage in direct interactions with users, conduct surveys or polls, and utilize social media advertising to capture user information.

Increase mailing list signups

A mailing list might be old technology, but it remains an effective way of drawing attention to events, seminars, and important articles. By including a mailing list with engaging content, you can directly contact your audience and measure the impact from conversions.

Create a partnership with another organization or thought influencer

Publishers and societies often have overlapping interests with other organizations, such as research societies that serve different countries. Reciprocally sharing each other’s posts can mutually increase your traffic and overall audience size, especially when they are indeed congruent with the values of your organization. Likewise, influencers can provide great opportunities to boost your traffic, provided that such partnerships are carefully considered. These partners can also share their insights and provide clues on how best to engage with audiences.

The post From Goals to Execution: How Research Publishers and Societies Can Align Social Media and Organizational  Goals appeared first on CACTUS.

As Western research publishers focus on building a presence in China, they are increasingly paying attention to Chinese social media platforms, especially WeChat. WeChat plays a critical role in the daily life of over 1.2 billion active users, including Chinese academics.

Researchers in China rely heavily on WeChat for two reasons. First, in the past 12 years, Chinese people (including academics) have gradually become habituated to using WeChat for instant communication, information acquisition and routine services, such as ordering food, taxis, and movie tickets. Chinese researchers might visit the website of a journal they are interested in occasionally, but they check WeChat almost every waking hour.

Second, WeChat articles are easy to share and view on mobile phones, for example, on a bus or subway during one’s daily commute or in the middle of a long and tedious meeting. Most Chinese academics subscribe to official WeChat accounts that share high-quality academic news and research information. In this way, they can automatically receive the latest articles and stay updated with their fields anywhere.

This article provides an overview of how to create a WeChat article, how to make it engaging, and how to attract readers to your articles and ultimately to your account.

See also: WeChat for Academia: 5 Western Publishers Who Have Created an Online Presence in China

Steps to create a WeChat article

Creating a basic WeChat article is straightforward. This section will introduce the basic steps of creating a WeChat article.

1. Log in to the WeChat official account platform, by scanning a QR code or by entering your password.

2. On the homepage of the official account platform, go to the “new creation” section in the middle of the web page. Select your content type, for example, “Article” as in the below screenshot. You can see more options on the right-hand side by clicking the “More” menu. Although most of the menu has been translated into English in the English version, some of the menus are still in Chinese.

3. On the content creation page, you can find the text edit toolbar on the top, similar to a Microsoft Word document. The system provides a default template that shows where to position the title, author, and main content. At the bottom of the page, you can choose to save your article as a draft or preview or distribute it to users by clicking the broadcast menu. The article setting menu is in the lower right corner (the red box in the below screenshot).

4. On the article setting page, you can set up a cover image and also create a short summary. You will need to confirm that the content is original (as highlighted in the screenshot), add source links (if any), enable users to send private messages to the official account, and indicate whether the article belongs to any collection.

5. Once you click on the statement of originality, you will get a pop-up window to review and confirm the statements. After ticking the check box and clicking “Next”, the system will show more settings (as the second screenshot shows). For example, you can enable the reward function to receive donations from readers. You can set the article type so that your target audience can quickly find your articles according to their interests. The last option allows you to add a whitelist for other official WeChat accounts that can republish your article.

6. Once all settings are chosen, you can publish your article. The publish button is hidden in the broadcast menu. You will need to click on the arrow beside “broadcast,” and the “publish” link will appear on top. Before publishing, you will get a confirmation page. The system will not automatically send the article to subscribers. Instead, you need to copy the URL of the published article and add it to related functions for sharing, such as the customized menu, autoreply, collection and webpage content.

7. After publishing the article, you can click on “broadcast”, and the system provides two options: timed broadcast and grouped broadcast. There are two types of official accounts: subscription and service. A subscription account can only broadcast one message every day. A service account can broadcast four messages a day.

See also: WeChat for Academia: Understanding Subscription and Service Accounts

8. If the creator of the article does not have admin permission, the system requires verification from the official account administrator. The account admin needs to scan a QR code and use their WeChat for verification. The second screenshot shows the admin view while confirming an article broadcast.

9. After the broadcast verification, the system automatically sends the article to the subscribers’ message channel.

See also: WeChat for Academia: Mini-Programs and How to Use Them

Crafting an Effective WeChat Article

Let’s take a look at what makes a WeChat article attractive and engaging for users, especially researchers.

• Language

Although most Chinese academics are able to read and understand articles in English, articles in Chinese are more popular. Some international WeChat official accounts provide multilingual content to meet personalized needs.

• Title

The article title is the first vital hook to attract the audience to read more. Usually, a good WeChat article has a short title, and all the keywords are self-explanatory.

• Novelty

The most attractive WeChat articles are usually trendy and provide valuable new knowledge and information. Novelty is one of the essential aspects of research. Therefore, articles about new research findings and funding resources are particularly popular among Chinese researchers.

• Originality

Chinese academia are becoming increasingly aware of academic integrity issues, and value originality in WeChat articles. If researchers read similar content across different WeChat articles, they will lose trust in your official account and may even cancel their subscription.

• Authenticity

Chinese researchers check whether an article contains authentic scientific information. If the article lacks scientific evidence to support the argument, Chinese researchers might doubt its authenticity and consider you a provider of superficial news articles rather than a credible source of scientific information.

• Mode

In the digital era, we are surrounded by multimedia content everywhere. An article with only lengthy text lacks appeal to a WeChat audience. WeChat articles with multimedia content, such as audio, video, gifs, and images are more popular.

• Structure and attention to detail

Chinese researchers are trained to be rigid and critical in developing and evaluating research-related content, even if it is just a WeChat article. Format, structure, logic, and language are essential for your articles to be perceived as high quality.

See also: WeChat for Academia: 3 Scientific Accounts with High Engagement

How to promote WeChat articles

Many analytics platforms provide data regarding WeChat article engagement, for example, TopSocial and Jzi.com. From their reports, you can find the most popular WeChat official accounts and articles in your field or target market for benchmarking and comparison. It is essential to know yourself and your competitors. Further, many third-party companies provide customized services that promote your WeChat articles and accounts, for example, Daizhangmen and Qianhu. However, such services have limited effectiveness if your WeChat articles themselves are low-quality or if your WeChat account is not well managed. Apart from the commercial approaches, here are some practical tips for increasing the number of article reads and account subscribers.

• Build a social network in China and invite reputed individual WeChat users (not just famous researchers) to share your WeChat articles in their personal WeChat moments and groups.
• Create attractive digital and paper-based posters with the QR code of your WeChat articles or official account, and circulate them through the Internet and in-person promotion events. Invite users to subscribe to the official account by offering small gifts.
• Insert hyperlinks to previously published relevant articles to attract readers to learn more about the topic and subscribe to the official account.
• Enable the autoreply feature so that users can type keywords and receive auto recommendations of relevant articles.
• Highlight the featured articles in the customized menu of your WeChat official account for easier access.
• Insert links to the WeChat articles on other social media platforms, such as Zhihu and Little Red Book.
• Develop a good strategy for setting article keywords for the WeChat search engine to show your articles easily.

Conclusion

The Chinese research publishing market is unique with its specific cultural background and socioeconomic-political context. WeChat is an important part of the Chinese digital ecosystem, and WeChat services play a dominant role in Chinese academics’ daily life and work. Therefore, creating reputed WeChat official accounts with a continuous flow of good-quality WeChat articles is the foundation for building trust in your brand among Chinese academia.

The post Creating and Promoting Relevant and Powerful Content on WeChat: A Comprehensive Guide for Research Publishers and Societies Trying to Build a Presence in China appeared first on CACTUS.

Why research societies should build their brand

Research societies that focus on brand building can succeed on various fronts.

Credibility and global reputation: A strong brand identity helps to establish the credibility of a research society. By building a brand that is associated with quality, expertise, and professionalism, research societies can attract new members and gain the trust of their existing members. A strong brand will help the world discover the impact of a society’s work and enhance its academic reputation.

Increased membership: Brand building can help research societies grow by encouraging the inflow of new members who align with a society’s research interests, values, and mission.

Meaningful member engagement: Through a clear brand identity and messaging strategy, a society can communicate its mission and values more effectively. This can motivate members to become more involved and active in the society and its diverse initiatives, including advocacy.

Funding and sponsorships: By establishing a strong brand identity and reputation, societies can increase their chances of securing funding and sponsorships for research projects, conferences, and other initiatives.

Positioning brand storytelling in brand building

Research societies can adopt brand building by developing a unique brand identity, implementing a relevant branding strategy, establishing a visual identity, building a strong online presence, leveraging partnerships, and focusing on member engagement. Where does brand storytelling fit in this picture and how can research societies use it?

Culturally, storytelling is as old as civilization itself! Using narratives is one of the oldest approaches humans used to spread important information in an evocative way. Brand storytelling is the art of using a narrative to communicate a brand’s mission and values to its audience. Brand storytelling aims to create a memorable and engaging identity that resonates with the target audience and creates an emotional connection.

Tips for effective brand storytelling by research societies

Today’s fast-paced and technology-driven society has made human connection particularly valuable. Research societies need to establish a deeper connection with their audience to stand out. And in a post-text world, these stories need to be relayed in multiple formats of digital storytelling to inspire communities around the world. Here are some tips for research societies to execute effective brand storytelling.

Identify the right channels: Brand storytelling is more powerful than traditional advertising and marketing. Social networking sites provide brands with a powerful tool to tell their story and connect with their audience in a more meaningful way. Research societies should leverage the reach, engagement, virality, and analytics of these platforms to build a strong and authentic brand story.

Know your audience: Know your target audience and their needs, interests, and preferences to tailor your message and make it relevant to them.

Develop an effective narrative: A brand story should have a clear beginning, middle, and end. The narrative should be cohesive and flow well. People are more likely to remember a story that evokes an emotional response. Creating a story that sparks interest or connects with the audience on an emotional level can go a long way to this end.

Make it memorable: Instead of telling the audience what a society’s brand is all about, show them through storytelling. Using vivid descriptions and examples to paint a picture of your brand’s values will make the brand story memorable and leave a lasting impression on the audience.

Cross-promote your brand: Cross-promotion is a terrific way to enhance brand storytelling efforts and expand reach. One way to do this is by co-creating content. A society can work with universities or even other societies and journals to tell a compelling story that resonates with overlapping audiences. The story may be shared via blog posts, videos, or social media campaigns. Another approach is to partner with academic influencers who align with a research society’s profile and have a following that overlaps with the research society’s target audience.

Examples of brand storytelling by research societies and publishers

American Chemical Society (ACS): ACS uses brand storytelling to communicate the impact of chemistry on society. Their messaging emphasizes the role that chemistry plays in everything from health and medicine to energy and the environment. By highlighting real-world examples of how chemistry is making a difference, ACS can connect with audiences on an emotional level and showcase the value of their work.

On its LinkedIn page, for instance, it showcases its position as the world’s largest scientific society and a leading source of authoritative scientific information. Its 150,000-strong membership includes chemists and chemical engineers from across globe, who are engaged in “evolving chemistry enterprise.” On its Facebook page, it pithily states its role as “One of the world’s largest scientific societies and a leading source of authoritative scientific info.”

American Psychological Association (APA): APA’s brand storytelling focuses on the power of psychology to improve people’s lives. Their messaging emphasizes the role that psychologists play in addressing social issues like mental health, education, and diversity. By highlighting the positive impact that psychology can have on society, APA positions itself as a trusted authority on these issues and attract new members and partners. On its LinkedIn and Facebook pages, APA’s mission to advance the creation, communication, and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people’s lives is well showcased.

These are just a few examples demonstrating how academic societies use brand storytelling to communicate their mission, values, and impact to a broader audience. While not entirely a brand storytelling example, and not even by a research society, Springer’s storytelling initiative Springer Storytellers has some valuable takeaways for research societies to build on. This involves events where personal stories narrated by researchers in front of a live audience. The stories are made available as podcasts or written posts on a website beforetheabstract.com, freely accessible to the public.

To wrap up

Brand storytelling involves sharing the narrative behind a brand and its significance consistently across all communication. It is a powerful tool that can help academic societies build strong relationships with their members and audience, establish their unique identity, and create a competitive advantage in the academic landscape. By highlighting the emotional and practical significance of their work, academic societies can build stronger connections with stakeholders and even inspire young people to pursue careers in these fields.

The post <strong>The Importance of Storytelling in Brand Building for Research Societies</strong> appeared first on CACTUS.

See also: WeChat for Academia: Understanding Subscription and Service Accounts

Chinese enterprises are changing quickly, stimulating the systematic digitalization of different industries, including the research publishing industry. For Western publishers and journals, knowing how their Chinese counterparts manage daily operations can be helpful to understand the Chinese market better. Moreover, it is useful for international publishers and societies to learn about the unique Chinese digital ecosystem from different angles, including the perspectives of consumers, employees and partners.

What is WeCom?

WeChat is not merely a social media platform. Its provider, Tencent, has established a digital empire that includes almost every daily service for individuals and organizations. Among these, WeCom (WeChat work) is a software designed to provide organizational communication for work purposes. Before the launch of WeCom, many employees complained bout lack of work-life balance because the managers kept sending them WeChat messages for work whereas they considered WeChat to be their personal social media.

Because WeCom is limited to business purposes, it has far fewer active users than WeChat, but still a very impressive number: more than 1.8 billion in 2022. Every hour, 1.15 million employees of various businesses interact 140 million times with other users on WeCom. Currently, the number of WeCom service providers (i.e., companies with WeCom accounts) has reached 120,000, among which the number of service providers rated as “excellent” has exceeded 6,000. WeCom service providers cover 97 industries, with 1,232 unique interfaces that seamlessly integrate WeCom and 1,900 third-party applications.

See also: WeChat for Academia: Mini-Programs and How to Use Them

Why is WeCom better than WeChat for businesses?

With regard to functions, WeCom provides the same communication features as WeChat but with more applications to support business-related automation. For example, WeChat allows an individual account to create a group with up to 500 members, while WeCom allows up to 10,000 group members for an organizational group and up to 2000 members for other groups. The organization can use WeCom to invite customers, vendors, suppliers, and partners to join its WeCom groups for more accessible communication. Similarly, a WeChat account can add up to 5000 “friends,” but an individual WeCom account can add up to 50,000 “friends.” Besides, a WeChat account can send up to 200 messages to friends, while a WeCom account has no limit for bulk messages. Another feature that makes it more business-friendly than WeChat is that WeCom accounts can share the information of their “friends” (e.g., customers) with other WeCom members, which makes for seamless work handover or workflow support. These powerful features of WeCom can be beneficial for business networking as well as operations management. Additionally, WeCom provides various APIs to allow organizations to access and integrate WeCom with other applications, including applications of the WeChat ecosystem and third-party partners.

See also: WeChat for Academia: 5 Western Publishers Who Have Created An Online Presence in China

Many leading publishers and societies have started using WeChat for brand promotion and market expansion, but not many have used WeCom, perhaps because WeCom has been designed for enterprise management rather than marketing. However, as the WeCom product team leader Tieming Huang said, “The most exciting part is not the numbers, but the changes in the way the enterprises operate behind the numbers, which makes WeCom more determined to connect and create value.” As larger organizations like publishers set up local offices in China, WeCom may prove valuable in streamlining communications and operations.

Footnote:

¹ Guanxi refers to a cultural characteristic and a system of social networks and influential relationships that can benefit business and other dealings. Although networking and Guanxi are similar regarding their linguistic meaning, they are still different. Guanxi has specific implications for interpersonal and inter-organizational behaviors in Chinese society.

² Quanzi and social circle have similar linguistic meanings but are contextually different. From a research perspective, Quanzi is a unique feature of Chinese society and refers to a “differential pattern”. The starting point of Quanzi in Chinese society is blood and geographical relationship. Regarding the trust structure of Quanzi, it is mainly a trust relationship with a closed network with a mixture of work relationships, emotional relationships, and identity relationships.

The post WeChat’s Business Version WeCom: An Introduction for Societies, Journals, and Publishers Entering China appeared first on CACTUS.

The missions of universities frequently include the economic development of their service area and country through research and the dissemination of information. One way to accomplish this is by applying for and being issued patents for new inventions and technology. In addition, universities can increase their funds by licensing patents to outside companies or by sharing in start-ups launched by their employees based on the university patent.

The opportunities for universities and other research institutes related to patents are numerous. However, to take advantage of these opportunities, universities have to attract the required attention to their research. The remainder of this article will provide some tips and examples that may help universities effectively communicate information about their patented products or technology to investors, corporates, and the general public.

Target audiences

An effective patent communication strategy involves getting the appropriate information to various targeted audiences.

• Investors – One of the ways that universities can profit from their patents is for the patent holder or other institution employee to create a start-up to commercialize the invention. To do this, investors are needed to provide the required funding.
• Corporate partners – Traditionally, universities license the patent information to corporate partners to commercialize, with the university receiving the license fee. For this to occur, the invention needs to be marketed to appropriate potential corporate partners.
• General public – Universities also promote their acquired patents to the general public for the purposes of gaining prestige and attracting future students and researchers.

See also: Patents and the Intellectual Property Rights Ecosystem at Indian Universities

Communication formats

Many different communication avenues are available for universities to introduce and explain the inventions patented by their researchers. Universities should consider using more than one of channel so as to reach the greatest possible audience. Here are a few of the most commonly used formats.

• White papers – This format can provide the detailed information needed by potential investors and corporate partners and can be published on the website as well as promoted through social media.
• Video summaries – Videos can be effective in introducing new inventions as visually showcasing the product can create a bigger and more dramatic impression.
• Explainer infographics/presentation decks – This format also has the advantage of being visual and can be used to effectively present quantitative information about the product.
• Official websites – The most accessible format, information published on the university or research institute’s website will be seen by the largest audience. This format is best for reaching the general public and prospective students.

Patent communication examples

• Patent list on website – Many universities will provide a list of their patents on their general or departmental website, frequently to attract new students.
  • As an example, the Chandigarh University Department of Civil Engineering website lists patents applied/granted to faculty and includes the patent title, faculty member(s), and a short description for each patent. Similar lists exist for other departments in the university.
• Press releases – The public relations department of a university will often put out press releases announcing the granting of a patent to their researchers.
  • For example, a press release issued by Northeastern University announced the awarding of a South Korean patent for Autonomous Impedance Calibration on Semiconductor Devices. The press release includes a diagram of the device and a QRC code to guide the interested reader to more information.
• News stories – Patent inventions that are of local interest or are particularly interesting are sometime covered by general news agencies. The university public relations department can facilitate this coverage.
  • For example, a Reuters story was published about a Japanese professor’s invention of a lickable television screen. Similarly, the Times of India published a story on new patents filed by Andhra University
• University news articles – News articles can also be published on the institution’s website.
  • Examples of news stories published by universities include the NC A&T University story about a professor’s patent relating to a defense communication device and the Keene State University story about a patent for a communication device arising out of a collaboration between a college professor and a world-renowned concert pianist.
• Blogs – Similar to university news articles, blogs can be used to announce and promote university patents.
  • Bennett University published a blog announcing the granting of a patent to the university for a mechanized programmed plating apparatus for distributing microbial suspension. The invention has been described as “an advanced automated instrument that has been designed and implemented for microbial plating of samples, applicable in Microbiology/Biotechnology.” This blog was used to promote the university program.
• In-person events – Some institutions will use conferences, exhibitions, and trade shows to introduce and promote their patented inventions to potential partners and investors.
  • For example, Keio University conducts events throughout the year to showcase their research. One such event is the Open Research Forum. As stated on the event website, “This forum introduces the current status and future planning of research projects at the Keio Research Institute at SFC to business, government and other public offices, municipalities and academia.” Another example is the Keio Tech-Mall event, which includes exhibitions, demonstrations, and symposiums.
• Setting up university technology commercialization departments or partnering with intellectual property transfer companies – These organizations often serve as intermediaries between the university researcher and potential partner companies or investors.
  • Stanford University Office of Technology Licensing (OTL) – The OTL serves as a conduit between the college inventor and industry.  “Through marketing, OTL works with the inventors to prepare a non-confidential abstract that is made available through OTL’s website and sent directly to targeted companies.”
  • Japan Technology Group –  This technology-based intellectual property transfer company facilitates communication and collaboration between university researchers and industry.

With the increasing number of patents being granted and the decreasing government funding, utilizing patents can be an effective way for universities to expand partnerships with industry, open up new funding avenues, and increase university prestige and enrollment. Creating an effective communication plan for promoting these patents is a good first step to accomplishing these positive outcomes.

The post Crafting a Patent Communication Strategy: Tips for Universities appeared first on CACTUS.

See also: Building a Digital Presence in a New Country: What Academic Publishers Should Know

What is Baidu?

Although Google has dominated the search engine market in many countries, it is not the case in China. Since Google pulled out of the Chinese market in 2010, local search engines have been quickly developed to fit the Chinese language and culture better. Baidu is the most popular search engine in China, with a market share of 70% (across devices). As of September 2022, Baidu dominated the Chinese search engine market for mobile users in particular (market share of 79.65%). Baidu has more than 1.1 billion users. According to the QuestMobile report, only three companies have achieved such a milestone: Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent.

See also: Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent: What Academic Publishers and Societies Need to Know About China’s Tech Giants

Baidu Ecosystem

Baidu is one of the world’s largest AI and Internet companies. Over the years, it has grown far beyond a search engine and has set up a massive ecosystem. This ecosystem has components that are similar to their western competitors, with some important differences. Let’s look at these in detail below.

Baidu Baike

Baidu Baike, the Chinese version of Wikipedia, serves as a collaborative Chinese encyclopaedia for over 800 million internet users in China. As an essential part of the Baidu ecosystem, the entries of Baidu Baike predominate in Baidu search results. Therefore, all brands make an effort to set up quality pages on Baidu Baike for better visibility (see, for example, the pages by Elsevier and IOP). Anyone can create and maintain entries on Baidu Baike by following their content approval principles, such as canonical term names, objective facts, verifiable content sources and complete term structure.

Baidu Scholar

Baidu Scholar is the equivalent of Google Scholar. It was launched in June 2014 as a free academic resource search platform. Baidu Scholar aims to be China’s most extensive research platform, including acquiring English-language resources and publications. By 2021, it had covered more than 1.2 million domestic and international academic sites, such as those from Wanfang, Elsevier, Wiley, and Springer, through license agreements with these publishers. It offers not just literature search services but also citation management and plagiarism check services, among others.

Baidu News Feed

Baidu News Feed has several features that support effective market promotion and advertising. For example, the mobile Baidu homepage provides user-friendly rich formats for ad placements with massive daily internet traffic. With advanced AI algorithm support from Baidu, the Baidu News Feed can enable marketers to customize promotions for specific target segments, based on user search records, personal interests, and internet behavioural records. Charges for advertising are based on user clicks, known as the Baidu PPC (Pay Per Click). The minimum click fee for each advertisement is 0.3 yuan. When the daily click volume reaches the limit of the pre-set budget, the system will automatically stop displaying the advertisement.

Baidu Tieba

Baidu Tieba, the largest interest-based online community in China, was established in 2003. It is generally similar to Reddit and allows for a wide variety of posts; users share posts related to their own hobbies and interests, their views on current events, or just their daily lives. Thus, the platform can support brand storytelling and story building efforts. Baidu Tieba has almost 45 million users per month and is popular among younger generations. It has high user stickiness and significant social network influence. Being an online community forum, it provides a centralized network for different brands to create promotions for a targeted market. For example, promotions for a conference can be customized to the Tieba on that specific subfield or area. Baidu Tieba is a valuable alternative branding platform in addition to Weibo (equivalent to Twitter) and Zhihu (equivalent to Quora).

Baidu Wenku

Baidu Wenku is Baidu’s online interactive document-sharing platform, launched in 2009. It provides an official certification logo to safeguard the reputation of quality content. In 2021, the Thieme Group was the first international publishing group to sign a comprehensive agreement with Baidu Wenku. Baidu Wenku provides an online submission service for researchers by which they can upload articles with “one-click” convenience. Additionally, Baidu’s AI marketing feature enhances the precision of personalized information retrieval. Baidu Wenku’s total traffic has exceeded 20 billion users as of September 2021.

How to use Baidu to build a Presence in China

A Baidu Trust Certificate is the most important consideration for any journal or publisher in order to safely build a sustainable presence in China. It is Baidu’s own SSL certificate brand, which provides globally trusted server verification and data transmission encryption services. With regard to advertising strategy, journals and publishers need to pay attention to the e-Baidu platform, which is designed to provide search engine marketing services in Chinese, while the Baidu Brand Zone and Baidu SEM on AdChina.io provide international collaboration platforms for English speakers. For example, the Baidu Brand Zone advertising service can display a large section of text, images, and other multi-media advertisements when the user searches for the brand name. Baidu Brand Zone offers a higher conversion rate than traditional Baidu PPC advertising. China Internet Watch estimated that using the Brand Zone can result in a 78% increase in purchase intent.

Get in-depth insights on how to build a presence in China by understanding the country’s research agenda and ecosystem. Download this whitepaper.

The post Building an Academic Brand in China: The Importance of Baidu appeared first on CACTUS.

Scholarly societies are a crucial cog in supporting advocacy efforts because evidence-based knowledge, which is their chief asset, can fuel decision-making and policy-making. Government bodies and the general public want authoritative sources of knowledge to inform their opinions on pressing matters. Scholarly societies can leverage their wealth of peer-reviewed research to engage with stakeholders and make a difference in critical issues related to their field.

Initiatives by scholarly societies to support advocacy campaigns

Scholarly societies and publishers often include advocacy efforts in their portfolio because they can be considered “advocates” for their disciplines. Let’s look at some notable initiatives where academic societies have capitalized on their resources to push advocacy campaigns.

Healthy Air Campaign: ALA

The American Lung Association (ALA) runs a “Healthy Air Campaign,” advocating strong laws and policies to cut down air pollution and stem climate change. Drawing from reliable evidence, ALA urges stricter limits on pollution, cleaner vehicles, and better energy efficiency. Their healthy air advocacy is deeply rooted in scientific evidence. Information is put out in the form of reports, which garner wide media coverage. Thought-provoking and persuasive advertisements are another way by which they create impact.

Advocacy efforts for numerous causes championed by ALA have led to encouraging success stories, including legislations and policies related to lung health, tobacco use, and clean air.

In pursuit of issues threatening Australia’s biodiversity: RZS NSW

The Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales (RZS NSW), Australia’s oldest zoological society, takes a position on various topics for advocating change, such as the use of poisons to control mouse plagues or the impact of tunnel construction activities on marine biodiversity. They routinely provide comments in the form of letters and declarations and even run independent inquiries into issues such as frequent bushfires.

Striving to reduce preventable maternal mortality: ACOG

Leveraging its long-standing expertise in maternal health, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) spearheaded an advocacy initiative to counter preventable maternal morbidity and mortality. This initiative supports federal and state legislation to this end and offers resources to improve maternal safety. ACOG provides resources such as an easy-to-understand “Patient Safety Tool,” FAQs, and infographics to equip users with knowledge of urgent warning signs that could indicate a life-threatening situation.

Endorsement of One Health: CABI

The Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (CABI), an international, inter-governmental nonprofit, deals with global issues such as food security and climate change. CABI advocates a “One Health” approach, which aims at improving human, animal, and environmental health in a holistic manner. Over the past decades, CABI has been carrying out research and advocacy services in plant protection and livestock health to help tackle the latest challenges faced by the agricultural sector. CABI has launched One Health Cases, a curated collection of examples of One Health in practice that seeks to serve as a resource for academics, public stakeholders, and industry practitioners.

See also: How Research Societies and Institutions Can Improve Public Health Literacy on the Monkeypox Outbreak

Improving advocacy campaigns with impactful content strategies

The rich repertoire of research findings held by scholarly societies can be utilized for expertise, advice, and influence. However, these repositories of information need to be transmuted into content packages that are easy to assimilate, use, and share. Further, advocacy campaigns require a focused and structured strategy. When planning advocacy and content strategies to deploy, societies may consider the following:

• What are the society’s strengths as an advocacy organization?
• What are the usual approaches used for advocacy and how effective have they been?
• How can these approaches be improved to maximize influence?
• What new avenues might be adopted?

Different approaches to advocacy might include advisory efforts (e.g., design and delivery of expert advisory reports, developing and updating position papers and guidelines) and media campaigning. Digital communication and multimedia offerings today offer a plethora of options for disseminating content, engaging with users, eliciting rapid responses, and mobilizing change. A combination of different content strategies can help societies maximize reach and impact. End users, who might not necessarily be regular readers of journal articles, can benefit from offerings that are easy to access and put to use.

Below are some real-life examples of content strategies used by academic societies, as well as some innovative opportunities to consider.

Podcasts and webinars

Podcasts are becoming an increasingly popular and compelling medium to connect to target audiences. One of the leading academic publishers, Brill, hosts a podcast series #HumanitiesMatter on themes around contemporary global questions. This series is part of Brill’s commitment to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, including zero hunger; good health and well-being; quality education; equality; climate action; and peace, justice, and strong institutions.

Podcasts, webinars, e-learning courses, and knowledge toolkits are valuable ways to dispense knowledge as a part of advocacy efforts.

Databases and online tools

Similar to One Health Cases, CABI is also planning to launch a One Health Knowledge Bank, which will place journal articles, book chapters, datasheets, and even grey literature in a searchable database. Free access to such resources of valuable content can go a long way in informing crucial action plans.

Interactive online tools, such as the CABI-led Fall Armyworm Research Collaboration Portal, can help solve problems at the grassroot level and foster collaborations. Similarly, the Legislation Tracker by the American Society of Aging (ASA) provides useful information about policy-related and legislative issues concerning older adults, such as Social Security and the Affordable Care Act.

Social media platforms

Social media posts and memes are an exciting way to disseminate information on crucial issues. Memes are images, phrases, or short videos with a humorous or memorable message, with the potential to spread widely online. Memes have been used in public health campaigns on social media. Millennials and Generation Z individuals who are passionate about environmental issues are increasingly creating and sharing memes on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram.

To appeal to the growing audience of millennials and Generation Z (including a cohort of newly minted professionals), putting out content on Instagram and TikTok is promising for scholarly societies dealing with issues like public health, climate change, sustainability. In an article in The Guardian, Professor Alistair Griffiths, Director of Science and Collections of the Royal Horticultural Society, remarked, “It would be wonderful if there were a way for RHS scientific content to be co-created with the key environmental influencers of TikTok.” Social media strategy would need to consider trending hashtags and memes. One flipside, however, is that in certain parts of the world, some of these platforms might be inaccessible.

Alternative content formats

Graphic novels, comics, and similar narrative devices combining imagery and text have been found to be an effective medium for communicating information. Scholarly societies can use comics to relay information to both academic and non-academic audiences as a means of persuasive communication.

Infographics, videos, podcasts, blogs, and social media posts are powerful tools to engage the community. Societies that continue to innovate and use exciting and upcoming modes of information packaging and sharing can increase their effectiveness in influencing policy making.

See also: How Societies and Research Institutions Can Use Comics for Outreach and Engagement

Concluding notes

Academic societies have a unique opportunity to be part of global change. Depending on the discipline, issue and scale of the issue, and wherewithal of a society, advocacy campaigns can take on different formats. The rapid uptake of digital and multimedia formats underscores the need for advocacy campaign planning to incorporate diverse and emerging formats to generate awareness and incite action.

Advocacy campaigns by reputable scholarly societies have the power to spur collective thought and action for transforming public health, the economy, and energy systems for a more sustainable world.

The post Science for Peace and Development: How Research Societies Can Leverage Content in Advocacy Efforts appeared first on CACTUS.

Meanwhile, publishers have felt the squeeze from changing habits of media consumption and an increasingly competitive landscape.

To better engage with members and prospective members, and to gain new, diverse revenue streams, many societies and publishers have turned to customized content packages, such as AGA Clinician’s Companion or ASM’s Microcosm. In these content packages, researchers are offered curated information from existing publications and industry news. This approach allows societies to repurpose information into a useful magazine-like format for busy researchers, while being affordable to produce.

See also: Maximizing Member Uptake of Your Society Offerings: A Four-Step Approach

However, setting up a new customized content package can be daunting, and considering the increasingly crowded online publication landscape, one must consider potential pitfalls that come with trying to create a customized content package that stands out from the crowd. Here, we would like to share some tips on how to create a content package that can pull in new members and engage with your existing membership.

Know the audience, their needs, and their habits

This is by far the most crucial tip, as customizing to an audience necessarily means that you should know what that audience is.

There have never been more researchers in the world than there are now. However, researchers are not monolithic. The target audience is likely to belong to many demographics in terms of age, nationality, and career stage, and each of these segments will tend towards certain habits of consumption. For example, young people are more likely to use their smartphone as their primary media consumption device, so any society seeking to increase their audience of young and early-career researchers will need to create a smartphone-focused experience.

Conducting focus group discussions and analyzing website traffic and membership lists can allow you to determine audience segments and serve as a crucial resource for guiding audience-focused strategies to increase membership within any segment.

Go where your audience already is

Social media is hugely popular around the world, but certain demographics will favor different locations. For example, while Facebook may be hugely popular, you would have trouble using it to reach an audience of young Chinese researchers, who will be far more likely to use Sina Weibo in place of Twitter and Facebook, and WeChat in place of WhatsApp or LINE. Fortunately, it is easy to discover the most commonly used channels for audience segments, not only through directly asking your audience, but also by researching the outlets most commonly used by researchers in a given country.

Keep topics relevant

Considering the audience includes not just the choosing the right channels to disseminate, but also the content. We all ignore information we have no interest in, so making sure it is relevant and interesting is vital. For instance, an early career researcher is more likely to be interested in job opportunities and novel trends in research. In comparison, an established professor in charge of their own lab will more likely want to know about new international conferences and novel opportunities for publishing for their research area.

Similarly, researchers from various regions will find different topics relevant. For instance, a medical society with many members from high-income countries will have more interest in expensive, cutting-edge medical technology. Meanwhile, those from less-developed regions will have fewer opportunities to use such technology, instead preferring information that they can make use of with scant resources, such as advances in repurposed drugs.

Harness new content formats

The traditional journal article remains the main way that researchers engage with new information. However, the Internet has allowed novel content formats to flourish. Besides being fun and attractive, such novel content formats have allowed traditional publishers to reach new audiences who favor multimedia consumption and who feel strapped for time.

These formats include infographics that use visuals to put abstract concepts into an easily understandable form, engaging video summaries, one-page analyses, and podcasts. Using audience analysis, you can carefully select the appropriate format that your audience will find most engaging.

See also: How the Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery made it easy for orthopedic surgeons to access and share breakthrough research

Conclusion

A customized content package can offer great opportunities to improve your outreach and diversify income. A content package not only provides new revenue from monthly fees, but also from advertising and sponsorships, much like a traditional magazine. However, a strategic, analytic approach is necessary to make the most of such packages. Knowing your audience is the lynchpin to any new content strategy, so making use of surveys, existing subscriber information, and website analytics will help you realize a content package that wows your audience to draw in more members and engagement.

How are academic societies and publishers leveraging digital and social channels to meet various goals? Learn more in this whitepaper.

The post Creating Customized Content Packages: Tips for Societies and Publishers appeared first on CACTUS.