Ambassy

Between these various activities, Bogers was constantly looking for short and sometimes longer stretches of time to spend on his Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook accounts. How does that pay off, apart from a steadily growing number of followers? “That’s always difficult to say, because there’s no way of knowing whether you would still have connected with people if you hadn’t used social media. But I have written articles and worked on projects with people whom I’ve met via social media.”

“I also made useful contacts outside academia: in industry and the policy sector, and this sometimes leads to applications of your research in practice. It was great that I got to know the Dutch ambassador in Denmark via Twitter after I had just moved to Copenhagen. That resulted in us co-organizing lunch seminars at the embassy.”

Bogers – who was named Highly Cited Researcher in 2019 and 2020 – also dares to make the cautious claim that his high follower account on Twitter doesn’t hurt his citation score. “Share your research via social media, this way your peers will take notice of your research much sooner than when they read about it in a journal.”

Encouragement

Bogers believes that colleagues who categorically refuse to use social media, miss out on an opportunity. “I benefit a great deal from it. It facilitates communications with colleagues and participation in communities, and it increases your visibility.” That’s more true now than ever before, since practically all seminars and other meetings take place online due to the corona pandemic.

Bogers: “Even though you can’t replicate certain fundamental aspects of a physical meeting – think of creativity and serendipity that can result from coffee machine encounters –, we’ve learned over the past year that much can be done online. This means that people will continue to travel less often after the pandemic, partly for reasons of sustainability.”

In a post-pandemic world with fewer real life meetings, social media can help us stay in touch and make new connections all across the world. Bogers decided to offer other scientists some encouragement and drew up five principles for social media, which he sent to Nature’s online Correspondence section.

Ambassy

Between these various activities, Bogers was constantly looking for short and sometimes longer stretches of time to spend on his Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook accounts. How does that pay off, apart from a steadily growing number of followers? “That’s always difficult to say, because there’s no way of knowing whether you would still have connected with people if you hadn’t used social media. But I have written articles and worked on projects with people whom I’ve met via social media.”

“I also made useful contacts outside academia: in industry and the policy sector, and this sometimes leads to applications of your research in practice. It was great that I got to know the Dutch ambassador in Denmark via Twitter after I had just moved to Copenhagen. That resulted in us co-organizing lunch seminars at the embassy.”

Bogers – who was named Highly Cited Researcher in 2019 and 2020 – also dares to make the cautious claim that his high follower account on Twitter doesn’t hurt his citation score. “Share your research via social media, this way your peers will take notice of your research much sooner than when they read about it in a journal.”

When Bogers started with Twitter, he decided to simply send tweets in which he shared some interesting articles, research results and practical examples that he had come across. Today, a decade later, his account has grown into an ‘information hub’ for his research topic: open innovation. “That’s the value I add. Anyone can pick a role, something that suits you. If you’re a junior researcher, don’t think that you need to know all the answers first before you can make a useful contribution; perhaps your role is to ask questions that are relevant to your field.”

Beard

What advice does Bogers have for colleagues in academia who are thinking: perhaps it’s time for me to finally embrace social media, but where do I start? “The first step is to get a good insight into your digital presence: how easy is it for people to find you online? What do you find when you google yourself? Do you have an up-to-date website, for example, or a profile on Google Scholar?”

Also consider, Bogers suggests, the balance between your active and passive (meaning how well people can find you) presence on various media platforms. “When you’re not active on Twitter even though you have an account, that one researcher at that seminar can still find you and tag you in an interesting tweet.”

And then there’s the balance between your personal and professional identity on social media: how much personal information do you share? Bogers says that on Facebook in particular, professional and personal lives– or professor Bogers and Marcel – have become intertwined. “I’ve decided to embrace that. At this point, the length of my beard, which has gotten somewhat out of hand during the lockdown, has become a topic of discussion between my mother and a fellow professor from Florida on my Facebook page.”

To those who have decided on a social media platform to be active on, the role they want to fulfil, and the extent in which they wish to be present online, Bogers has the following advice in conclusion: “simply set something up that suits you, and subsequently gradually create added value and grow.”