Channels
Within the Research Communities, posts are grouped into channels. Channels allow readers to explore similar types of content and easily find what matters to them. When creating your post ensure that you select the relevant channel to make sure your post reaches the right audience. We have created a summary of all available channels on the Communities below.
- Behind the Paper: these blog posts provide you with the opportunity to share your findings and the stories behind your recently published papers. Behind the Paper posts are a chance to reach wider audiences with your work, pique their interest and introduce them to your publication.
- News and Opinion: this channel provides a space to discuss developments in the field, current affairs, or explore new research ideas. Blog posts should be explorations and discussions of new ideas but still within the context of published research.
- From the Editors: if you are an Editor or Editorial Board Member of a Springer Nature Journal, this is the channel for you! Here you can share your perspectives as an Editor, which could include sharing advice, celebrating journal milestones, highlighting calls for papers or other announcements.
- Life in Research: this channel encourages contributors from around the world to share their stories and experiences, including updates from scientific conferences, field work, or other snapshots from your life as a researcher or academic.
- Events: in this channel, you can highlight upcoming events of relevance to the wider research community. Please note that promotional and marketing materials do not adhere to the Communities Guidelines. To publish a post in this channel, please ensure that it follows the template outlined here.
- Opportunities: this channel is a space for discovering and sharing research-related opportunities that can help advance your career, broaden your academic network and get more involved in your community. Find out more about how to share an Opportunities post.
Adding Journal or Collection Badges
When creating a post on the Communities, you will find a field titled ‘Add a Journal or Collection’ on the right-hand side menu. You will see a search function saying, ‘Search for a Journal or Collection’, where you can search for the name of the journal and/or specific Collection your post relates to. Once you click on the name, the badge will be added to your post draft.
The badges work as a way of grouping all the posts from the same journal and Collection in one place, which can then be accessed by clicking on the badge of a published post. Adding a badge makes it easier for readers to find and engage with your post and other posts they might be interested in – an easy way to ensure your post is as visible as possible across the Communities.
If you are writing a Behind the Paper post, you need to ensure that the Journal badge you select is based on the journal your article was published in. Only one journal should be selected. If your post also relates to a particular Collection, adding the Collection badge alongside the Journal badge is a great way to boost its visibility and connect it to other work from the Collection.
Topics
Topics are a flexible tagging system within the Research Communities that help you ensure your post reaches the right audience. Topics are designed to help Communities members keep up with the latest developments in the field and explore emerging areas of interest. They bring together all content tagged with the same Topic in one place, making it easier for readers to discover the posts they are interested in.
By adding topics to your post, you ensure that your post is visible and easily found by your intended audience, as it will appear not only in the relevant Community, but also on the Topic page (e.g. Cancers), and in the Activity Feed of everyone following that Topic.
Add one or more Topics to your blog post via the ‘Add a Topic’ field under the main content box. Once published, Topics appear in the sidebar of the post, where readers can click the Topic to visit its dedicated Topic Page or ‘Follow’ the Topic.
Share your post beyond the Communities
Social media is an extension of academic networking, allowing you to engage with researchers you know, and those you don’t. The 2024 Springer Nature Social Media Survey revealed that 75% of active researchers use social media for professional purposes, and over 80% use it to search for new research content.
At the top of your post, just below your profile image, you will see a ‘Share’ button that allows you to share your post directly to Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. You can also share it via WhatsApp and email.
When promoting your work on social media, it’s important that you choose the right platform. For effective promotion, we advise that you start with the social media platform where you think your research community will be most active and make your content as visually appealing as possible. For more on optimising your content for social media, see this blog post.
Don’t forget to share your blog post with your teams and through your real-life personal networks too!