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. 2013;11(4):e1001535.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001535. Epub 2013 Apr 23.

An introduction to social media for scientists

Holly M Bik  1 , Miriam C Goldstein
Affiliations

An introduction to social media for scientists

Holly M Bik et al. PLoS Biol. 2013.

Abstract

Online social media tools can be some of the most rewarding and informative resources for scientists-IF you know how to use them.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Monthly audience by communication methodology shown on A) log scale and B) linear scale.
Filled bars indicate traditional methodologies and unfilled bars indicate online methodologies. Data sources are as follows: 1. estimate; 2. estimate; 3. Scientific American (http://bit.ly/Z0dkaF); 4. San Diego Union-Tribune (http://bit.ly/WusyhV); 5. New York Times (http://bit.ly/14aktDi); 6. Twitter (http://tcrn.ch/146wWsy); 7. Wordpress (http://bit.ly/WVBwDa); 8. Facebook (http://bit.ly/10xUemL). Numbers reflect the potential monthly audience for each medium, and not necessarily the number of users who access a particular content item on that medium. All data accessed on January 22, 2013 and normalized to monthly views.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Flowchart showing a decision tree for scientists who are interested in communicating online.
An earlier version of this flowchart appeared in a guest post by MCG in Nature's Soapbox Science blog (http://goo.gl/AeKjJ).
Figure 3
Figure 3. Common online communication fears and suggested solutions.
An earlier version of this figure appeared in a guest post by MCG in Nature's Soapbox Science blog (http://goo.gl/AeKjJ).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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Publication types