Pitch Science

Getting your science featured in the news is exciting and valuable... There's a reason why institutional PR teams typically send out press releases when a big paper is about to be released 😅 And why I'll be sharing my top tips for finding opportunities to collaborate with the media in my upcoming Personal Branding for Scientists course (the link to that course waitlist is in the comments) BUT getting in the news is not the *only* way to disseminate your work and shouldn't be your sole strategy for getting the word of your research out there Why? 📰 You can't control the news cycle... if something far more important or newsworthy comes up, you might lose your spot 👫 You'll only be reaching the portion of people who get their information through the news – or even that particular news outlet – which will skew the demographics and limit your reach 🔬 Not all studies are destined to get attention-grabbing news stories written about them (a sad but true reality) but that doesn't mean there aren't still people who'd be interested in learning more 🎙️ You can't easily open up a two-way dialogue with your target audience through traditional media and this one-way dissemination approach is not always ideal Instead, have a multi-pronged approach that also includes social media and a strong website strategy to consistently connect with people interested in your work 🎉 If you don't over-rely on the news and traditional media, and actively meet people in their own online spaces, you'll boost your impact and actually build a relationship with the people you're trying to reach! Are you a PhD candidate, post-doc, or even a PI who wants to effectively reach the people who care about your science and boost your overall research impact? Definitely get on the waitlist for my upcoming course, which is infused with my secret sauce for creating a well rounded and effective scientist personal brand 🥫

Did you know that there’s not just one type of science communication? The way we share and discuss science can vary based on how we view and interact with our target audiences There are actually 4 core models of science communication, each having a different communication approach and end goal 🤯 🫥 Deficit model Solely aims to fill gaps in public knowledge, under the premise that any hesitancy towards science within the public is caused by a lack of knowledge and information 🧐 Contextual model Understands that the needs, beliefs, and existing knowledge of an audience will alter how they receive the science, as well as the wider societal, political, and cultural context 🤓 Lay expertise model Emphasises the lived experience of communities or individuals over scientific knowledge, placing those with first-hand experience at the forefront of the conversation 🤝 Participation model Equal collaboration between scientists and the public, as well as policymakers, in science discussions, tied to the ideals of democracy and equality Both the deficit and contextual models are one-way communication – scientists communicating to the public without further interaction or dialogue with audiences Meanwhile, the lay expertise and participation models are two-way communication – opening up a conversation with audiences about science 💬 There isn’t a hard and fast right way to do science communication Yes, of the four core science communication models, the deficit model has been shown to be less effective... Because if you’re not empathising with or talking to your target audience, your communication to them is inherently going to be less effective 😅 BUT the deficit model is a useful tool for quickly sharing large amounts of new information to broad and varied audiences – looking at you, 2020 – especially if it’s a starting point for opening the lines of communication before moving to another model These 4 models can also work in tandem and collaboration to create a more well-rounded communications strategy Ultimately, it’s all about using the model, or combination of models, that’s going to help you achieve your science communication goals! 👩🔬👨🔬

Have you been wondering recently whether or not to hire a science communicator for your brand? How are you supposed to know when the time is right to make that leap? 😰 Well, you need to be on the lookout for any of these five signs: 💬 You want to improve public engagement & participation By fostering a sense of engagement & participation, you can build a more loyal following over time that is invested in the scientific outcomes you're achieving 📊 You have a breakthrough that you want to share Sometimes sending out just a press release to communicate a new paper simply isn't enough, & instead you need to craft the scientific narrative yourself to maximise impact 💰 You want to prove research impact to funding bodies By communicating your work openly & clearly, you can build a reputation as a thought leader in your field that will ultimately help to attract funding & philanthropy 👩🔬 You’re only sharing the scientists, not the science While acknowledging the hard work of your scientists is essential, it should not overshadow sharing the actual research they are conducting 🤩 You want to stand out with engaging science content You've realised that it's through combining both science communication & digital marketing that you can grow your reach & impact The best part is that you don't need to hire a full-time or even a part-time science communicator if you notice any of these signs – though you definitely can if you want to! I understand that the need for scientific content can fluctuate in line with research output & funding cycles, so I produce specialised scientific content only when you need & request it. This makes my science content creation services perfect for brands that want to share their science through engaging online content, but don't necessarily need full-time assistance yet. 💌 Want to learn more? Read about each of the five signs in more detail & submit an enquiry form on the Pitch website:

Are you a scientist who wants to become more active here on LinkedIn? LinkedIn is an often slept on social media platform 😴 Yes, depending on who you follow, it can become more of an echo chamber with other likeminded scientists so you’re sometimes less likely to be communicating your work to the public... BUT LinkedIn is designed for users to establish thought leadership within their fields, enhance their employability, and build strong personal brands 💡 Plus, when you do grow an expansive network, you will also be reaching people outside your field too and sharing your science with a much wider audience. The question remains though, what should you be posting? To give you a head start, I've curated this short list of 8 LinkedIn post ideas specifically for scientists: 📰 Share interesting science news relevant to your research topic 📖 Write a book review about a science book you've read recently 🤓 Provide a non-academic summary of your latest research paper 🤝 Talk about your volunteering and public outreach experiences and initiatives 🔬 Share relevant tips and skills you've learned during your research journey 🏅 Celebrate any recent career milestones you've achieved ✈️ Discuss your insights from a conference you've recently attended 💡 Give insight into how you approach leadership within your lab or even your field You could 100% use these ideas for content intended for other online platforms, but they're the perfect place to start when curating LinkedIn post ideas! If you've got any other LinkedIn post ideas, make sure to drop them in the comments below and follow Pitch for more tailor-made tips and tricks designed exclusively for scientists like you 👩🔬👨🔬 #ScienceCommunication #Researcher #Scientist #PhDStudent #SciComm #ScientificResearch

Repeat after me: impact does not equal citations 🔬❌📑 A 2024 study looked at whether tweeting about a paper can boost it’s citations 3 years later & spoiler alert: it didn’t 😅 The researchers tweeted about random papers from a journal of their choosing over the course of 10 months. All tweeting researchers had at least 5,000 followers each, so they certainly weren’t tweeting into a follower-less abyss. When they compared their 110 tweeted papers to 440 control papers, they did not find statistically significant evidence that their tweets had boosted citations 3 years later. (Though they did acknowledge the study did not have enough statistical power to detect a significant difference 👀) Honestly, I don’t think this result even matters... Because their tweeted papers DID have significantly higher Altmetric scores at both 30 days after tweeting & 3 years later. In fact, the tweeted papers had an 81% increase in Altmetric scores over the control papers at the 3 year time point! 🤯 Plus, the daily download rate for tweeted papers was almost four times higher on the day of the tweets. So people were indeed reading & talking about these papers far more than controls! Yet Nature News described this result as the ‘nail in the coffin’ for sharing science on Twitter. Did we read the same paper?! Don’t get me wrong, Twitter/X isn’t the best platform now for *other* reasons – but not because of anything scicomm related 😂 It really comes down to why we share science online in the first place. Because science communication is not solely about sharing your work to people who could cite it in the future! It’s about sharing your science with people outside of your niche. We should be celebrating increased Altmetric scores for the achievement that it is – real knowledge sharing & effectively making science more accessible to all I also wrote about this in more detail on the Pitch blog 👇

Does your science brand need it's own custom branded hashtag on social media? Short answer: majority of the time, probably not 😅 A branded hashtag, aka #BrandName, #BrandTagline or #BrandedCampaign, can be a useful tool for giant companies, like Coca-Cola and Nike. That's because these large corporations have a correspondingly large audience that can be incentivised to use the hashtag in their own content to raise brand awareness. But the chances are that your brand tagline is less recognisable than #JustDoIt (no offence) and you're less likely to get consistent user-generated content or UGC (again, no offence). For a smaller-scale brand, there's far better alternatives: ＠ Ask people to directly tag you instead (the best case scenario) 📌 Set up a brand location that people can also geo-tag Both of these options are clickable and will be a more direct route to your socials pages – the less clicks it takes people to get to your account, the more likely they are to actually make it there! As with much of life, there's no truly hard and fast rules. So, there are a couple of scenarios where a branded hashtag may indeed be needed or useful: 📅 When you're hosting a specific conference and event 🎁 For tracking specific giveaways or prize draws 📱 A specific content series that's highly likely to get UGC too Notice that all three are reliant on some form of UGC and need hashtags that are specific to that unique use case? Because if it's just you adding #BrandName onto the end of all your content, without any UGC or campaign to support it, then it's really only acting as visual clutter that's not giving any tangible benefit back. Oh and two more bits of bonus advice: 1. You can tell if it's redundant if you're 99% of the posts under your branded hashtag. 2. If your branded hashtag is currently your entire hashtag strategy – please rethink your hashtag strategy because I promise you that it is not effective right now! 🙏

I’ve seen a new podcasting trend emerge recently from science organisations & I’m a little baffled in all honestly 😅 I can see the value of podcasts and do understand why other people enjoy creating & listening to them. Podcasts can be a great way to share in-depth information with an audience who is dedicated & passionate. However, the dissemination approach being taken by many these scientific podcasts isn't effective given the nature & competitiveness of the podcasting space. In this blog post, I talk about how these institutional podcasts can be taken even further through – what I feel are – no-brainer changes that will truly maximise impact 🙌 Read the post here: https://lnkd.in/eZgCBkYQ #ResearchInstitutes #ScienceCommunication #Research #Podcasting #SciencePodcast

There's currently 2 new client spots currently open to work with me at Pitch Science! I’m currently in the process of finishing up some science branding & website design projects... So there’s room for those larger one-off projects coming up in my calendar + some extra capacity to take on new content creation clients too 🥳 So, if you've been thinking about stepping up your scicomm game, here's how I can help: 💬 Science content creation – we're talking socials, blogs, emails + other content that shares your science with online audiences 👩🔬 Personal branding & academic website design for scientists & research groups – I can get you online, live & ready for the start of 2025 💻 Branding & website design for science brands – these packages are designed to capture your science story perfectly 💪 1:1 content coaching to strengthen your science brand's online presence – perfect for brands who aren't ready to outsource or employ help for their science content 👩🏫 Speaking & training that empowers your researchers to extend their impact – they're the true experts, so let's help them share their science together Whether you're an individual scientist, research institute, not-for-profit or another science-based organisation, I'm here to help you turn your science into compelling stories. Want to learn more? Head to the Pitch website & submit an enquiry form: https://lnkd.in/g-skNAGa Remember, good things – and client spots – don't last forever. So snap them up while they're still available! 👀🏃♀️💨

Not doing science communication is costing science not-for-profits philanthropic donations 💸 I see so many NFPs structure their marketing strategy solely around their researchers (eg. awards won or theses submitted) and celebrating special days (eg. *insert topic* awareness day or Happy Easter). But this means that potential donors need to have HUGE amounts of trust in you to then commit to giving a donation, especially in this economic climate... Because do they know what research that money is specifically funding? Nope! 🙅♀️ Imagine walking into a brick and mortar store and simply being met with a wall of awards and trophies – no product or even product details in sight. Though it's impressive and maybe instils some confidence, it doesn't tell you much about the offers or products they actually sell. Would you purchase the product in that scenario, without any additional information? In the same way, NFPs and research organisations who neglect to communicate their work are ignoring the needs and wants of their audience in favour of more surface-level self-promotion 👀 Even if there is some science communication content buried deep within the website, if it's not also on those easy growth marketing channels like socials, that's still a massive missed opportunity. This isn't to say researcher achievements and special days don't have a place in the strategy – they definitely do. Rather, the strategy is simply missing a key component that will help drive loyalty, engagement, and ultimately philanthropic donations. Because if people know what you do, they're far more likely to want to support it! ✨

Last week, I went back to my old high school and spoke to the year 11 girls all about my STEM career so far I do this event at St Mary's Anglican Girls' School every year – I think this was my 6th or 7th time? I’m losing count! And as per usual, I got asked SO MANY questions by the students, both about my old life as a neuroscience researcher and my new one as a full-time self-employed science communicator 🙋♀️💬 One of the students this year asked me what I find most fulfilling or rewarding about doing science communication and the way I answered this question genuinely took me by surprise After pondering on it for a moment, I found myself saying to her that the most rewarding thing is when I see the comments and feedback my clients receive on my work Like yes, I obviously love getting great first-hand feedback from the people I work with 😅 But seeing their own audiences be excited to learn something new about themselves or the world around them, and reading those comments as they come in, is just infinitely more rewarding This is one of the things I love about doing these kinds of in-person outreach events Because not only do I get to spend my time encouraging other people to become more engaged and passionate about science (and I do love to see the girls’ faces light up as we talk)... But I also feel like I always get to learn something new about myself in the process too 🥰 Bonus: I got to have a photo of me nerding out to them about rat brains 🧠👩🔬