Ideas for promoting your journal Have you ever wanted to help promote and market your journal, but haven’t known where to start? These helpful tips will steer you in the right direction... Increasing usage and citations SAGE is committed to promoting and increasing the visibility of your journal and would like to work with you to promote your journal to potential readers. We are actively engaged with several social media initiatives and see this as a key way for people to engage with your newly-published work. As user expectations change, it is important that your journal is visible where the user starts their search. Below are some of the resources we think are key for promoting your journal and other channels that will offer a direct way to reach the widest and most appropriate audience. Contribute to Wikipedia We recognize that many students are increasingly using Wikipedia as the starting point for their research. If there are pages that relate to themes, subjects or research that your journal covers, add your journal as a reference, with a link to it on SAGE Journals Online. If there isn’t a page in existence, why not create one? You can find out how here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Your_first_ article. Join Twitter Twitter is a micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Editors are increasingly promoting their content via Twitter which is then picked up by other researchers and practitioners depending on their search parameters. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow public access. Twitter allows you to set up search terms to enable you to monitor what is being talked about in your areas of publication. You can then comment on the relevant conversations. The more you engage, the more people will follow you to listen to your comments and recommendations. As followers come to you, rather than you approaching them, Twitter is an ideal way to reach new audiences. SAGE has produced a set of guidelines for how to use Twitter. Add content to YouTube Content is, of course, no longer simply text and figures. It also includes user-generated content and multi-media content such as podcasts and videos. We are seeing an increasing amount of traffic to our journal sites via YouTube as students use video as an initial way of researching a topic. If you already have video content relating to your journal, please let us know and we will add it to our SAGE YouTube channel. If you are interested in exploring multimedia content for your journal please speak to your SAGE Editor. Join academic social networking sites Academics, researchers and practitioners are increasingly using social communities as a way of meeting and conversing with people who share the same research interests. These sites offer an immediate way to monitor what other people are looking at in your field of research or as a way to commission papers around online conversations you think are interesting. If there aren’t any groups talking about your research interests – set one up. Take a look at MyNetResearch http://www.mynetresearch.com and Academici http://www.academici.com for examples. Start blogging Linking your journal to blogs is an excellent way of enhancing discoverability. Search engines such as Google rate blogs highly when determining page rankings so the more you write, the higher your page will appear in search engine results pages. This is especially important as researchers are increasingly using Google Scholar to find content. There are various ways you can get involved in blogging: • Start a blog dedicated to your journal to provide an interactive forum for discussing articles, features and developments. This could be a great way of encouraging the wider community to engage with what the journal is publishing. SAGE can provide a blogging template and guidelines – please contact us if you would like further information. • Create your own personal blog. Wondering what to write about? What about: • Developments in your area of research? - Papers that you have published – and/or other related papers in your field of research? - Conferences and training events that you’re due to speak at? - Any interesting questions that came up at the last conference you attended? - What you think of any recent press coverage of your subject area? - Identify any bloggers in your field and participate in discussions by posting comments – don’t forget to link to your journal! Join Facebook Why not consider setting up a Facebook page? You can create groups according to your interests of areas of your expertise. We are happy to send you examples and guidelines on the use of Facebook. Join Methodspace Sponsored by SAGE, Methodspace is a new online community dedicated to research methods. On the site, you can connect with other researchers, discover and review new resources and approach authors who you would like to publish in your journal. Stay up to date with this and other SAGE initiatives by visiting our press page www.uk.sagepub.com/press.sp. Engage with LinkedIn LinkedIn is an interconnected network of experienced professionals from around the world with over 55 million members. It is not just for career opportunities. When you create your profile that summarizes your professional expertise and accomplishments, why not including mention of your journal and connect with authors who you would like to publish. Journal prizes Why not consider introducing a best paper prize or other award in order to promote your journal to potential authors and raise your profile? The prize could be awarded to the most highly cited paper, the best paper by an early career academic or postgraduate, or simply the paper that best advances the aims and scope of the journal. The winning paper could then be promoted via the journal’s website. Ask your SAGE Editor for advice. Other simple ways to promote your journal... Does your institutional library subscribe? If not suggest they do so! • Mention your journal in your emails by adding it to your email signature. You can link the journal back to its SAGE website page • Post an announcement about your journal on any listservs you subscribe to • Join the debate by engaging in social media. Tweet, blog and Facebook about your journal! Let us know what initiatives you are already using to promote your article. We would love to help you promote any blogs, sites or twitter feeds you set up by linking to them from our websites, so please do get in touch by emailing socialmediamarketing@sagepub.co.uk. To discover more social media tools from SAGE visit http://www.sagepub.com/socialmedia.sp.