By Marte C.W. Solheim

Yesterday I woke up to many notifications on my social media accounts, and quickly realized the reason why. It was because Mike Young had tweeted about the 100 scientists with the biggest social media impact in Norway, and I was on that list (as number 22 out of the 100). Yay!

Those that know me, know that I have a passion for research dissemination, and outreach, and have over the years tried to be relatively active on social media, as well as very involved in giving speeches at different events and arenas. But I was still not expecting a list like this to appear, and although one should take any rankings with a pinch of salt, I was very excited to find my name on this list.

Mike Young notes that:

“Scientists and researchers are constantly being assessed and evaluated for their ‘impact’. The h-index , for example, measures the productivity and citation impact of a scholar.

The h-index, however, does not measure other forms of academic impact like teaching and outreach activities, and it tends to favour scholars in the natural sciences. Researchers also have a wider impact on society than what can be measured through article citations like in the h-index: They teach younger researchers, engage in public debate and influence policymakers and other experts in their field.

A further measure of impact is how good scientists are at networking with their peers in other universities and with the general public: Here a social media ‘impact’ of a researcher may be more interesting.

My own TwiLi Index offers a measure of this type of wider impact, and I now release a set of data for scientists and research in Norway. I have already released an index for Denmark/the Copenhagen region every summer since 2019, and you can read about the methodology of it here. Upcoming releases include Sweden and Denmark (2022 version soon) with Finland planned to go live in 2023.“

Read more about the ranking and methodology here.

Tips on engaging with social media: Howard Browman has written some tips here and also referring to Marcel Bogers` essay “Five principles on social media” and others.