Using Social Media to Share Your Radiology Research: How Effective Is a Blog Post?

Purpose: The aim of this study was to compare the volume of individuals who viewed online versions of research articles in 2 peer-reviewed radiology journals and a radiology blog promoted by social media.

Methods: The authors performed a retrospective study comparing online analytic logs of research articles in the American Journal of Neuroradiology (AJNR) and the American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR) and a blog posting on Radiopaedia.org from April 2013 to September 2014. All 3 articles addressed the topic of reporting incidental thyroid nodules detected on CT and MRI. The total page views for the research articles and the blog article were compared, and trends in page views were observed. Factors potentially affecting trends were an AJNR podcast and promotion of the blog article on the social media platforms Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter to followers of Radiopaedia.org in February 2014 and August 2014.

Results: The total numbers of page views during the study period were 2,421 for the AJNR article and 3,064 for the AJR article. The Radiopaedia.org blog received 32,675 page views, which was 13.6 and 10.7 times greater than AJNR and AJR page views, respectively, and 6.0 times greater than both journal articles combined. Months with activity above average for the blog and the AJNR article coincided with promotion by Radiopaedia.org on social media.

Conclusions: Dissemination of scientific material on a radiology blog promoted on social media can substantially augment the reach of more traditional publication venues. Although peer-reviewed publication remains the most widely accepted measure of academic productivity, researchers in radiology should not ignore opportunities for increasing the impact of research findings via social media.