The Marketer's Tool Kit: Leveraging social media - three steps to move beyond broadcasting

We spoke to Emma Watkins, Marketing Manager at IOP Publishing and co-tutor on our Effective Journals Marketing training course about how to get the most out of social media. Here's what she said.


It’s ten years since Facebook became available to the general public and Twitter was launched (and even longer since long forgotten and yet somehow still in existence MySpace began). In that time we’ve seen numerous new networks rise (and fall) and yet for many marketers the social web is still a daunting place to be.

For those companies who aren’t afraid to try, there is an awful lot of value to be found in engaging researchers in the social sphere – here’s how to start.

1. Start listening

Social networks are a great place to find out exactly what the community wants, needs, and thinks of you. Make sure you’re set up to find those conversations – there are tonnes of social media listening services out there which will aggregate content by keyword or product name. Take the time to skim through these regularly, as there can be valuable insight nestled amongst the pictures of people’s breakfasts.

Helpful link: Brandwatch Blog's Top 10 Social Media Monitoring Tools

Top tip: Conference hashtags are the perfect place to start – search for relevant events and keep an eye on your timeline when they are on (for example #alpsp16)

2. Conversations are a two-way thing – but make sure you’re speaking the same language

So you’ve done some great listening, perhaps even followed a conference hashtag or two – what next?

Time to start having some conversations! If you can add value to a blossoming conversation, perhaps with a link to some free (and highly relevant) content, or some advice on a publishing problem, then do it! But make sure you enter the conversation as a human being, not as a brand automaton. Where possible include your name – ASOS do this really well on Facebook.

Helpful link: Harvard Business Review - 50 Companies that get Twitter - and 50 that don't

Top tip: Once you’ve joined a conversation remember to stay with it – don’t just log off as people may respond to you.

3. Embrace different forms of content

It’s easy to get stuck on just sharing text content and links, but if you really want to make a splash then you should vary the content you share. Vlogs, infographics, images, podcasts – all of these offer unique ways to get your message across, so make sure you don’t just choose the right channel but also the right content.

Helpful link: Hubspot - 37 Visual content marketing statistics you should know in 2016

Top tip: Audit your current content store (leaflets, blog posts etc…) to look for new ways to repackage this information for social sharing. You could turn an FAQ page into an infographic, or make a video out of a press release on a product launch.


Emma is a Marketing Manager for IOP Publishing (IOPP), where she oversees the academic marketing strategy for the entire journals portfolio, as well as community websites, B2B products, and ebooks programme.

The next Effective Journals Marketing course runs on Wednesday 21 June 2017 in London. Further information and booking available on the ALPSP website.

What next for science and engineering books?

Liz Martin, Head of Production at IOP Publishing

IOP Publishing launched their born-digital ebook programme in 2013 (and won the Silver ALPSP Award for Innovation in Publishing in 2014). Liz Martin, Head of Production at Institute of Physics Publishing outlined how by not being constrained by the need to digitise an existing print programme, they were able start from scratch thinking about what readers, librarians and authors in the STM community wanted from books.

IOP Publishing sold their whole programme to Taylor & Francis in 2005. They got out of books, so why launch books again in 2013? It came from their mission. They wanted to engage with their community in a different way, with different content, levels and media to reach out to a wider audience. Unlike journals, authors can express views, which is a subtly different way of engaging the community. It allowed their communities to buy what they want, where they want, how they want. It also provided a financial channel.

IOPscience is their delivery platform. It has good usability and discoverability. They also had their platform in place. They have two collections: Expanding Physics (highly developed texts from leading names in the field) and Concise Physics (short, concise 'first' books in a subject that are written and published quickly). They adopted a born digital programme. They offer PDF, HTML and ePub 3 of absolutely everything. It is device independent and fully functional. Equations are used to make it readable and accessible. They provide a seamless reader experience with click through to exercises and embedded colour media. They have a no-DRM model so librarians can share content freely. There is a fee based model for authors so no legacy issues. They have a collections based purchasing model. They use their existing experience and contacts for production and workflow, quality and SLAs. They have an XML workflow to enable all formats. The biggest challenge is around author education. The opportunity is to use their journals.

Roheena Anand, Publisher at Royal Society of Chemistry

The Royal Society of Chemistry's main objective is to advance excellence in the chemical sciences. Roheena Anand, Publisher for Books, talked through how their publishing strategy meets the needs of the global chemical science community, where digital fits in, and their focus for the next five years.

Why do they still publish books? Because their community tells them they still want them. They find them trustworthy and knowledgeable. Books are the best way to learn a new topic and go beyond a review article to present coherent body of knowledge. They also cover different levels of knowledge. As chemical science research output is browning, it provides ways to disseminate.

One of their key offers to the community as a Society is that all surplus from their programme is reinvested in science. The RSC is a specialist in chemical sciences and they cover different levels of knowledge from popular science to engage the public, through student materials to post-grad specialist researchers. There are synergies with their journal programme, they have an ePlatform, eBook Collections and high quality titles with recognised authors and editors. It helps time poor researchers with a fast track to relevant, quality materials.

They have achieved 50% growth in output and a concomitant increase in revenue. More titles are originated themselves with new book series and editorial boards. They have nearly 1500 ebooks in their eBook Collection. They have also reduced publication times by 10 weeks (around 20 weeks). They've diversified formats so ePUB and HTML and they have diversified revenue streams including pay-per-view, pick and choose eBooks and eBook aggregators.

Their focus in the future is on quality and has to be relevant for the international community as their membership is global. Subjects need to be in line with organisational priorities for the wider Society. They will extend formats and try to improve existing (e.g. print/POD? E-textbooks?). They will explore access routes to content and consider open access (which has not been a focus to date, but signs are this is changing).

Ian Stoneham from The IET

There has been a relatively recent resurgence in book commissioning activity, perhaps driven by institutional purchase of ebook collections or in some part as a reaction to rebalancing income from traditional society journal publishing revenues. The IET's Ian Stoneham questioned how secure the future of the book is as a discrete entity?

The IET publish a range of book products including monographs, professional reference, Standards (regulations), major reference works, conference proceedings and commissioned content. They have made a strategic decision to invest in programme expansion with a focus on core areas of IET activity and proposition as a learned society. They focus on quality, relevance and authority with established series and focus on edited multi-contributor monographs. They are looking for sustainable offering with depth and breadth, with a focus on digital that works for their community. Their standards publishing is now digital first with print 'squirted out at the end'.

Commissioned content is key to their knowledge offering. It can be an access to point to all other areas of their knowledge products or services. It can be repurposed and repackaged for CPD programmes and other activity. In engineering journal articles are important for career and funding,  but there is a different imperative to write books. Books can bridge the gap between primary research and practical application. Engineers are very pragmatic and having a book to wave in front of a client is a good thing for business.

In the future, they plan to open up their content for semantic enrichment e.g. auto detection of proper nouns, key terms in the text, linking to internal/external sources, etc. They also hope to improve community engagement (which isn't traditionally great in their field). Challenges included automated search, Patron-Driven Acquisition and protecting IP from third parties innovating around their content. However,  if you don't have the content, you can't meet the challenge of disruptive technologies.

The truth about content marketing: in conversation with IOP Publishing's Jo Allen and Karen Watts

H92: the place to be

Picture the scene. We're at the ALPSP stand in Hall 4.2 at Frankfurt Book Fair. Plans are being discussed for the forthcoming ALPSP Content Marketing seminar and the ALPSP team have got together with two communications specialists who are getting animated about what content marketing *actually* involves.

We joined in the discussion with Jo Allen (JA) who is Head of Marketing & B2B at IOP Publishing and Karen Watts (KW) IOP’s PR and Communications Manager, and captured some of the highlights of the conversation below:

ALPSP: What does content marketing mean to you?

JA: Using your content to do the work for you. All publishers are sitting on deep seams of great content. Effective content marketing makes use of these gems and does hard work for you.

KW: I think it's about utilising your best assets rather than looking for gimmicks.

JA: We're lucky we've got Physics World, it lends itself beautifully to this arena. To be honest we've been doing content marketing for a while unconsciously, but now it's more deliberate and far more strategic.

KW: Do you mean rolling out into different channels like social media and on the website?

JA: Yes. We now have a much more holistic approach. We focus on the content first and the channel second. Content comes first. It's a similar approach to the one we have with IOP’s design studio. Instead of simply designing a printed piece or an email communication, we consider the content first and make it adaptable to all formats right from the start.

Jo Allen: content marketer extraordinaire

KW: Let's face it, content marketing drives and informs every decision we make in communications now.

JA: True, we'd struggle to make a decision that doesn't relate to it in some way!

ALPSP: What do you think is the most effective piece of content marketing IOP has ever done?

JA: The Physics World 25th anniversary issue back in 2013 was incredibly effective. We produced a special issue with lots of special features. Do you remember the 25 top list? It had five top people to watch, five best discoveries, five puzzles GCHQ created…..  that really helped the comms team with newsworthy content. It made a big splash then, and we're still using it nearly a year later.

KW: It was hugely successful.  Because a key strength of Physics World is high quality reviews of physics news, it is not always easy to pitch the content as newsworthy on its own. It was a great opportunity to showcase the editorial quality of the magazine in a different format.

JA: And we've got good mileage from it. The new digital magazine app has just launched using the 25th issue as a free download to showcase the fantastic design and functionality. We're still using it as a recruitment tool for membership for the digital only member category.

KW: On the journals side, I think the video abstracts are one of our most effective pieces of content: the stats speak for themselves. Papers with a video abstract are downloaded three times more than those without. Press releasing articles is enormously important too. A press released article will see downloads for it jump from an average of 40 to around 7,000. That's a fairly impressive rise.

Karen Watts: an Oscars-free zone

JA: Agreed.  Mind you, content marketing can go badly wrong.

KW: Oh yes, I cringe when I see people using gimmicks instead of thinking about the actual content and audience. The worst is when you see someone try to put across a personality that just isn't them. Tone of voice is crucial!

JA: Talking of personality, something we have to remember is that while our authors are physics experts, they are also human beings!

KW: Exactly, our authors and readers aren’t just an audience segment or a specialist field. They have the desire to share and connect with other people just like everyone else. When you try and be something you're not, you're doomed. It's about authenticity and relevance.

JA: True. But when you think about tweaking tone of voice and changing marketing approaches, it’s crucial to bring along colleagues. Changes in marketing strategy can be scary so we need to support them along the way...

KW: You know my pet hate? Trying to be 'current' and shoehorning celebrity news into your channels. Don't comment on the Oscars unless it's related to your topic!

And with that, the discussion concluded and normal Frankfurt Buchmesse business resumed.

Karen Watts will be presenting a case study at the forthcoming ALPSP seminar Content Marketing - using your publishing assets? on how IOP’s content marketing strategy is changing lives, one Ferrari at a time!

Register for Content Marketing - using your publishing assets?  on Wednesday 12 November 2015 in London.

ALPSP Awards spotlight on... IOP ebooks™ from IOP Publishing: a born-digital books programme for physics

The ALPSP Awards for Innovation in Publishing announcement is fast approaching.

In the latest in a series of blogs profiling the finalists of the Awards, we spoke to Christian Box, Head of Sales Operations at IOP Publishing, about the IOP  ebooks™ programme.

ALPSP: Tell us a bit about your company 

CB: IOP Publishing is a subsidiary of the Institute of Physics, a not-for-profit society. Our headquarters are in the UK but we have offices worldwide. We publish more than 70 journals across the physical sciences and beyond that we publish magazines, conference proceedings and more recently, ebooks.

ALPSP: What is the project that you submitted for the Awards?

CB: The IOP  ebooks™ programme is a brand new book programme launched in October 2013. Our vision is to create the leading collection of physics books for a digital world. We aim to do this by bringing together outstanding researchers from across the physics landscape, with a born-digital, innovative approach to book publishing to make us the publisher of choice in the physics community. Despite starting with no backlist, platform or production system we established and launched our programme in 12 months.

ALPSP: Tell us more about how it works and the team behind it

CB: To date, 10 books have been published across two collections – IOP Expanding Physics and IOP Concise Physics. We expect to publish 30-35 books by the end of the year. When we started the project, we were able to utilise a lot of in-house expertise from across the business (IT, production, marketing, the design studio etc.). We wanted to transfer the knowledge and skills we have in journal and magazine publishing into books and I think we've been able to do that well. Naturally we've had to add some new skill sets, including a new book commissioning team. We've also established key partnerships to support the programme – IOP Concise Physics is built in partnership with Morgan & Claypool, for example.

ALPSP: Why do you think it demonstrates publishing innovation?

CB: It’s a combination of factors, but in essence I believe that we have created the first book programme in STM Publishing designed around the digital version.

Over the last 5–10 years STM ebook publishing has progressed but we found that the vast majority were still based on the print model – what you might call “print books online” rather than ebooks. Our approach completely disassociates the two, meaning that we can focus on the digital delivery of our books. I would highlight three particular points within our programme that captures this.

Firstly, we believe the reading experience that we offer is the best in STM publishing. We publish all books in HTML, PDF and EPUB 3 and make them available as individual chapters or whole books. This puts the reader in control – allowing them to read the book the way that they want, on the device that they want. This also gives the authors the freedom to go beyond the constraints of the printed page – allowing the incorporation of multimedia and use of features such as MathJax.

Secondly, and associated to the reading experience, is the freedom of use. For our institutional customers our books have no DRM or restrictions on use, which means that a librarian can feel comfortable that they are buying unlimited, restriction-free content for their patrons.

Finally, we have moved away from a traditional print royalty model for rewarding our authors, to allow us the flexibility to fully embrace digital publishing without being constrained by the limits of a royalty model based on print.

What makes our programme innovative is the way we have bought all of these factors together to launch a true digital books programme. This is a real advancement in publishing.

ALPSP: What are your plans for the future?

CB: In terms of future expansion, we are commissioning new content in physics and other complementary subjects and plan to publish more than 120 books per year in 3-5 years. We are also developing the functionality on our platform, IOPscience, to offer the best reading experience and exploring new business models that provide flexibility for our customers.

Christian Box is Head of Sales Operation at IOP Publishing and was part of the team who developed the IOP  ebooks™ programme.

The winners will be announced at the ALPSP International Conference. Registration closes on Thursday 28 August. Book now to secure your place.

Marketing Open Access programmes and publisher case studies

Caroline Sutton, Co-Action Publishing

In the final afternoon session at The Mechanics and Reality of Open Access, Caroline Sutton from Co-Action Publishing talked about marketing. They have seven employees publishing 34 journals with most income coming through APCs. For them, Open Access equals free access with re-use under a CC BY licence to keep it simple and easy to use.

Marketing channels are similar to subscription publishing. Promotional activities are run in conjunction with conferences. They have outreach to libraries, social media activities, email campaigns, etc. To some extent they are seeking to meet the same needs: access to peer reviewed literature and a publication outlet. But she believes that OA and hybrid journals are two very different products.

Open Access is knowledge as a network; knowledge as infrastructure; Open Access as a key infrastructural element. It's about creating connectivity within this network. Traditional publishing recognises knowledge as property. One of the biggest challenges in OA publishing is to get your head around the non-proprietary mindset around content. Sutton believes she acts as a midwife trying to get content out into the world. They keep this in mind when developing marketing strategy. But they also have to keep in mind where they make money (subscription income versus APCs). Sutton feels that the hybrid approach contradicts these two views.

At Co-Action, their customer groups are researchers, funders, institution/library, others (practitioners, political leaders, patients, citizens, journalists, etc). They consider consumers of content (reader) and contributors to content (author). In subscription publishing, the key market is the institution/library as you sell subscriptions to them. The researcher as reader is also important to drive usage to help secure renewals. There is also some interest in the 'Others' category.

With OA publishing the researcher as author is central to publishing: to buy the service and submit papers and then to recommend to others. They also provide a lot of services post publication. As publishers they have had to rethink what their role is. What do they contribute? They need to communicate this in the marketing. With the hybrid model the Funder is the primary target group, but there is also a lot of work with other groups.

One final question that Sutton posed was is advocacy marketing? Why have some OA publishers engaged in advocacy? She believes they had to go to market and make their presence felt. Have we seen advocacy in the marketing content of hybrid models? She concluded they have to be careful with their email marketing as predatory publishers spamming research communities has created a bad reputation for all.

The final session included brief case studies from a variety of publishers.

Nicola Gulley

Nicola Gulley, Editorial Director at IOP Publishing outlined how they researched what the best model would be that worked for their research communities. The findings indicated that the hybrid model was the best option.

What they have seen so far is a similar pattern that they have seen in existing journals. In the first quarter of 2014 there was increased uptake in hybrid. Gulley also noted increased interest in the business model from researchers. The big message was - and continues to be - flexibility in the model is key.

Hazel Newton

Hazel Newton, Head of Author Services in the Open Research division at Nature Publishing Group/Palgrave Macmillan reflected on how the wholesale application of the STEM approach to Open Access in relation to the humanities and social sciences (HSS) had worried the research community. There were also concerns about quality and lack of choice. Researchers felt bamboozled by CC options.

In their 2013 author survey, 84% said they would publish OA if the best or most appropriate journal was OA. 68% thought their specific area of interest would benefit from OA journals. Interdisciplinarity is an exciting area in research and funders are increasingly thinking about it. However, the smallest area for funding is in HSS.

As a result they are launching Palgrave Communications later in 2014. Offering choice spanning humanities and social sciences it will champion interdisciplinary research. It will be about quality and furthering the discipline, not just methodologically sound. There are more than 80 international editorial board members. There will be no restrictions on the length of papers and licences will be CC BY (but alternative licences are available). The APC is set at £750.

Kathryn Spiller

Kathryn Spiller, Head of Publishing at Bioscientifica recounted that when she took over, they launched an OA journal. Their societies wanted it, but it also reflected market demand for an interdisciplinary journal. They didn't intend to publish Open Access only products. Subsequently, everything they have done has been market driven and it so happens has all been OA.

They have doubled their publishing programme, all with OA products. A potential new approach they are exploring is for a niche, interdisciplinary project to secure grant or sponsor funding so it can be OA, as there is no research funding available.

Negotiating with governments: in search of pragmatic public access policy

Fred Dylla

Fred Dylla from the American Institute of Physics introduced the final session on day 2 of the ALPSP International Conference: Negotiating with governments. It provided an invaluable overview of policy around Europe and in the US.

Steven Hall, Managing Director of IOP Publishing, outlined the recent history of open access policy in the UK. Hall continues to be involved in the Finch group and was on the original committee, so has unrivalled insight into the process. The recommendations from Finch were endorsed by publishers, BIS and RCUK were included in the quid pro quo of 12 months embargo in order to make gold open access viable. There has since been criticism of RCUK by research institutions and the House of Lords over their implementation.

Meanwhile, implementation by HEFCE is running apace. Their public consultation on open access policy in relation to submissions post-2014 REF closes on 30 October 2013. Key proposals include outputs (journal articles and conference proceedings) should be accessible through a UK higher education institution repository, immediately upon either acceptance on publication, though the repository may provide access in a way that respects agreed embargo periods.

With the implementation by universities, policies are still evolving and guidance to authors is changing. There is no consistent policy across Russell Group universities. The majority explicitly favour green over gold, e.g. Bristol, Cambridge, Imperial, Oxford. Most of these are allowing 12 or 24 month embargoes, but some are stipulating green with a 6 or 12 month embargo. Some institutions are neutral, in different degrees, between gold and green, leaving the choice to authors, e.g. Exeter, UCL. The latter is also supplementing the RCUK block grant with additional funding. A very small minority are favouring gold over green e.g. Reading.

Generally, there is a pragmatic and practical approach from universities that publishers can work with. But when you consider why universities are going for green, it is primarily because of concerns over cost. There is growing demand for offsetting of APC costs against subscription and licence fees and a lack of data on numbers of RCUK-funded articles to inform budgeting. Policies and processes are still in development including how block grants should be allocated to researchers, processes for managing payments and compliance monitoring, payment of publication charges for collaborative publications.

SHERPA/FACT is a funder and author compliance tool from University of Nottingham's SHERPA service. It is funded by RCUK and Wellcome with links to SHERPA RoMEO for information on embargo policies. Its aim is to be a one-stop-shop for researchers wishing to find out about funding and open access policies.

What have we learned so far? Universities and researchers are nervous about this. We need close consultation and cooperation with all stakeholders - this is critical. Clear, consistent, unambiguous and actionable guidance for researchers is required from funders, universities and publishers. More work is required on forms of licence for gold and green. Policy needs to reflect the journey, not the destination.

Eric Merkel-Sobotta from Springer Science+Business Media reflected on whether Brussels think publishers add value? Don't forget that the EU is also a research funder. Horizon 2020 begins in 2014 and provides €70 billion over 6 years. They have implemented it primarily for economic growth, to build better and more efficient science that builds on previous results and avoids duplication and to improve transparency (involving citizens/society). Horizon 2020 makes open accesss the general principle for research funded by the EU (mixed green and gold open access). Gold APCs are eligible for reimbursement and the green embargo is for 6 months. 

Merkel-Sobata believes the UK has the most far reaching policy, that used a constructive process, with probably the best results for all stakeholders. In Germany, there was good progress during an 18 month dialogue on open access, but after grand-standing by both sides, it collapsed. Spain encourages open access repositories for research, however there is a lot of lobbying going on. In France, there is nothing concrete so far, but a government working group is discussing the options.

There will be more news to come from the EU. Currently, the three responsible Commissioners can't agree on potential objectives around Copyright reform. There are complex text and data mining working groups, but not all stakeholders are involved and the key work group for publishers may be disbanded, which could disrupt the process further. There is a sense that other industries and interest groups have far greater lobbying power in Brussels. The scholarly publishing community needs to raise its profile and influence in Europe and they must continue to engage with all stakeholders constructively.

Fred Dylla closed the session with an overview of US open access policy. In 2009 US House sponsored Scholarly Publishing Roundtable. March 2012 saw the publication of the OSTP report Interagency Public Access Coordination. The FundRef pilot program was announced by CrossRef in May of the same year and in June the Finch report was published in the UK. In February of this year the OSTP Memo was released - a short, but very nuanced report - increasing access to the results of federally funded research. It suggested 12 months as a guideline with a get-out clause that agencies can exercise flexibility to address challenges and public interests. It also stated the benefit and value of a successful publishing industry.

Overall, agency plans must provide for free public access to a full-text version of publications resulting from publicly funded research (after an embargo), contain a strategy for leveraging existing resources, fostering public-private partnerships, provide for archiving and long-term stewardship and identify resources within existing agency budgets for implementation.

Dylla outlined current projects and initiatives. PubMedCentral (PMC) database has for a decade been the public repository for articles resulting from NIH sponsored research. NIH will expand PMC to encompass the articles from research paid for by other federal agencies. This requires an investment of federal funds to expand PMC. Many publishers object to how PMC is operated because it duplicates functions of publishers.

The recently launched CHORUS Project's key objectives include:

• public access (publishers provide and host, using FundRef for front-end identification and CrossRef linking to the version of record or author's accepted manuscript)
• compliance: publishers ensure using FundRef, agencies, authors and research institutions can easily confirm
• archival preservation: multi-level solution, publishers archives with trusted third party back-ups (Portico, CLOCKSS)
• bibliographic search and discovery - FundRef, commercial search engines, library tools, and API support for agency-specific portals
• to be low cost or no cost for agency participation except for staff time on the CHORUS committees.

The American Association of Universities,  Association of Public and Land-grant Universities and Association of Research Libraries has developed an offer called SHARE. There are 3 things in common with CHORUS. Both agree they need persistent identifiers, the development of metrics and preservation.

What happens next? CHORUS is about to launch a pilot and there is hope that agencies will take it up. Some agencies will partner with PMC, but will need funds. All plans have to be reviewed and approved by OSTP/OMB and returned to agencies for full development and implementation in 2014-15.