Editor toolkit: How Editors can increase their journal’s impact
Editors are integral to the successful promotion of their journals within the right communities and at the right time.
This editor toolkit gives information, links and resources to help Editors achieve greater impact and awareness for their journals, including:
Email marketing
Taylor & Francis journals benefit from always-on email marketing that includes:
Reaching Readers: a fortnightly email service that highlights recently published articles to our large network of contacts.
New Content Alerts: Editors can register for their journal and encourage their Editorial Board to do the same.
Post publication emails: these encourage authors to share their article through their social networks.
Citations alerts: these inform authors when their article is cited by another article on Taylor & Francis Online.
These emails are sent automatically by Taylor & Francis. Editors should register for their journal’s New Content Alerts (via the journal’s homepage) and encourage their Editorial Board to do the same.
You can also sign up to receive email marketing in your subject area.
Search Engine Optimization
Search engines such as Google are the single biggest source of traffic to journal homepages. We’re always evolving Taylor & Francis Online to ensure journal homepages and articles rank high on search engine results pages.
Editors can positively influence the algorithms that determine search engine discoverability by taking the following actions:
Encourage best practice among authors in how they choose their title, abstract, and keywords.
Link to your journal’s homepage from other relevant and credible sources. Links on institution pages are especially powerful. Links can also be placed on personal homepages, blogs and social media channels.
Editor networking
Editors move within their own unique communities, both online and in person. These interactions present opportunities to raise awareness of their journals and encourage submissions.
Below is a list of tools and resources which Taylor & Francis Editors may use to increase journal awareness, readership and submissions from within their communities:
Journal flyer
This can be used digitally or in print e.g. at conferences. Speak to your Taylor & Francis contact to have one of these created for your journal.
Email signature banner
Our online tool allows you to create this yourself. Use it in your email signature, hyperlinked to the journal’s homepage.
Digital business card
This can be saved to your phone as a photo and shared at in-person events. Speak to your Taylor & Francis contact to have one of these created for your journal.
Open Graph image
This is the default image used on social media when anyone shares a link to your journal. It also hyperlinks to the journal’s homepage. The advantage of using OG imagery is that the image is hyperlinked to the journal’s homepage.
Check your journal’s OG image here, by changing the four capital letters in the URL to your journal’s code, in capital letters.
Still unsure of your journal’s four-letter code? You’ll find it in the URL of your journal’s homepage on www.tandfonline.com. Speak to your Taylor & Francis contact if you have any questions.
Press nomination
Editors have a unique visibility of articles ahead of their publication. If you think a forthcoming article is newsworthy, please complete our press nomination form. Our Press & Media relations team will then assess the nomination.
Articles promoted via Taylor & Francis press releases can achieve significant readership and Altmetric scores. This can benefit the journal and author through positive exposure, and help to attract future submissions.
Summary
To recap, Editors play a vital role in enhancing the visibility and impact of their journals. Best practice can include Search Engine Optimization, social media strategy, leveraging Editor networks, and press nomination.
In combination with Taylor & Francis initiatives, these actions help ensure that the right communities are engaged at the right time, which drives greater awareness and academic influence of the journal.
Social Media
Each year, social media drives increasing volumes of traffic to journal homepages. This impacts both readership and submission considerations.
Editors can amplify this by:
Reading our best practice guide. You’ll learn how to choose social media channels, build a community, and cut through the noise to get seen by the right audience.
Appointing a Social Media Editor. This position can be filled by a social media native from your field, who already lives among your subject area’s online community. We can help advertise this role – speak to your Taylor & Francis contact for further information.
Using Altmetric data. This reveals trending articles and authors from your journal. These can be engaged, reposted, and followed to create more awareness of your journal. Speak to your Taylor & Francis contact to get an Altmetric report bespoke to your journal such as the below example.