How digital marketing ensures research impact
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Overall annual readership on Taylor & Francis Online has grown significantly recently. Why?
Digital marketing is increasing readership and impact from researchers, practitioners, and the general public. On this page, journal editors can learn how:
Publishing with us increases article reach.
SEO (search engine optimization) is key to growing article views.
“Always on” marketing promotes all new content.
Social media can grow readership, impact, and awareness.
Press campaigns can turn new research into news articles.
We’re increasing article reach
We know that authors want to maximize the readership, awareness, impact, and citations of their research papers. Articles can unleash their full potential when published in a journal on Taylor & Francis Online.
By meeting readers where they are online, our +5 million articles are read over 300 million times a year.
Our marketing objectives are to:
- Create impact for research published in our journals.
- Grow international reach.
- Attract high quality submissions.
- Enable author and researcher engagement.
- Increase society memberships and profile.
We use our expertise across a diverse range of platforms, meeting customers where they are online.
SEO: key to growing readership
The best time to showcase content to potential readers is when they’re searching for it. SEO – search engine optimization – is the practice of improving a website, so that its content ranks higher in search engine results.
Did you know almost half of all our readership now originates from search engine queries? Find out how we’ve made small changes to Taylor & Francis Online to deliver big results.
Always-on marketing promotes all content
What is “always-on” marketing?
Always-on marketing launches following trigger events – for example, the online publication of an article. These give a clear call to action, prompting audience engagement at the optimal moment in time.
We send the following always-on marketing to promote research across all disciplines.
Reaching Readers
Reaching Readers is an email service that highlights recently published articles to our large network of contacts.
Each email is tailored to the recipients’ registered subject interests. This ensures wide scale promotion of new content across all subject areas, and maximum engagement from the audience.
Want to receive Reaching Readers or update your registered subject interests? Register here.
New content alerts
All our journals send new content alerts, and subscribers are the first to know when new articles publish online. Editors can register for their journal and encourage their Editorial Board and authors to do the same.
Setting up alerts is easy: visit a journal’s homepage and click the “New Content Alerts” button. You may need to create a free Taylor & Francis Online account as part of the process.
Once you’ve signed up for alerts, you’ll receive an email each time a new article or issue publishes online. You can tailor how often you receive these.
Authored Works
We keep authors informed as their papers move through the publication process, notifying every author when their paper becomes:
- An Accepted Manuscript, for use in promotion committees or funding applications.
- A Version of Record, i.e. the final and citable piece of work.
- Assigned to a journal issue.
Authored Works can be used to view the metrics of a paper, including readership, citations, and Altmetric score.
We also provide authors with a link for 50 free eprints of their paper. Eprints can draw significant attention to an article when shared on social media or via email with friends and colleagues.
Post publication emails
Following online publication, authors receive five emails over one year. These give their article’s latest metrics and encourage every author to share it via their own networks. These are popular emails with strong engagement, well above industry averages.
Authors can use the share buttons embedded in the emails to generate their post with a link to the article and suggested text. Tagging co-authors, journals, institutions, or affiliated societies is encouraged, which increases the reach of the article (and journal).
Citation alerts
Citations are a defining metric for authors, marking a key stage in the lifecycle of their published research. So, we’ve developed citation alerts. These are sent to authors who have published in the last two years whenever their articles are cited by another journal on Taylor & Francis Online. These are very popular with authors, with consistently high engagement.
Growing circulation: increasing institutional readership
We aim to grow journal circulation through targeted institutional marketing activity. We monitor content readership, providing updates to libraries so they can make informed purchase decisions based on their users’ needs.
This extends access to Taylor & Francis Online journals for researchers who need it, growing readership and reach. It increases awareness of individual journals and engagement with the articles, building a sustainable future readership.
Helping researchers to publish their research
We want to help researchers at every stage of the publication journey, from selecting a journal to writing a paper, making a submission, navigating peer review, and after publication.
- Our Author Services website supports authors through every step of the publication process.
- Our calls for papers list forthcoming special issues and encourage submissions.
- Enhanced short descriptors on journal homepages and Aims and Scope attract authors to relevant publications through increased online search visibility.
- Journal metrics are available on journal homepages, including acceptance rate and time from submission to first decision/online publication.
- Our Editing Services help authors prepare their manuscript for submission.
Press campaigns turn new research into news articles
Our Newsroom is the showcase for all our research focused press campaigns. These campaigns, created and executed by a team of press specialists, increase the immediate impact of newly published research through coverage in the world’s leading general and specialist media.
What makes an article newsworthy? A research paper has potential when it involves major discoveries, has an impact on society, features recommendations for change in practice, or is linked to a timely topic or event. Read how press campaigns help maximize the impact of research.
If you think a forthcoming paper in your journal has potential for media coverage, use our press nomination form.
Evidence-based digital marketing
We will continue to develop, refine, and evolve our digital marketing initiatives, including SEO practices, always-on marketing and social media. Using an evidence-based approach, we follow the numbers to ensure maximum visibility and discoverability for Taylor & Francis, Routledge and Dove Press journals, meeting readers and researchers where they are online.
Ben Hudson, Marketing Manager (Societies and Editors)
How social media can grow readership, impact, and awareness
Is social media important?
Yes! Social media is the third biggest source of traffic to Taylor & Francis Online, with over 6 million people per year discovering research via social channels.
Promoting journals via social media amplifies the visibility of research and supports submissions to all titles. Each year, more and more people find the information they need through social media channels.
How does Taylor & Francis use social media?
We have multiple social media accounts across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. In China, we’re on WeChat and Weibo.
These accounts are managed by our dedicated social media team, supported by our global network of colleagues. We use a rule of thirds strategy on social media to:
Promote links to our content.
Share posts from across the research community, including from authors, editors, journals, and societies.
Engage with discussions from all areas of the research world.
Did you know? Over 600,000 readers, authors, and editors follow Taylor & Francis and Routledge on social media. Join them in following us to keep up to date with breaking research news and journal publishing guidance and support.