The image of scientists conducting research on their own in a quiet room is outdated. Research results want to be made available to a broad public. Fortunately, the digital age provides a multitude of possibilities to do so. The one-day workshop "Digital Self-Marketing", which of course took place online, gave a good overview of the most suitable platforms for this purpose. As a starting point, the 10 participating YIN members discussed the personal goals for their digital presence. In addition to the communication of research results, increasing the visibility of the research group was also mentioned as very important.

In small groups, we then looked at the online presence of some people who were more or less involved in research, but who all had elaborate websites and social media profiles. The discussion of these practical examples revealed key aspects of online communication and mistakes that should be avoided. Interestingly, the assessments of the workshop participants were sometimes very different, pointing towards the fact that the optimal form and style of digital presence is a very individual decision. In the course of the workshop, the focus then turned to different communication channels, in particular the personal website, blogs, and social media such as ResearchGate, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. The coach highlighted how to effectively use these channels to increase visibility. Overall, the workshop showed that the decision for or against certain forms of communication is very individual and that digital presence is always a trade-off between effort and benefit.

Gaining visibility is crucial for young academics to show independence, to extend one’s academic network and to boost the next academic career steps. It goes without saying that digital visibility and self-marketing is getting more and more important – in particular during and post COVID19. The twitter coaching was a follow-up to the digital self-marketing in science workshop. The latter dealt with several platforms that allow to make our research visible online, including blogs, personal homepages, LinkedIn, Youtube or Instagram. The separate coaching however, put an exclusive focus on Twitter as probably the most important platform for scientists to interact. The coaching took place – of course – online. Time-efficiently but also intense, a small groups of 4 participants met with our Twitter coach three times for 1.5 hours each via zoom. Getting down to business, the homework between the sessions allowed to use the concepts in practice right away. The homework consisted of 5 tweets that needed to be sent out over the course of the week. In the subsequent weeks the impact was analyzed using the twitter analytics tools, and each tweet was discussed with the coach and the group. In addition, we took a deep dive into all the hidden secrets of twitter: How do I use hashtags? What metrics are important? How do I use pictures best? How do I effectively increase my followers? When do I tweet? With the short time investment, the learning curve is steep and the coaching highly recommendable. The program is suitable for all YIN members and the coach is an expert in the field, that adjusted successfully to all knowledge levels of the participants.