Author: Mónica Bonilla-del-Río– Translation: Erika-Lucia Gonzalez-Carrion|

Contrary to the belief that the author’s role ends once his or her manuscript has been accepted and published in a scientific journal, the reality is that the post-publication phase is as important as the research design and development phases, as well as the writing and submission of the manuscript. Undoubtedly, the author is the first interested in promoting his or her article, since it would be of no use to have invested great effort and time in carrying out a study if no other researcher were to read the advances and findings obtained. In such a case, all the work developed would be anecdotal, since it would not contribute to the construction of scientific knowledge.

Thus, once our research has been published in a journal, as authors we should be actively involved in the process of disseminating the results and conclusions. This commitment to promote the reading of the article and to publicize the contribution of the study is of vital importance, since it will allow the transfer of the contributions of our research to the scientific community. Likewise, this dissemination will improve the visibility of the manuscript and, consequently, may have an impact on the citations and impact it generates.

To this end, we can follow several strategies to promote our article in order to make it visible on the Internet:

1) Send the manuscript in PDF to our entire list of potentially interested contacts through emails, and share it on all the social networks that we normally use and have academic contacts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn…).

2) Upload it to the institutional repository of our University and other public repositories that we manage, such as Mendeley.

3) Share it in scientific social networks (ResearchGate, Academia.edu…).

4) Publish the manuscript in our personal or institutional Web and/or in our personal blog.

5) Promote it in Google Scholar, ORCID, ResearchID…

6) Send or promote press or informative notes in our University, in our offices or in the media (press, radio, TV…).

These actions will facilitate the dynamization and dissemination of the results of our research, favoring that our article can be cited and referenced and, therefore, reach a greater scientific impact.