Increasing visitor traffic to our blog

The visitor statistics to this blog has been going steadily upwards since it was first launched in spring 2009 (see graph above), and last month we actually had more than 5000 hits. Although bloggers built-in visitor statistics does not separate automated searches from web-engines from individuals that are really interested in our stuff, and although it does not track "unique" visitors, I think these numbers reflect an ongoing and positive trend, and increasing awareness of our research and the blog. It is probably a safe educated guess that several hundred visitors per month read our blog and find it interesting and worthwhile to read.

Hopefully, this increase will continue in the near future, as it often takes several years to build up a new blog and "brand it". Hopefully, the blog will also help us to attract students, postdocs and other outside collaborators and also spread more efficiently information about our ongoing studies and publications.  Sofar, we have mainly used it to announce lab-meetings, but we are increasingly using it also as a vehicle to inform about recent meetings that we have participated in, as Maren did recently when she was at "Blodbadet" in Stockholm, as also Fabrice did after he went to a hybridization workshop in Scotland, and as I also I did myself when I recently visited the ASAB Winter Meeting with Machteld.

Blogs and social media do certainly not replace traditional means of scientific communication, such as peer-reviewed publications in international journals. But they are certainly an important complement, and I am more and more convinced that they can have a positive impact and "spill-over effects" on such vital things as citation rates of papers.

I would therefore encourage you all, once again, to post interesting things, short or long, on this blog, along these lines, including interesting talks you have been to, or interesting articles you have stumbled upon. Together, we might make this blog an excellent outlet for the dissemination of research, both our own and others.

On using social media to recruit future talent in ecology and evolutionary biology

We have talked before about the utility of social media like Facebook and blogs to increase public outreach and disseminate your research. This is one main incentive behind this blog, and I am quite convinced it will create a competitive advantage, compared to the strategy of ignoring social media altogether. Today's young generation of students are increasingly using social media to stay in touch with each other, to scan for job opportunities etc., and senior researchers can simply not afford not to use these new means of communications.

Thus, the correct question to ask is not: "Should I really invest the time to learn how to use social media?", but rather: "Can I afford to ignore social media?".

In my own experience, this blog has been extremely succesful in terms of all contacts I have got, including several postdoc requests, journalists who wants to write about our research etc. Now, this general impression of mine seems to be shared by other people in academia than me. In the latest issue of Trends in Ecology & Evolution, there is an opinion piece entitled "Recruiting future talent in ecology and evolutionary biology" by Joshua M. Ward. He writes, among other things, the following:

"The rising popularity of dedicated social networking sites for academics, such as Academia.edu, shows their importance. However, if your goal is to inspire students who are new to ecology and evolution, you must look elsewhere. Why are large numbers of university admissions departments using social media platforms? The answer is simple enough; it's where the students are. Facebook updates students on what their friends are interested in and which groups they are fans of. As young people continue to spend an unprecedented amount of time online, using Facebook pages and Twitter can increase awareness and support of your research group by initiating a viral spread of content and name recognition from user to user."


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"Investing some time and effort now in presenting your research in a stimulating way can pay off considerably. University research groups and publishers are becoming more confident in the value added by having a strong online strategy. The value of having a presence that extends beyond a predictable website into social-networking sites might not seem obvious at first. However, showing potential students that your research group is at the forefront of developments in public engagement will do wonders for name (and brand) recognition. Ultimately, scientists can no longer rely on the mainstream media or their universities’ mere presence online to ensure continued interest in ecology and evolutionary biology. It is up to us to do the inspiring now."