Communicationfor research

Mak Dukan and Hedviga Blazincic, Starfish Energy

The challenge statement

Most EU funded research projects should substantially improve their communication &

dissemination activities and reach wider target audiences

Typical situation after 3 years

50 to 100 Twitter/Facebook followers

LinkedIn Groups composed only of consortium members

highly ambitious communication and dissemination plan but no execution

unprofessional logos and graphic design

inability to report correctly on project impact: number of people reached

web pages rank badly in Google – on pages 10+

after 3 years the projects have around 10.000 unique site visitor's –in comparison good blogs receive about 15.000 per month

Is this also the case with your projects?

The solutions to better online visibility and project

communication

Step 1: Set up SEO basics(system engine optimization)

Think of your target audience when writing the web site text > use common keywords to increase visibility on Google

Example: use “renewable energy sources” instead of “RES”

Make sure to instruct the partners to use these specific keywords in all documents that will be uploaded online

Example: “renewable energy aggregators” and not “aggregators of renewable energy sources”

Name your meta title and meta description so that Google can find your web page more easily – use common search terms

Example: our home page (www.starfishenergy.org)

We use a term like “low carbon development” in our

meta title and meta description - its more

“searchable” than “Starfish Energy”

This is how our main page appears in Google

search

Step 2: Create great content

Instead of just publishing complex reports, write blogs that present the topic in a simple way – allocate hours in proposal writing stage

Example: in M6 a report on Renewable energy aggregators is due. Arrange that the authors write a simple blog that can be shared on social media and give it an attractive name “How renewable energy aggregators are accelerating the energy transition?”

Arrange video interviews with main researchers and decision makers during workshops – videos receive more views

Example: a top researcher from University X explains in simple terms what renewable energy aggregators are – use humor and be yourself

Allocate budget in proposal writing to create attractive charts using tools like Piktochart (www.piktochart.com)

Example of great content

Facebook video about a webinar we attended

Link to our blog about the topic

Step 3: Use social media … a lot !

Social media like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, LinkedIn spread your message to larger audiences and with small budget

Example: using Facebook Ads to reach bigger audiences when publishing the project video, or a major report. This can be targeted to very specific groups. For budget of 5 EUR a reach of 20.000 people is possible

Create LinkedIn groups that are named as terms that people use when looking online for the topic, instead of the project name itself. In this way you attract audiences that will stay with you in the future and that are interested in the topic and not just the project

Example: use “Renewable energy aggregators” instead of BESTRES (a project name dealing with the topic)

Great use of LinkedIn Groups –group used for projects REFLEX, BESTRES etc. and initiated by the coordinator

Name the LinkedIn Group after the topic and not the project

Source: WIP Renewable Energies

Very large following compared to usual

project groups

Step 4: Leverage the social media capital of the consortium

The communication partner is not alone – there are other partners in the consortium with large following on social media platforms. Instead of relying on its own social media, the communication partner can reach out to project partners and ask for help in spreading project news etc.

Example: in PV SITES project the coordinator (WIP Renewable Energies) has only 150 Twitter followers but its partner Onxy has 14.000 so it makes sense to ask for “re-tweets” when needed

Plan more hours than usual of the partners for communication activities so they can justify the “extra” input into managing the social media

Step 5: Track your progress

Use tools like Google Analytics to track the effects of putting out great content and then learn what receives better response. Maybe your audience likes videos more than blogs.

Connect your project web page to Google Console to learn how well your page ranks, what terms are people using to find your web page etc.

Track the impact of social media through Nuvi.com

! These tools are very helpful for project reporting purposes !

What Google Analytics says about our web page?

The tracking period

Good response to blog post that we shared on

social

Page views we achieved

Interested in having us as your communication partner for

H2020?

Legal name: Reduco energo j.d.o.o.Address: Selska Cesta 46, 10000 Zagreb, CroatiaWeb page: www.starfishenergy.org PIC number: 913586547

Mak DukanEmail: mak@starfishenergy.org

PARTNER DESCRIPTIONhttps://cordis.europa.eu/partners/web/starfishenergy