Congratulations, your EDIS submission is finally published to Ask IFAS for the world to see! Now it’s time to put it to work. Promotions that briefly increase traffic to your publication can lead to sustained attention long after the event.

New Publication Promotion by ICS

We do several things to promote your work at the time of publication.

Released on Ask IFAS

Upon release on Ask IFAS, several things happen immediately.

Your document gets a temporary spot on the Ask IFAS home page. Because this page changes frequently, it often takes less than half an hour for new publications to be indexed in search engines.

The document is also linked on the Ask IFAS site to contributors’ expert profiles, relevant topic pages, unit pages, and (where applicable) series or collection pages.

Published in the EDIS Journal

Several things happen within a month or two of publication in the EDIS journal. Of course, the article is immediately added to the current issue on the journal home page. But because registration is handled in batch files of new publications, it can take a few weeks for an article’s metadata and DOI to be submitted to CrossRef.  From CrossRef, the article will be posted to contributors’ ORCIDs, and will also be pulled into academic indexes such as:

• Google Scholar,
• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ),
• Dimensions.ai,
• Altmetric Explorer,
• Academic Analytics, which feeds UF’s Faculty Excellence and Advancement System (FEA),
• and FAO-AGRIS

On a bimonthly basis, we close out the previous issue and promote the new and revised publications to email to subscribers, as well as IFAS Announce. We also post to unit blogs with just their new releases.

Coordinating Content

We share new and forthcoming publications bi-weekly with communicators across IFAS and UF. Your publication may be further promoted if it seems newsworthy or interesting from a media communications standpoint.

Limitations

• Our promotional channels are general, not specific to your target audiences.
• If your article is especially relevant to a specific event or season, the publication date may not align with when audiences will need the information.
• EDIS articles themselves are not written for media communications.

What you should do

• Amplify posts about your work. IFAS Communications has an ongoing promotion plan for EDIS publications of two or three posts a month aimed at the general public and small farmers. It’s best to share these posts rather than having multiple competing posts at the same time.
• Consult with your unit communications staff and/or ICS Communications.
• Identify the best existing communication channels — such as unit newsletters and social media accounts, or trade show items — to reach the people who would be most interested in this topic. It may be external such industry or general public with a special interest, or internal such as Extension professionals.
• ‍ For publications targeting industry audiences:
  • Email the publication to your industry contacts from your UFL email address
  • Post the publication to your personal LinkedIn account
• Plan ahead to promote seasonal publications at the appropriate time for the content.
• Develop a visual asset that captures attention and a caption with a call to action to drive traffic. Keep in mind that all communication channels are different and require different strategies.Be sure to link to the Ask IFAS article (or EDIS journal for academic channels) every time you mention the article in a blog, web page or social media post.

Other Things to Consider

• Include charismatic content that can be used for promotion when developing your article. Consider attention-grabbing photos or short video clips, lists of interesting facts, or infographics.
• Update your other EDIS articles as appropriate to refer readers to the new resource.
• Update website pages as well, or use the Extension Publications Widget in T-4 to pull new publications in as soon as they are published. (NOTE: do NOT upload a PDF of the article onto web pages.
• Powerful drivers of traffic can be:
  • Links shared in public comments (Facebook, Reddit, etc.)
  • Citations in Wikipedia
  • Use in online courses

In Summary

We do many things to promote EDIS/Ask IFAS publications, but you have the best connection with and knowledge of your audiences to target your promotion effectively.

With planning and consideration, small efforts towards promotion can have long-lasting effects on the impact of your publications.

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