title: Using Social Media to Share Your Radiology Research: How Effective Is a Blog Post?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study was to compare the volume of individuals who viewed online versions of research articles in 2 peer-reviewed radiology journals and a radiology blog promoted by social media.
  
  
  METHODS
  The authors performed a retrospective study comparing online analytic logs of research articles in the American Journal of Neuroradiology (AJNR) and the American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR) and a blog posting on Radiopaedia.org from April 2013 to September 2014. All 3 articles addressed the topic of reporting incidental thyroid nodules detected on CT and MRI. The total page views for the research articles and the blog article were compared, and trends in page views were observed. Factors potentially affecting trends were an AJNR podcast and promotion of the blog article on the social media platforms Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter to followers of Radiopaedia.org in February 2014 and August 2014.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The total numbers of page views during the study period were 2,421 for the AJNR article and 3,064 for the AJR article. The Radiopaedia.org blog received 32,675 page views, which was 13.6 and 10.7 times greater than AJNR and AJR page views, respectively, and 6.0 times greater than both journal articles combined. Months with activity above average for the blog and the AJNR article coincided with promotion by Radiopaedia.org on social media.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Dissemination of scientific material on a radiology blog promoted on social media can substantially augment the reach of more traditional publication venues. Although peer-reviewed publication remains the most widely accepted measure of academic productivity, researchers in radiology should not ignore opportunities for increasing the impact of research findings via social media.
authors.affiliation: Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina. Electronic address: jennykh@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Jenny K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Hoang
authors.affiliation: Duke Clinical Research Institute, Durham, North Carolina.
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: McCall
authors.affiliation: Alfred Health, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: Andrew F
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Dixon
authors.affiliation: University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, Arkansas.
authors.forename: Ryan T
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Fitzgerald
authors.affiliation: The Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville, Australia.
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gaillard
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D017712:Peer Review, Research; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011871:Radiology; D012106:Research; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D061108:Social Media / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
keywords: Social media; altmetrics; education; peer-reviewed literature