How can we help researchers increase the reach and impact of their work?

The Kudos project was set up in 2013. We have been providing researchers with a platform for explaining their work in plain language, and for centrally managing their sharing of that work - we give them a trackable link and can then see how they share (email, social media, academic networks, etc) and map this against publication metrics (downloads, citations and altmetrics). By building up a central dataset in this area we are able to provide insight (to researchers, institutions, publishers, societies, funders etc) into which sharing media are most effective, and the extent to which metrics are improved. 

During 2015-2016, the altmetrics team from Nanyang Technological University analysed the data we've built up so far, and determined that when researchers actively explain and share their work via Kudos, it increases downloads by 23% on average. The study also found that researchers are more likely to use Facebook than Twitter, for sharing their work, but that shares via LinkedIn are most likely to be clicked on. These results can (a) help libraries etc provide more tailored guidance to researchers and (b) help early career researchers demonstrate to their supervisors that small outreach efforts are a good use of time, as they can substantially increase readership and from there, impact.