As challenges around research integrity reach a boiling point, the changes to social platforms enable the spread of misinformation, accelerate a breakdown in respectful discourse, and undercut the values that our work as an industry seeks to bolster.
Below, we share reflections on the path to this choice.
Seismic Shifts
Like everyone, we’ve been monitoring the changes at X (and more recently Facebook) with much interest. As a marketer who is also co-chair of the SSP MarCom committee, I’ve had many conversations about the should-we-shouldn’t-we position that organizations have been in over the last couple of years.This discussion has been raging in every outlet – from the Scholarly Kitchen (Jan. 2023, Jul. 2023, Nov. 2024) to C&E’s recent coverage of X’s link throttling in The Brief and a great round-up of articles on the topic just last weekend from BMJ’s Ian Mulvany.
In December 2023, I co-authored a piece in the Scholarly Kitchen on the results of an “Ask the Community” survey about social media use. The survey showed that while individuals had begun to make the shift from X, organizations were not yet in a position to move away entirely. As one respondent put it:
“There is still a lot of value placed on spaces such as X within our academic community, and so despite the ethical and moral objections I may have to it, we still use it, and I still need an account to keep up to date from time to time.”Other responses echoed this feeling of being caught between the desire to reach our communities where they are and the desire to align our outreach with our missions. After all, scholarly publishing is an industry rooted in trust, truth, and integrity.
At Silverchair, our stated Marketing values are trust, community, and accountability. By that we mean customer-centric, ethical, “non-creepy” marketing based on building long-term relationships and trust with our community. This influences not just the “what” (e.g. the type of content we create and our level of transparency) and the “how” (e.g. opt-in-only engagement and inbound marketing), but also the “where,” a not uncomplicated factor given the corporate ownership landscape. Take for example the fact that we had sunsetted the Silverchair Facebook account years ago due to lack of engagement but were forced to reactivate it to leverage the business account features of Instagram and Threads.
The organizational X stalemate has started to shift, however, as evidenced by the great Blue(sky) wave of recent months. Combined with our own analysis and consultation with clients, we landed at the seemingly inevitable decision to shutter some of our social accounts (while keeping the handles so they can't be claimed by others).
The Data Doesn’t Lie
Of course, we also wanted the most important stakeholders in this decision to weigh in: our community themselves. In (admittedly, inherently skewed) polls on X and LinkedIn, we asked users to name their main source of updates from Silverchair. Only two users replied on X, only to say “LinkedIn,” whereas all but one of the 39 respondents on LinkedIn chose “LinkedIn” and “newsletter.” In our quarterly call with our Community Advocates advisory group, the response to this question was unequivocal: ditch the bird.Our annual analytics reporting across social channels confirmed this feedback. With other profiles experiencing double- and triple-digit growth in recent years, the death knell of X was put into even clearer contrast.
Community-Driven Decisions
Ultimately, this decision is easier in some ways for Silverchair, whose publisher clients and industry colleagues have largely transitioned away from X in the ways they engage with us, as evidenced by the usage stats above. Publishers, however, face the fact that many academics still use X to find and disseminate research, making the choice more complex in its tradeoffs. Though some (like PLOS) have made the leap, the decision is far from simple for publishers, as indicated in the Scholarly Kitchen survey:“While I would love to dictate that researchers use another platform, social media strategy is rooted in meeting your community members where they are gathering.”Hopefully the #AcademicSky movement will continue to gain momentum and enable further shifts in the year ahead.
Ultimately, Silverchair will continue to seek ways to engage our communities as directly as we can, which is why we invest in our monthly email newsletter, our client newsletters, and our virtual and in-person hosted events. Beyond that, we’ll continue to sacrifice at the algorithmic altars of LinkedIn, Threads, and Bluesky to reach our audiences, so look for us there.
And, if you find those channels lacking in quantity of pet photos, check us out on Instagram. Happy scrolling!
