Strategic digital engagement for impact: Building your academic presence online

In today's digital environments, online engagement is a critical component of achieving successful, sustainable impact. Building an online presence that extends beyond the walls of academia is therefore an essential part of developing as a scholar during any stage of the career span. In this chapter, we discuss career-wide approaches for establishing yourself as a “networked scholar” (Goodier & Czerniewicz, 2015) to build connections and foster communication. We also explore ways to engage your audience through open, public outputs (publications, graphics, websites, profile tools, etc.). Using the key strategies presented, scholars can build an online academic presence and increase their scholarly visibility on the web or through social media. At the core of this chapter is an exploration of how academics can develop and communicate about themselves and their research interests, to achieve their goals both in the near-term and across their career span. While the approaches presented are not prescriptive, they are intended to encourage the reader to generate a plan for online engagement that helps establish their scholarly identity. These tried and tested activities can be leveraged for engaging different audiences in research in ways that promote networked scholarship and create pathways to impact.