Being Googleable as an academic: it can be about sharing instead of branding

Abstract

Over the years, there have been loads of articles on how to “manage your digital identity” or to “brand yourself” to maximize your hireability. It makes it sound like very distasteful work, vain self-promotion geared at making capitalism happy. If you’re a student who’s looking into alt-ac career or an independent researcher, these might not seem pertinent.

But that’s not just what being Googleable is useful for! It can help people find you and sustain the scholarly friendships ignited by conferences, readings, past collaborations. These human relations are also the stuff research is made of!

This paper is the first in a series of blog posts on how to share your research online while keeping it open access and how to make it easier for people to find you.