The immediacy and speed of Social Media sites such as Facebook and Twitter make it a great way to connect and stay up to date with other researchers and organisations in your research area.  Many publishers, journals and academic researchers have social media accounts that you can follow.  Use social media to:

• Follow researchers, journals or organisations in your research area
• Keep up to date with social media postings from conferences.
• Share research with others.  Many databases enable you to share articles with others via social media.
• Improve your research impact.  Altmetrics measure the amount of exposure of a piece of research based on web activity, including social media posts. The London School of Economics have a useful guide: Using Twitter in university research, teaching and impact activities: A guide for academics and researchers
   

The following are examples of academic research communities that enable researchers to post and share research. You can use them to find and follow people with similar research interests. 

• CiteULike
• ResearchGate 
• Academia.edu
• Mendeley - Free reference management tool that enables you to store, cite and share references and see what others have saved. 
• Zotero - Free reference management tool that enables you to store, cite and share references and see what others have saved. 

Using social media as an academic: Ways to create a sense of community and boost your profile