Social Media Marketing of Qualitative Research: Blurring Commerce and Community

Scholarly publishers who market their products through social media expect few direct sales. If so, why then do scholarly publishers invest so much in promoting their products through concerted social marketing campaigns? By emphasizing their information-sharing and collegiality functions on social media, publishers mask the commercial nature of the scholarly publishing industry. This idea is developed by tracing the history of marketing scholarly works, particularly in qualitative research, and by outlining the various social marketing strategies used by scholarly publishers. These include providing additional content to social media followers, representing the press as part of the academic community, engaging authors to market their own works, and mimicking academic language patterns and rhythms. Current trends in scholarly publishing will only serve to further blur this boundary between commerce and community.