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Optimizing social media initiatives to promote Neuropsychopharmacology (NPP) publications

Neuropsychopharmacology volume 50, pages 2072–2078 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Social media provides journals with valuable opportunities to communicate with scholars and the public, and rapidly disseminate new publications. In recent years, the Neuropsychopharmacology (NPP) social media team created multiple initiatives on X (formerly Twitter) to highlight the journal’s publications and activities. We examined whether these initiatives promoted readership and identified effective posting strategies for engaging NPP’s audience by analyzing analytics from the @npp_journal X account (i.e., total engagement, URL clicks) and article accesses reported by NPP’s publisher, Springer Nature. In 2023–2024, we found that article promotions at the time of publication produced the most engagement compared to other initiatives on X; these promotions coincided with increased web traffic to articles. Posts that included an author’s X handle received more engagement compared to untagged posts, which also corresponded with an increase in article accesses. The number of URL clicks on articles featured in This Week in NPP (TWiNPP), a weekly summary of new publications launched in 2023, increased after it was rescheduled from Fridays to Tuesdays following observations that posts made earlier in the week received the most engagement. The number of accesses to articles featured in TWiNPP did not differ compared to articles published before the rollout of TWiNPP; however, this endeavor may still provide benefit given the recent reported declines in X usage. These findings support the use of X to promote NPP publications and maximize research visibility. These findings also suggest the journal may benefit from diversifying its online presence to other popular platforms to broaden engagement of its readership.

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Fig. 1: Promoting articles on X facilitates readership and traffic to NPP publications.
Fig. 2: Tagging stand-alone article promotions increases article interactions.
Fig. 3: Article visibility through X posts varies by weekday.
Fig. 4: Article access counts over time appear unaffected after the launch of TWiNPP.

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

X analytics, daily-level article accesses, and article publication dates are provided as Supplementary Datasets.

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Acknowledgements

HHA Thorpe completed this project as part of an NPP Editorial Internship. The authors thank the teams at NPP, Springer Nature, and ACNP for their assistance and feedback. We would especially like to thank Taylor Custis and Uta Hauptfleisch from Springer Nature for providing article access counts.

Funding

HHA Thorpe, LR Trambaiolli, and BK Chen received stipends as part of their roles with NPP. The other authors have no applicable funding to declare.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Western University, London, ON, Canada

    Hayley H. A. Thorpe

  2. Department of Psychiatry, Mathison Centre for Mental Health Research and Education, and Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Leah M Mayo

  3. McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Lucas R. Trambaiolli

  4. Addictions Division, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), and Department of Psychiatry, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Tony P. George

  5. Department of Pharmacology and the Vanderbilt Brain Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

    Lisa M. Monteggia

  6. Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC), New York, NY, USA

    Briana K. Chen

  7. Division of Systems Neuroscience, Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene, Inc. (RFMH)/New York Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI), New York, NY, USA

    Briana K. Chen

Authors
  1. Hayley H. A. Thorpe
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  2. Leah M Mayo
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  3. Lucas R. Trambaiolli
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  4. Tony P. George
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Contributions

HHA Thorpe performed data analysis and visualization, and drafted the manuscript. HHA Thorpe and BK Chen collected X analytics. LM Mayo, HHA Thorpe, LR Trambaiolli, and BK Chen implemented social media initiatives on X. All authors edited and approved the manuscript prior to publication.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Briana K. Chen.

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Competing interests

All authors have roles at NPP. HHA Thorpe and LR Trambaiolli were Editorial Interns in 2024, LM Mayo is the Social Media Editor, LM Monteggia and TP George are Principal Editors, and BK Chen is the Special Projects Manager.

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Thorpe, H.H.A., M Mayo, L., Trambaiolli, L.R. et al. Optimizing social media initiatives to promote Neuropsychopharmacology (NPP) publications. Neuropsychopharmacol. 50, 2072–2078 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-025-02244-7

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