To move beyond local research collaborations, to share and follow research globally, and to increase your research visibility, you should join academic social networking sites. Here are some suggestions:
Academia.edu
It was created and managed by academics mainly in UK. It is free of charge and you can create your own profile and upload your CV and papers. You can follow journals and other scholars in your field by status update and news feeds.
Geazle.com
It is mainly for a Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) community. A Geazler can stay in touch with the peers and meet new academics. It provides a platform for collaboration and intellectual conversation.
MyNetResearch
It is an online network of academics and researchers. Becoming a free member, you can create a profile for your research interests, publications, and other key information. You can find and be located by global community of researchers by different subject specialization.
ORCID
ORCID is an open, non-profit, community-driven effort to create and maintain a registry of unique researcher identifiers and a transparent method of linking research activities and outputs to these identifiers.
ResearchGate
It was built for scientists, by scientists, to facilitate scientific collaboration on a global scale. Researcher can present yourself and your work, grow your connection network in this scientific community.
ResearcherID
It is a scholarly research community for researchers to showcase your publications and enhance collaboration with peers through shared areas of interest and current research topics. Once you have created your own research profile, you can add your works quickly by searching Web of Science.
Sciweavers
It is an academic network providing links to research paper preprints and proceedings. It also offers free online tools to improve research productivity.
Moreover, most of the web-based bibliographic reference tools not only provide reference management functions but also incorporate 'social networking' features. These includes sharing references, collaborating with others in grouping, and viewing the most popular users’ databases. Below are some free web-based tools for your reference:
Mendeley
It is a free reference management tool as well as an academic social network for researchers to organize, share and discover research papers. You can also explore research trends and collaborate with other academics in your knowledge specialization.
Zotero
It is a free research tool for gathering and organizing references. It also allows you to interact, tag and search in advanced way. It is web-based and it can also run on PC with a desktop client.
EndNote
It is another powerful reference management tool. The Library has subscribed to EndNote, so PolyU staff & students can use it for free. It provides “Share” function for you to share EndNote Library with others. For more information, visit this page.
Connotea
It is an online reference management tool for clinicians and scientists created by Nature. Beside the basic functions, it allows you to share your references with colleagues. You can also explore other Connotea users' libraries and enhance collaboration.
The casual tools, Facebook, Twitter and Linked-In may also be good platforms for academics to connect with others.