Presentation at the Solstice Conference at Edge Hill University 2019

1. Social media tools
and data….
Pete Atherton
@Petestarryid
The tip of the
iceberg you can't
ignore

2. ● How to…
● What tools?
● Which data?
● My recent
experience
● Academic research

3. First, some thoughts…

4. How would you
like to use social
media for
research?

5. How to
How do you
use social
now?

8. Recent case study: 11/12/18
Organised and marketed on
social

9. 1. 200 attendees
1. 15 sponsors
1. 500000 page impressions
1. Very high engagement
1. Focus on Linkedin and
Twitter

10. ● Built bridges between
education and edtech
● Learning first, tech second
● Building Edtech Expo
Liverpool brand

11. ● Engagement?
● Metrics used?
● Social strategy?
● Tools and data?
Your social

12. ● Content curation
● Writing for
specific audiences
● Using initialisms
(eg RT),
logographs (#, &)
pictographs

13. Tools and data:
tweet activity

14. Twitter Analytics

15. Twitter Analytics

16. Engagement
● 0.3% -1.0% is high.
● This tweet? 7%

17. How?
● Current, quality image
(curated)
● Tagging and thanking
● Relevant hashtags
● Open ended questions

18. How?
● Designed to provoke thought

19. Compare with...

20. Optimisation:
Linkedin profile

21. What does this profile say?

22. Make a Linkedin banner on Canva

23. Entry level
tools/ data:
Linkedin
● Post daily?
● Comment regularly
● What time?
● Posts not articles?
● Text, image or video?
● Analyse views and
engagement

24. Academic research

25. Small data, not big
data?
(Fuchs, 2017)

26. Big data and social
Move away from digital positivism?
(Fuchs, 2017, Daniel, 2016)

27. Move away from digital positivism?
Too much focus on
quantitative data
(Fuchs, 2017)

28. Risk of echo
chamber
(Colleoni, Rozza,
Arvidsson, 2014)

29. Focus on the
micro,
not the macro.
(Fuchs, 2017)

30. ● Data is a valuable
commodity
● Tyranny of data
(Atherton, 2018)

31. Risk of digital
dependency
(Gardner, 2013)

32. Alternative
paradigm?
(Fuchs, 2017)

33. Research and social
Need for critical digital
social research
(Fuchs, 2017)

34. The joy of
mixed
methods

35. Exploratory,
not
confirmatory
(Gruzd, Paulin and
Haythornthwaite, 2016)

36. Content analysis Made easier by social
tools
● Ease of coding
● Large dataset

37. Social listening
● Sproutsocial, Lionbridge,
Talkwalker, Netlytic etc
● Powered by A.I

38. Sentiment analysis
● Sproutsocial, Lionbridge,
Talkwalker, Netlytic etc
● Powered by A.I

39. Social aggregation tools
Curator.io - social media walls for events/Unconferences

40. Language
creates our
lived
experiences
(Rorty, 1992, cited in

41. Tools of critical
digital research
Participants can
generate data
(Fuchs, 2014)

42. Methods of critical
research
● critical visual
analysis
● discourse,
textual analysis
(Fuchs, 2014)

43. Multimodal literacies
(Atherton, 2018)
● semi-structured
interviews,
● participant
observation
● surveys
● discourse analysis
● focus groups
● experiments
● creative methods

44. Can help with gathering and
coding of data
Dissemination
(Atherton, 2018)

45. What now?

46. ● Engagement?
● Metrics used?
● Social strategy?
● Tools and data
Case study: Edtech
Expo 2018 vs 2020

47. ● Theoretical
framework:
autoethnograph
y
Case study: Edtech
Expo 2018 vs 2020

48. How would you
like to use social
media for
research?
@Petestarryid

49. References
Atherton, P. (2018) 50 Ways to use technology enhanced learning in the classroom. London: Sage.
Colleoni, E. Rozza,A. Arvidsson, A. Echo Chamber or Public Sphere? Predicting Political Orientation and Measuring Political Homophily in Twitter
Using Big Data, Journal of Communication, Volume 64, Issue 2, April 2014, Pages 317–332, https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12084
Daniel, B. (2017). Big data and learning analytics in higher education. London: Springer.
Fuchs C (2014b) OccupyMedia! The Occupy Movement and Social Media in Crisis Capitalism. Winchester: Zero Books.
Fuchs, C. (2017). From digital positivism and administrative big data analytics towards critical digital and social media research!. European Journal of
Communication, [online] 32(1), pp.37-49. Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0267323116682804 [Accessed 4 Jun. 2019].
Gardner, H. and Davis, K. (2013). The app generation. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Gruzd, A., Paulin, D., & Haythornthwaite, C. (2016). Analyzing Social Media and Learning Through Content and Social Network Analysis: A Faceted
Methodological Approach. Journal of Learning Analytics 3(3), 46-71. http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/JLA/article/view/4638/5753
O'Reilly, T. 2018). "The True Inventor of the Unconference". LinkedIn. Retrieved June 4, 2019.
Preston, C. and Cuthell, J. (2011). MirandaMods: From Practice to Praxis in Informal Professional Learning Contexts. Research on e-Learning and ICT
in Education, [online] pp.17-28. Available at:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267946904_'Unconferences'_from_practice_to_praxis_in_informal_professional_learning_contexts
[Accessed 5 Jun. 2019].