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A guide to why Twitter is relevant in the research environment, how it can be useful, and how to Tweet successfully.
There's a link in the presentation to the handout used in this workshop - although it was aimed at a University of York audience, it's relevant for any academics or researchers interested in using social media.
Part of the Becoming a Networked Researcher suite of workshops.
A guide to why Twitter is relevant in the research environment, how it can be useful, and how to Tweet successfully.
There's a link in the presentation to the handout used in this workshop - although it was aimed at a University of York audience, it's relevant for any academics or researchers interested in using social media.
Part of the Becoming a Networked Researcher suite of workshops.
Twitter is social media and
social media is part of Web 2.0 – the interactive and participatory side of the internet. It’s basically people exchanging stuff (most often opinions) – a LOT of stuff.
Your tweets are seen by
other Twitter users who follow you; you see the tweets of users you follow. You can quickly build up a network of peers with shared interests. There are around half a billion Twitter users worldwide (225 million of whom are active on a monthly basis). It works like this:
1: YOU CAN’T SAY ANYTHING
IN 140 CHARACTERS. Yes you can, because Twitter is meant to be a conversation rather than a broadcast. It’s easy to ask, and answer, questions in 140 characters or less.
2: IT’S JUST PEOPLE SAYING
WHAT THEY HAD FOR LUNCH. No it isn’t – only celebrities really do that, because they have so many followers that meaningful dialogue isn’t really possible. For the rest of us, it’s a conversation.
3: THERE’S NO POINT IN
MY BEING THERE AS I DON’T KNOW ANYONE ON IT. Firstly you probably do know people on it (search for your peers’ names) but secondly Twitter is a great leveller – it provides the chance to engage with people you don’t know, including the leaders in your field. (As someone said, Facebook is where you lie to your friends, Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers.)
Because highly tweeted articles are
11 times more likely to be cited than less-tweeted articles Eyesenbach, 2011, Can tweets predict citations? Journal of Medical Internet Research 13 (4) Hat-tip to Michelle Dalton – see http://t.co/6MV8xQEujV for more stats.
Time to get started. Go
to Twitter.com and follow the instructions in PART 1 the hand- out, Setting Up Your Account.
Time to get started. Go
to Twitter.com and follow the instructions in PART 1 the hand- out, Setting Up Your Account. Hello, Slideshare! You can find the handout we used in the session on Scribd – just click the screen to go straight there…
Tweet: your tweet is your
message. 140 characters. Seen by a: your followers who happen to be online at the time and b: anyone who happens to look at your profile, and potentially c: by the followers of anyone who ReTweets it. ReTweet: if you RT someone else’s tweet, it will appear in your timeline and your followers can see it. Being ReTweeted yourself is a really good thing – it means your ideas are being exposed to new networks.
@reply: you can converse directly
with someone by putting their username (beginning with @) into your tweet – this will ensure the tweet shows up in their ‘@ replies’. Your tweets will be seen by anyone following both you AND the person with whom you’re conversing. (In other words, you don’t see every tweet from every person you follow – Twitter filters out the noise.)
Hashtag: a #hashtag is a
way to bring together disparate users on the same topic, without the tweets needing to know each other alredy. Hashtags can also be a way to archive conversations on a theme, and discuss events or conferences. You can click on any #hashtag (for example #altmetrics) and find all recent tweets which have included it. Direct Message: a DM is a private message, within the network, which only you and the recipient see.
@uniofyork is the main account
of the University @UoYLibrary is the Library’s account @UoYITServices is the IT services account @RDT_York is the Researcher Development Team account @TFTV_YORK is the TFTV account, one of the many Departments on Twitter @UoYEvents is the account for Events at York @UoY_Yorkshare is the VLE team’s account Departmental tweeters: @timeshighered is the Times Higher’s very active account @lseimpactblog is the LSE Impact Blog’s account (don’t be put off by the name, it’s relevant to all researchers interested in Web 2.0 tools) @gdnhighered is the Guardian’s Higher Education account Wider HE tweeters:
Embrace the smartphone! (Soon there
will only BE smartphones so you may as well get started now.) Imagine the people reading your Tweets are not just in your building, but on the train, in the supermarket queue, at conferences or events. Twitter doesn’t have to be something people MAKE TIME for. Content
Try not to think of
it as purely personal or purely professional – it works better when it’s both. (Personally I think it works well when you major in professional and minor in personal…) Tone
Ultimately the tone on Twitter
is roughly akin to how you would address your peers face- to-face (as opposed to in print). Are you friendly, irreverent, sarcastic, enthusiastic, rude? That’s how you should be on Twitter. Tone
Logistics How often should you
tweet? Targets can often backfire – tweet when you have something to say, and don’t when you don’t.
That said, the more people
tweet, the bigger their network.* The bigger their network, the more they get out of Twitter. Logistics
Analyse your Tweets There are
a million and one Twitter stats packages online – choose the ones which give you information you can ACT on. E.G. use http://tweetstats.com to check how often you’re replying and RTing, and WHEN you’re Tweeting… Logistics
Finally: you need to actually
tell people you’re there. @username on your business cards on your PowerPoint presentations on your name-badge at conferences in your email signature
Thanks for coming! More on
‘Becoming a Networked Researcher’ can be found at http://www.york.ac.uk/library/info- for/researchers/networked/ The RDT webpages are at http://www.york.ac.uk/admin/hr/researcher- development/ The slides (with a link to an online version of this hand-out) can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/UniofYorkLibrary/ Absolutely every picture via www.iconfinder.com