Social media for scientists - tips and tricks
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A presentation about how to use social media as an academic (PhD student, professor, research assistant). In this presentation I talked about Academia.edu, Researchgate, Twitter, Medium.com, LinkedIn. How can you build a personal brand as a researcher? How can social media help you to reach your goals?
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Social media for scientists - tips and tricks
- 1. Social Media in Academia : Tips & Tricks 👍 @SimoneKrouwer
- 2. Secret Social Media Guru…
- 3. Secret Social Media Guru… Sorry, not me! (Also not a photoshop expert)
- 4. Hello! I am Simone Krouwer I am an online advertising researcher at the University of Antwerp You can find me at: 4 Oh, and in real life. ;-)
- 5. Do you believe in Social? ◎Do you use social for your academic career? ◎Why do you use social media as a scholar? 5
- 6. Survey 2014 Nature 6 ◎We are on social... ◎But are we social? “I just use it to read”
- 7. 7 Social media: why should(n’t) you?
- 8. “ “My research is not spectacular enough” 8 Reasons for NOT using social media Source: VLIR-UOS (Flemish Interuniversity Council) study “It cost a lot of time. We already work at 200% to do research and raise funds” “It’s hard to anticipate simple questions that do not have simple answers”
- 9. “ Knowledge is of no value , Unless you put it into practice. - Anton Checkhov - 9
- 10. Conduct your study Write a research paper Get your paper published … 10 How long does it take you to…
- 11. How long does it take you to… Conduct your study? Write a research paper? Get your paper published? … 11 Publish a tweet / blog post / infographic?
- 12. 5 reasons to go #social! 1. More support for your research ○ Funding / public support 2. Widen your network ○ Collaborations ○ Advice ○ Future career opportunities! 3. Accountability ○ What do you give back to society? 4. Job satisfaction ○ Quickly share your insights, help others 5. You are less lonely ○ Establish new relationships! 12 Source: VLIR-UOS (Flemish Interuniversity Council) study 👍
- 13. “ 13 GET OUT OF THE IVORY TOWER
- 15. Build your personal brand via: 1. Academic SNS (Researchgate, Academia.edu) 2. Twitter 3. Linkedin 4. Medium 5. Quora 6. (Other inspiring examples and useful tools) 15
- 17. ResearchGate ◎ www.researchgate.net ◎ Founded in 2008 ◎ > 15 million members Academic SNS Academia.edu ◎ www.academia.edu ◎ Founded in 2008 ◎ > 26 million members 17 Alternatives: ◎ Mendeley ○ Good system for reference management ◎ Scholarlyhub ○ Non-profit open-access platform run by scholars
- 18. 18 Academia.edu ◎ Great repository of publications ◎ Many analytics ○ View who’s reading your paper (paid…) ◎ Sessions: ask for feedback on draft versions
- 19. 1. Ask and answer questions, join discussions 2. Peer review papers 3. Share and collect papers ○ Share negative results that might never be published ○ More rapidly aware of others 4. Upload raw data sets. 5. Connect with colleagues and specialists in your field 6. Find jobs 7. Share papers privately Researchgate 19
- 20. 1. Create a research profile… That people can actually find! ○ Add a photo (150 % more views) ○ Add your skills and expertise ○ Add your institution and department 2. Build on your network (connect, follow, chat) 3. Create and / or join groups 4. Participate in discussions 5. Share you research (check with the publisher!) Academic SNS: what now? 20
- 21. 21
- 22. 1. Publishers’ opposition to open access 2. Spam ○ Academia premium… 3. Revenue model – little control 22 ↓↓↓ Scholarlyhub? Beware of…
- 23. 2. Twitter 23
- 24. “ “It keeps me up to date on the latest trends, especially as it ties in with current publications and current events.” Associate professor in Nature 2014 survey, Age 35–44, United States 24
- 25. 25 CREATE YOUR OWN PERSONAL BRAND
- 26. Rock your personal brand with: ◎A clear @twitterhandle ◎A profile & cover picture ◎A pinned Tweet ◎ A consistent voice 26
- 27. 27
- 28. #Twittergoals Create a clear and discoverable Twitter profile Promote research (of yourself and colleagues) Network Position yourself as a thought-leader Contribute to discussions Find and share relevant content (not just research) Discover new researchers in your field Make connections around conferences 28
- 29. What to Tweet? Anything… Short (max 240 characters) #without #too #many #hashtags: Useful Tips & tricks News & your opinion Conference attendance (ask who’s around!) Insightful Research, comments on research and other content Visual Infographics, pictures of you at work Provocative your opinion (but: not offending) Personal Struggles, moments to celebrate, teaching ANYTHING THAT FITS YOUR PERSONAL BRAND 29
- 30. Start a conversation! 30 Start a conversation: ◉ About challenges you face ◉ About new ideas ◉ About the news ◉ About something interesting you’ve read ◉ Ask questions! No response? • Tag People using ‘@usename’ • #academictwitter • #phdlife • #phdchat • #ecrchat • #shutupandwrite • #acwri
- 31. Examples ◎Conferences (using the conference #) ○ Follow people I meet (or want to meet!) ○ Congratulate colleagues on publications ○ Respond to questions / participate in discussions ◎Visual: ○ Use the snipping tool to show a part of an article ○ Create and share infographics ○ Memes / GIF’s that match my tweet ◎Get in touch with practitioners ○ Respond to their tweets, share knowledge 31
- 33. HAVE FUN 33 @academicpain @yourpapersucks @academiaobscura
- 34. 3. LinkedIn 34
- 35. 1. Make yourself discoverable Profile settings: Public Headline with keywords Summary Picture
- 36. Write a killer summary: Make it personal and easy to understand Invite people to connect with you and follow you Prove your value 36 2. Create your personal brand: Source
- 37. Ask for recommendations Showcase your publications and awards (not just academic!) Share your knowledge (LinkedIn Pulse) 37 Sell yourself! Source
- 38. ◎Connect with researchers you (will) meet at conferences / colleagues etc. ○ Make your invitation personal! ◎Follow people that inspire your / are relevant ◎Join groups (or create one) ◎Respond to other’s posts and status updates 38 3. Network Source
- 39. If you plan to work in practice… ◎Think about transferrable skills and highlight these e.g.: project management, presenting, data management… ◎Talk about your aspirations in your LinkedIn summary ◎Follow companies you’d like to work for ◎Join groups and share your knowledge ◎Let recruiters know you’re open… 39 Bonus! Source
- 40. 4. Medium 40
- 41. Benefits of blogging @ Medium.com: ◎Reach & Impact ◎Create your own community of readers ◎Practice to write creatively and understandably ◎Direct feedback (end your blog with questions) 41 Medium.com Source Share your blog both on LinkedIn articles and Medium.com
- 42. 42 Follow - Clap – highlight –tweet - bookmark 1. Create a profile. 2. Start Blogging.
- 43. 43 Quora ◎Create a profile and add your skills & expertise ◎Ask and answer questions ◎Follow topics ◎www.quora.com
- 44. Remember: there are MANY opportunities! 44 ◎Vlogs ◎Podcasts ◎Explanatory video’s ◎Facebook groups
- 45. 45
- 46. 46 RELAX…
- 47. … And make social easy for yourself ◎Do not focus on all social media platforms ○ Think about your main goals ○ Pick the ones that benefit you most ◎Avoid distraction ○ Decide in advance when you’ll go online ○ Use www.stayfocusd.com to block social media for a period ◎Link accounts with each other (cross-post) DON’T PUT ANY PRESSURE ON YOURSELF 47
- 48. Useful tools 48
- 49. ◎https://www.google.nl/alerts 49 Google Alerts for your topic:
- 51. Twitter ◎Tweetdeck.com planning & monitoring ◎Analytics.twitter.com 51
- 52. Slideshare: upload / share presentations 52
- 53. 53 Best advice ever :
- 54. Thanks! Any questions? You can find me at: @SimoneKrouwer Simone.krouwer@uantwerpen.be Find this presentation at Slideshare: 54
- 55. Special thanks to: ◎ SlidesCarnival for the presentation template ◎ Dr. Steve Paulussen 55
Editor's Notes
- Good morning everyone, thank you all for attending this workshop on social media for academia. The fact that you guys are sitting here probably means that you’re looking for some tips and tricks on how to to leverage social media as a researcher.
- Now wouldn’t it be great if one of the leading experts was standing here. An academic researcher who has the perfect social media presence, who knows exactly how to create the perfect strategy for your social media presence and who is a well known authority and advisor on this. Yes, that would be great.
- But that’s not me. My name is Simone Krouwer and I’m just a PhD student here at the university of antwerp, who’s conducting research in the field of online advertising. So the bad news is; I am not an expert or social media guru myself and my online presence is definitely not perfect. But the good news is: I worked my ass of to gather online and offline the best knowledge, tips and tricks for you (and myself) on how to use social media in academia.
- And as you can see, I actually do believe that it’s important to be active on social media when you’re working in academia. Maybe not on all of these platforms, but some of them
- But what about you? Do you actually believe in social media? Do you believe that social media can be beneficial for your career (either in adademia, or in industry) Can you raise your hands if you’re currently using social media for your academix career? (Why?) Allright, so that was my study of the day. Now let’s look at academic research on this. Do researchers believe in social?
- Now a large survey that’s published in nature (unfortunately already in 2014, your know how long publishing takes) showed that almost 95% of the 3000 scientists and engineers where using some kind of social network. Google scholar and researchgate were most popular. So back in 2014 there seems to be already some enthusiasm about social media in the academic world. But the researchers that were questioned, were also using it quite passively, mainly to read and “just in case”. So many researchers were active on social. But… Just not very social.
- Noew before I’’m going to give you some tips to get more out of social media, besides reading, let’s look at the pro’s and cons of social media. So what are some pro’s and cons of using social media?
- These are some reasons among Flemish researcher For NOT sing. sociaal Media. This is from a study from the VLIR-UOS. Some researchers said: = My research is not SPECTACULAR ENOUGH. Who of you feel like this is applicable to your research. - Other said: it cost a lot of TIME. We are already working long hours just to get our research done. A some researchers said that their research is simply too complex All these reasons are perfectly understandable. Academic researchers are in genreal very modest and almost all of my PhD colleagues are insecure. And indeed, it can cost a lot of time. It can. And it is indeed sometimes quite difficult to translate your conplex studies to the public. HOWEVER… in my opinion the pro’s of being on social media definitetly outweigh the cons.
- First of all, we shouldn’t forget that as academics, we generally get our salary thanks to the public who are paying their taxes. But what is the value of our knowledge to the public, if we don’t put it into practice? What do we give back to society if we keep our knowledge inside the academic world, only focussing on publishing and do not communicate with the public? Social Media Platforms are simply a great tool to spread our knowledge to the broader public.
- And of course, social media cost some time. But.. How long does it take you to...
- `Now how long does it take you to publish a tweet? A minute? A blog post or infographic.. Maybe a few hours. So even though the cons are perfectly understandable and relatable, I think that the pro’s definitetly outweigh the cons.
- There are 5 other great reasons to go social. 1. Evidence succests that an active online presence can directly influence your article downloads. It can also enahcne your reputation. Furthermore, funding organizations are increasingly focussing on valorization. So showing that you understand the importance will definitelty pleasing them. 2. Second. Online discussions often lead to real world interactions and collaborations. It can also serve ad an icebreaker once two people finally meet each other. I’m not so good at networking, but if I see that another researcher is tweeting about the fact that he er she will attend the same conference, I for instance already respond to that tweet to make real life networking easier. 3. Third, as I mentioned before, it is important and also great to actually contribute to society with your researc.h Not least because the public pay for most of our research. 4. Directly sharing and communicating about your research will denfitetly give you more job satisfaction. 5. Mot sure whether you guys are familiar with the memes about the PhD life, but being online can definitetly decrease feelings of loneliness that we all experience at some point.
- So let’s get out of our ivory tower!
- And let’s look at some social media platforms that will help us not only to connect and communicate with academics and the broader society, and that can advance our personal career as well. By building our own personal brand.
- There are many social media platforms, yet unfortunaltely I cannot discuss them all. Soo in this workshop I will mainly talk about the social network platforms that will benefit us the most. Which are researchgate, academia.edu, twitter and Linkedin. Then if there’s time I’ll quickly talk about Medium, Quora, and some other examples and tools.
- So let’s start with the safe area. Academic sns. Who of you has a profile on one of these academic social network sites?
- So there are several social networks fully devoted to scientists. Researchgate and academia.edu are the largest. Yet there’s also mendeley (which is great for managing references) and recently some RESEARCHERS launched a non-profit academic sns, which is scholarlyhub. Yet for now i’ll only focus a bit more on the two largest sns, which are researchgate and academia.
- So.. I use academia mainly to share and find publications. You can also see analytics for your own papers… There are some possibilities for interaction, but I feel like there’s not that much going on there… And for some statistics and information you do have to pay.
- There’s much more interaction at researchgate. You can ask questions, work together on papers, upload raw data sets, follow researchers that are working on the same topic, and even find jobs.
- So how do do you get started using these platforms. Well it’s very simple. You just create a good profile and get started. Keep in mind that Profiles with a photo receive an average of 150% more views, so it’s a good idea to add your photo from day one Add your skills and expertise so that other researchers and potential collaborators can find out what your work is about And add your institution and department to the academix sns can connect you with people you know on ResearchGate, as well as importing contacts from your email address book After that you can become active. You can connect to people, join groups, participate in discussion, and share your
- The interface really speaks for itself, so I don’t think I have to explain how it works. What I can recommend to do on a regularly basis is the following: USE THE SEARCH FUNCTION to see what’s going on. I often use the search function to find whether there are anu new native advertising projects, questions, or publications. And I’ve shared my papers privately.
- There are some cons you should keep in mind. First of all There are the many emails you receive from both platforms. Simply unsubscribe from any email services. The mails are often about statistics etc. and are making you a bit narcistic. as Academia.edu really wants me to become a premium member. Second: Most publishers are not keen on open access. If you want to make your papers freely accessible, that’s great. But always check the publishing agreement and guidelines. Sometimes you can surround regulations by uploading a different version of your paper. Furthermore, you can also share your papers privately 3. Last but not least, you should keep in mind that Both Academia and Researchgate raised millions of dollars. They need to make a profit somehow. However, how and when.. We don’t know They might sell our data, or ask academics to pay a fee to access the platform. We have little control over them. In the future, we might be able t use scholarlyhub! This is a non-profit academic sns. The founders don’t want that our research is published on commercial platforms. Yet there’s not enough funding yet. But it is something to watch. If you’re interested, you c an always check the website and –repsubscribe.
- Allright, now let’s step out of that academic world, and let’s talk about twitter… ! Who of you currently has a twitter account? Now.. Who of you i actively tweeting?
- The nature survey showed again that many academics do have twitter, but then again using it passively. So mainly lurking and monitoring.
- But twitter is so much more! With twitter you actually get the opportunity to create your own personal brand. Which will help you in your future career, whether it’s academic or non-academic.
- So Twitter is really a great great tool for personal branding. And you should make use of that! How do you do that? Well it stawrts again with a strong profile. Use an appropriate twitter handle, so people kan easily find you. So do not use; gameofthronesfan999, but for instance, your real name, or your name and research topic. Here you see an academic who knows how to market herself, nyasha. Her twitter handle is @nyashajunior. Her custom cover picture diplays her personal website. Nyasha is constantly showing in her tweets what she is an expert on topics related to race, gender and religion. She’s also sharing it when she’s speaking at conferences and now also promote herself as a speaker for other conferences in this pinned tweet.
- Another good example is my colleague brahim. His profile clearly describes his research topic. In his tweets He’s sharing his research, news on his research topic with his opinion, but also everytime he’s teaching. And by doing this he’s showing how passionate he is about both research and teaching, which is already helping him to get a postdoc. People are already contacting him, sharing some oppurtunities. But you can also be very personal or funny in your tweets. Remember that people love people. So just be yourself and tweet qbout those things where youy are passionate about.
- These are some twittergoals you should aim to reach: And by doing this, you create
- So is you have a clear profile, what can you tweet about? Well basically anything, as long as it fits into the 240 characters and as long as you do not use hashtags for every single word. Which is hashtag annoying.
- What is also important, especially to grow followers and expand your reach, is to make it conversational. Ask questions, talk about challenges, new ideas, discuss the news, make a poll ... If you don’t have a large following yet, it may be helpful to tag other people so they actually see you tweet. You can also use some of these hashtags for acamia, if you’re talking about academic related topics.
- Some of my best practices. I don’t feel very comfortable tweeting about my private life, so I have clearly stated in my twitter profile: tweets work-related.
- If you’re curious how many people you reach with your tweets, You can check your stats via analytics.twitter.com
- And don’t forget to make some fun! The twitter account Academic Pain will provide you GIFs to sustain you when you procrastinate. And there are many many other funny researchers and academic twitter accounts that will brighten up your day.
- Pthat brings us to part three! LinkedIn!. Now LinkedIn might sound to you as a place where that’s less relevant to network compared to academic social network sites such as researchgate. But linkedin can actually advance your career, but as a researcher and as someone who wants to work in practice. So what are some tricks for using it?
- First of all, you need to make yourself discoverable. No one is gonna find you if you make an almost anonymous profile, with no picture, and just the position ‘phd student’ in your headline. So start with adding a clear, professional picture and headline. The search funtion is often being used by LinkedIn users, so make use of this by integrating keywords in your headline. My title is for instance not just Phd researcher, but also the topic of my research, native advertising Obviously, add a professional picture of yourself. So people easily recognize you. I consider linkedin profiles without any picture kinda creepy, especially if they are constantly visiting your profile. And another obvious one, set your profile to public. That shouldn’t matter, because On LinkedIn, you shouldn’t share anything that is so personal only friends can see it. If you do, I’m not sure whether you’re sharing the appropriate content there. If you want to network, it all starts with open and clear communication. Use the heasline, use a picture, and make your profile public!
- Then, if people find you, you want them to become enthusistic about you. So you have to sell yourself How do you do that? Well, you can start with writing a good summary about yourself. I know its feels awkward to do that, but it’s really a great way to show people all the stuff that you’re doing. People can’t see that based on one or two publications. Write about your passions, and show your value. This woman, barabara, knows for instnace how to sell herself.
- Second, don’t be afraid to ask for recommendations. From your supervisor, for instance. You should also show your publications. And lost but not least, linkedin has a blogging function. I have written a few blogs about my research.
- And third and last. Network. Again, linkedin is a SOCIAL, NETWORKING platform. So don’t be afraid to send people invitations, even if you don’t know them very well. As long as you add some personal message, people will probably be happy to connvect to you. Follow people that inspire you. I follow for instance some marketers from practice that inspire me Join groups and responds to discussions And don’t forget to respond to others’’post as well. Everyone likes to be recognized.
- And then last but not least, for thoses who think they want to move outside academia at some point. And statistically, this must be some of your guys; some personal branding tips.
- Then just quikly two more innovative platforms. First of all, medium . Who of you is familiar with medium? Ok, well if you don’t have a blog yet, and consider blogging, or if you want to promote your own blog, I would suggest you post sometimes something on medium.com. Medium is an open blogging platform. And it’s great for academics for everal reasons. Professor Vermeulen has wrote a blog about why medium is such a great paltform and I recommend you to read it.
- What’s so great about medium.com, as opposed to starting your own blog, is that there’s directly a large audience for you. With this content overload online, it’s becoming more and more difficult to get an audience for your blogs. People can also directly respond below your article, which is great for discussion Furthermore, it motivates your to wirite more creatively and understandable. Last but not least, blogging on Medium is a great way to get direct feedback on your research. When you publish something in a journal, you often don’t hear anything, besides some congratulations from colleagues. On medium.com, people are more likely to respond to your content. Which is great. You learn a lot from it.
- Then you have quora. Anyone of you familiar with Quora? Oh I love Quora so much Quora is basically a Q&A for the world. People seriously ask here EVERYTHING. There are btw also many questions about surviving a PhD and about academic careers , so defintitely interesting to follow that topic as wells uora’s mission is to share and grow the world’s knowledge. A vast amount of the knowledge that would be valuable to many people is currently only available to a few — either locked in people’s heads, or only accessible to select groups. We want to connect the people who have knowledge to the people who need it, to bring together people with different perspectives so they can understand each other better, and to empower everyone to share their knowledge for the benefit of the rest of the world.
- So I just discussed some platforms, but there are of course mane many other options as well. There are PhD students who are vlogging, or researchers who get featured in a podcast, or who create videos or have set up facebook groups
- But I can’t share everything with you without creating some information overload in your brain. This was already quite some information!
- So let’s relax for a moment with each other.
- And keep in mind: you don’t have to be active on ALL of these platforms. And you should definitetly not use them all day long, otherwise you won’t have any research to talk aboout. Make it easy for yourself by picking the platofrms that benefit you most and make a plan for those platforms. If you’re afraid you’ll get distracted all day or addicted, then I also have a great website for you, which is stayfocusd.com. This is a free website that can block social media platforms for you for a while. Furthermore, please do not put any pressure on yourself.
- And then, last but not loast, some useful tools.
- I use google news alerts to stay up to date about my topic. I get a daily email with newly publsihed articles about my research topic (also non-academic articles). And if I read something interesting, I just directly tweet it.
- The websites canva.com and piktochart are great and free websites to make beautiful infographics and other visuals for your social posts.
- Via the free website tweetdeck.com you can schedule your tweets. Also useful when you’re at a conference and you want to plan some tweets in advance for when your colleagues are presenting.
- And on slideshare.com you can easilly upload presentations and share them on twitter and linkedin.
- So I have one final advice… And that is… Just do it. And you’ll see it wil bring you great results and opportunities.
- Good luck everyone and thank you for your attention