The document provides guidance on utilizing social media effectively in academia, covering platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, blogging, and Facebook. It emphasizes the importance of building an online presence for research promotion, networking, and professional development while defining social media terminology and sharing strategies for engagement. Additionally, it highlights the potential impact of social media on research visibility and citations.

1. How to use Social Media
in Academia
By Sally Pezaro
Follow me on Twitter: @SallyPezaro
Blog: www.healthystaff4healthypatients.wordpress.com
Linkedin

2. What we will cover…
- Starting out on Social Media
- How it all works
- Social Media terms (jargon)
- Twitter
- Blogging
- Linkedin
- Facebook
- YouTube
- Relating all of this to academia
- Using Social Media for research
- Top tips

3. Decide how and why you will become a
Social Media Ninja
- Personal reasons?
- Professional reasons?
- How much time can I commit?
- Get another job?
- Promote your research centre?
- Raise my academic profile?
- Find and collaborate with the
global research community?
- To get grants?
- Self promotion

4. How it all works…
You are projecting yourself
digitally…This will become
your online profile, so come
out of your comfort zone and
connect. Everything and
everyone is connected online
some how….
This is a good thing.

5. Your online self in a nutshell…
LinkedIn: You professionally
Facebook: You casually/socially
Blogging: You as a ‘thinking being’
Twitter: You as an active part of the
research community
YouTube: You as a dynamic part of a
professional team.

6. Abbreviations defined
• TBH – To Be Honest
• IRL – In Real Life
• TTYL – Talk To You Later
• TLDR – Too Long Didn’t Read
• IMHO – In My Humble Opinion
• IMO – In My Opinion
• YW – You’re Welcome
• OIC – Oh I See
• SMH – Shaking My Head
• IDK – I Don’t Know
• FTW – For The Win
• HBD – Happy BirthDay
BRB – Be Right Back
ASL? – Age? Sex? Location?
BTW – By The Way
CTA – Call To Action
DFTBA – Don’t forget to be awesome
GTG – Got To Go
IM – Instant Message
PM – Private Message
JK – Just Kidding
LOL – Laugh Out Loud
LMAO – Laughing My Ass Off
ROFL – Rolling On the Floor Laughing
YOLO – You Only Live Once

7. Twitter
• Key for conferences
• Twitter chats
• Online Journal clubs
• Tweets (140 Characters)
• Followers/Network (#FindYourFlock)
• ‘Tweet ups’
• Tagging
• Thunderclaps
• Trending (Viral content).
• Your profile
• Hashtags
• Your Twitter handle
• Pinned tweets
• Advertising
• Netiquette

8. Learning via Twitter

9. Organised Twitter chats - The Healthcare Hashtag Project
#ShowsWorkplaceCompassion
healthcare social media hashtag

10. The #WeCommunities
#WhyWeDoResearch
Awards
Badges
CPD
Customised
experience
Social Media
Conferences
Can be
commissioned
for projects

11. Popular hashtags for every day of the week
#MondayFunday #Mondaze #MondayMadness
#MondayMotivation #TransformationTuesday #TravelTuesday
#TuesdayTips #WednesdayWisdom #WednesdayWellness #HumpDay
#ThrowbackThursday or #TBT #ThursdayThoughts #TGIF #FridayFeeling
#FollowFriday or #FF #FollowBackFriday or #FBF #FridayReads
#Weekend #SaturdayPlans #SocialSaturday #Weekend #SundayFunday
#SundayNight #SelfieSunday #SundayBlogShare
FOR US = #ScholarSunday, #higheredchat, #womenalsoknowstuff #Academictwitter,
#whywedoresearch

12. Conferences & Twitter
• Twitter is the most popular medium for
conference chat
• Find the hashtag for the conference
• Find the Twitter handle for the host organisation
• Tweet to share that you are attending or
presenting
• Follow the event hashtag prior to the event
• Who else is going? Can you connect? Meet during
breaks?
• Tweet what the speakers say for those who are
following the conference hashtag at home
• Share pictures, reflect on the day, follow attendees
& chat
• Scope out other professional profiles & Connect
• Write and share a blogpost summarising the day

13. Key people to follow on Twitter IMHO
• People you want to work with
• People you respect
• People you want to share work/ideas with
• The We Communities (For healthcare).
• The Royal Colleges
• Key opinion leaders in your field
• Academic Media (Times, guardian higherEd etc…)
• National Institute of Health Research (and other key funders in your field).
• Universities (and their relevant departments)
• NHS, DoH etc… (Anyone who will disseminate the latest white papers)!
• Journals you want to publish in (tag them when they do publish you!)
My personal favourites- @PhD2Published @AcademicPain @AcademiaObscura @TheLitCritGuy
@AcademicsSay @GameofAcademics @HigherEdUnDead @fasttrackimpact @AcademicBatgirl
@researchwhisper @PHDcomics @PhDForum @WriteThatPhD @academia@PhD_Connect

14. What should I post on Twitter?
Anything professional
• Who are you going meet today? – Tag them
• What are you working on today? – Share it
• What was the last paper you published? – Pin it and tag those you want to read it, including the journal
• Your opinions on hot professional topics
• Your contributions to popular professional conversations or (Trends)
• Your appreciation for other peoples work you admire
• Your celebratory comments to colleagues
• Reciprocal congratulatory tweets
• Everything about key conferences using the conference hashtag (photos and quotes)!
• Share and ‘like’ other things you like or want to promote

15. How to
maximise the
potential of
one
important
Tweet…

16. Blogging huh…yeah….what is it good for?
• Share your professional thoughts values and opinions
• Build a picture of ‘Who you are’
• A hub to link others to your other profiles
• A place to share your work
• Reflect on conferences/events
• Reply to the public
• Document your academic journey
• Create community debate

17. How to use a blog…
• Set up is easy (Wordpress.com or blogspot.com) FREE!
• Add your blog to an academic blog directory
• Connect blogs together within organisations
• Single author? Guest blogger? Multi author?
• No more than 1000 words per post weekly/monthly – Keep it consistent!
• Interact with other blogs and join the conversation
• Stay positive & professional (even if you get negative responses)!
• Never release research before publication!
• Think of Google and SEO! (avoid jargon)
• Have ever changing content (Twitter feed/news/weather)
• Think about your audience & who will engage
• Connect everything together in a ‘hub’
• Use social media to share and promote your blog (Use hashtags too!)
• Use visuals, quotes, slide shares, hyperlinks, videos and engaging content.
• My Blog

18. Linkedin
• Your online CV – Uber professional
• Keep it up to date
• Use professional images and photos
• Celebrate the achievements of yourself & others
• Connect with people & shared interests
• Add your papers, grants, honours and awards.
• Join in group conversations
• Blog more professionally on Linkedin
• Create groups and company pages
• Check out advertised jobs
• Be found by recruitment agents
• Let people ‘Scout you out’ at conferences
• Professional sharing only!

19. Facebook...huh…yeah…What is it good for?
• Follow larger organisations for up to date news
• Used less for professional use
• Has a more casual feel
• Great for friends and family
• Great for building relationships with colleagues (be
selective)!
• Great for advertising projects
• Trending and hashtag features still available
• Great for sharing success stories!
• Can be more controversial than other media
• Great for Businesses, companies & Branding
IF YOU WANT TO SET UP A PROFESSIONAL/COMMERCIAL
PROFILE, SET UP A SEPARATE PAGE BRANCHING OUT FROM
YOUR ORIGINAL ACCOUNT
(NO SECOND ACCOUNT REQUIRED)!

20. How do YouTube?
• Biggest search engine
• Ted Talks (and other speakers)
• Showcase your research centre
• Create your own Channel
• Imbed videos to blogs
• Share widely
• Promote your research centre!
• Videos are prime content
• Promote interviews, conferences
• Promote your research

21. Relating all of this to academia
• Orchid ID’s
• Research gate
• Google Scholar Profiles
• Repositories
• academia.edu
• Altmetrics
• Use slidshare!
• Early adoption of new online research directories
• Google yourself!

22. Research Impact
• Impact case studies contribute 20% of the quality rating, and this is expected to
rise to at least 25% in REF 2020
• A year-long study of articles posted to Academia.edu found — after controlling for
a number of factors and applying several statistical models — that a typical paper
posted to the site received about 83% more citations than similar papers that
were only available behind paywalls.
• Another paper looked at articles within the Journal of Medical Internet Research,
17–19 months following their publications. It was found that articles which were
highly tweeted were 11 times more likely to be cited than those articles with less
tweets.
• Check out: Schnitzler, Katy, et al. "Using Twitter™ to drive research impact: a
discussion of strategies, opportunities and challenges." International Journal of
Nursing Studies 59 (2016): 15-26.
• The social media data you collect can be used in grant applications and impact studies

23. So far, Altmetric has seen 70 tweets from 52 users,
with an upper bound of 86,999 followers.

24. So far, Altmetric has seen 2467 tweets from 2308 users,
with an upper bound of 5,064,475 followers.

25. Health Research via Social Media
• Online Health research via Twitter
• Social Media Messages in an Emerging
Health Crisis: Tweeting Bird Flu
• Public health implications of social media
use during natural disasters,
environmental disasters, and other
environmental concerns
• Extracting Signals from Social Media for
Chronic Disease Surveillance

26. Online Health
Research Via Twitter
#Shows
Workplace
Compassion

27. Top tips…
• Be wary of changing your brand
• Stay away from the negative –> follow the positive #FindYourFlock
• Be consistent, human, reflective, sharing, collaborative, brave!
• Bitly - Condenses long URLs to make them easier to share – also generates stats.
• Never use Social Media whilst drunk!
• Exploit your email signature
• Use photos on Twitter (tag up to 10 people in them)!
• Treat everything you post as public – Think before you post!
• Respect Google and other search engines
• Join blogging directories (or create one?)
• Join online communities (or create one?)
• Follow and engage with key influencers in your field
• HOOTSUITE!
• 10 minutes a day goes a long way 

28. What do search engines look for?
•Unique names come out
on top
•The volume of incoming
links from related websites
•Time within website
•Page titles
•Quality of content
•Relevance
•Page descriptions
•Quantity of content
•Technical precision of
source code
•Volume and consistency
of searches
•Spelling
•Page views
•Revisits
•Click-throughs
•Technical user-features
•Uniqueness
•Regularity of updated
content
•Functional vs broken
hyperlinks

29. Finally..
When people are looking
down at their mobile
devices, they may actually
be online looking directly at
you….What do you want
them to see? Thankyou for listening
Follow me on Twitter: @SallyPezaro
Blog: www.healthystaff4healthypatients.wordpress.com
Linkedin