The document discusses the Social Feed Manager (SFM), an open-source tool developed for collecting social media data, particularly from APIs like Twitter and Tumblr, and highlights its advantages and disadvantages. It emphasizes its intended use for researchers and archivists, offering several example collections including the 2016 U.S. election and federal terms from 2017-2020. Additionally, it provides contact information for further inquiries.

1. Social Media Collecting
with Social Feed Manager
(in 10 minutes)

2. Collecting social media from API vs. website
Advantages of API:
● Structured data (typically JSON).
● Tend to be stable.
● Some provide more metadata than
available from website.
● Data can be collected efficiently.
Disadvantages of API:
● Not all social media platforms have
complete, public APIs.
● Data not readily human-viewable.
● Each API is different.
● Some platforms (notably Twitter) limit
data sharing.
● May be greater limitations on the
data available from API, especially
historical data.

3. A tweet
https://gist.github.com/justinlittman/462a398d161002a8caff0905bf4e5f7f

4. Social Feed Manager (SFM)
● Open-source software.
● Developed by GW Libraries with grant from National Historical Publications &
Records Commission.
● Collects social media from APIs of Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr & Sina Webo. Also
collects web resources.
● Supports requirements of researchers and archivists/librarians.
○ Collect to answer specific research questions.
○ Proactively collect to support future research.
● Intended to be provided as a service to the members of a community (as
opposed to individual use).

8. Example collections
● 2016 U.S. election
○ 280 million tweets
○ Separate collections for
candidates, debates,
conventions
○ Published to Harvard Dataverse
● End of Term (EOT) collection
○ 3000 Twitter accounts
○ 70 Tumblr blogs
○ Continuing as 2017-2020
Federal Term collection
● Women’s March
● Trump Administration officials
● 115th U.S. Congress
● News outlets
● Chinese anti-corruption
○ Sina Weibo and Twitter
● ISIS-related Twitter users
● Latin American political leaders
● George Washington University
○ Official accounts and student
groups

9. Social Feed Manager
@SocialFeedMgr
sfm@gwu.edu
http://go.gwu.edu/sfm
Justin Littman
@justin_littman
justinlittman@gwu.edu