Social Media & PhD Researchers: Presentation for University of Nottingham ESRC CDT Students. Delivered by Chris James Carter, Research Fellow with the Horizon Digital Economy Institute (University of Nottingham), 4/2/15

1. Using Social Media as a PhD Researcher
Chris James Carter
@chriscarter83

2. Brief Background
• Horizon CDT (2010 – 2014)
- PhD Candidate
- “Understanding Professional Risk and the Digital Reputation
Management Behaviour of Young Adults Upon Social Media”
• Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute (2014 -)
- Research Fellow
- Citizen-centric Approaches to Social Media Analysis (CaSMa)
- Digital Economy Network (DEN) Social Media Advocate (2015 -)

3. Social Data, Everywhere

4. How digitally visible are you as a researcher?

5. 1. Google your name + “University of Nottingham”!
2. Make a note of how many of the 10 results on the 1st
page accurately refer to you
3. Identify how many of the 10 results provide links that
are relevant to your research/you as a researcher?
Exercise #1: What’s in a name?

6. Being Chris Carter

7. Using social media to develop your
digital presence as a researcher

8. • Information control…
• You = brand, your research = product
- Lessons to be learned from marketing & SEO
• Key: make it easy for others to find you!
- Create a consistent name & image
- Consider buying personal domain
- Cross-link between your sites
• Aim to prioritise sites that rank highly in search engines
- Google-owned sites
- Large social network sites
“Centralising” Your Content

9. • Relatively
painless to set
up
• High search
index
• Citation
tracking &
alerts
• Easy linking to
own papers
via Scholar
Google Scholar

10. Academic Networking Sites
• ResearchGate,
Academia.edu,
etc.
• Ability to upload
PDFs of papers
• HUGE potential
for connecting &
sharing research
with academics
• Insights into
who is
searching/
downloading

11. UoN Departmental Webpages
• Tends to rank
highly in
search
engines
• Availability
may depend
on dept.
• Can be a little
more difficult
to set-up
• Opportunities
for linking out
to other
appropriate
sites

12. Professional Networking Sites
• Widely used by
professionals, &
increasingly students
• Can be useful for
consolidating
connections (e.g.
after conferences)
• Less targeted
towards academics
• Topic-specific
discussion groups
• Though possible to
link to presentations
(e.g. via Slideshare),
can feel static

13. Explore Alternatives!

14. • Facebook, Twitter & Google+
• Potentially huge audience
• More personal touch, though also greater professional risk
• Combine personal-professional, or set up separate accounts?
Social Network Sites

15. Using social media to communicate
your research

16. Blog Your Research
• Great chance to
engage a wider
audience
• Opportunity to
promote your
communication
skills
• Chance to show
understanding of
wider issues
• Potential issues
around
confidentiality
• Risk of “selling the
farm”?

17. Channel Your Inner Journalist

18. Participate in Scheduled Events

19. Join Existing Research Groups

20. Look to Researcher Role Models

21. Exercise #2: Social Media Role Models
1. In small groups, share your own examples of
researchers who you think use social media effectively
2. Discuss what it is about the way in which they use
social media that makes them good role models
3. Discuss any examples in which of social media use that
you would tend to avoid as a researcher?

22. A Final Note: It Really Works!

23. Thank you!
Questions?
email: christopher.carter@nottingham.ac.uk
visit: chrisjamescarter.strikingly.com
follow: @chriscarter83