Using Social Media to Promote Your Research is a workshop developed by Kirsten Thompson and Sally Dalton, University of Leeds. It was facilitated in June 2019 as part of the Translate MedTech programme for the Yorkshire and Humber region.

1. Using social media to promote your research
Kirsten Thompson | @iamKirstenT
k.thompson@adm.leeds.ac.uk
Sally Dalton | @SallyDalton18
s.dalton@library.leeds.ac.uk

2. By the end of today’s session you should be able to:
• Explain the benefits of using social media as a researcher
• Brand your social media presence
• Understand how to use key platforms effectively, to promote you and your
work
• Identify, target and grow an audience
• Identify approaches to engage the public
• Understand how to measure and evaluate your social media activity.
Learning outcomes

3. Part 1
1. Benefits of using social media
2. Developing a personal brand
3. Engaging the public: research ambassadors

4. Benefits of using social media

5. Which social media tools do
you use?
www.menti.com

6. Why you think researchers should use social media,
what are the benefits?
Go to: www.menti.com

7. Why use social media as a researcher?
1. Build up networks and engage with
new audiences
2. Engage at conferences
3. Disseminate your research
4. Open record of your professional
activities
5. Increase altmetric scores

8. @DavidCookeMD
@ancientchildren
@JPUHResearch
#WhyResearchersTweet

9. What could happen when you tweet an Open Access Paper
• Prior to blogging and
tweeting about the paper:
downloaded twice
• The day (Friday) she tweeted
& blogged about it: 140
downloads
• On the Monday: retweeted
and another 140 downloads
• If you want people to read
your papers, make them
open access and let people
know about them!
Terras (2009)
http://melissaterras.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/what-happens-when-you-tweet-open-access.html

10. Developing your personal brand

11. Dr Sian Halcrow

12. Professor Melissa Terras

13. Live demo:
1. LinkedIn
2. Twitter
Making the most of your social media profiles

14. 1. What are your aims and objectives for each platform?
2. What are the keywords you want to be known and
found for?
3. How can people verify your brand as being authentic?
i.e. how do they know it’s really you?
4. How will you make the above clear in your profiles?
What does (or will) your brand say about you?

15. Engaging the public:
Research ambassadors

16. Simon Stones, PRA & researcher

17. Kirsten Thompson, PRA
Examples of activities:
• Campaign hashtag for everyone involved:
#BePartOfResearch
• Share lived experiences
• Participate in research
• Speak at events for researchers
• Collaborate with researchers
• Public engagement online and in person
• PPIE steering groups

18. Part 2
1. Key platforms
2. Identify and grow your audience
3. Evaluate

19. Key platforms and trends

20. Digital Transformation 2019
https://youtu.be/6k_G_h41ZaQ

21. https://youtu.be/rzUb_GeLDg8
How social media affects your brain

22. • The most powerful business search engine
• Online CV + groups and discussion areas
• Contacts = Connections
• Job hunting, career development and connecting with
professional peers.
• Thought leadership platform
LinkedIn 260 million monthly users

23. Twitter - 326 million monthly users
• Micro-blogging application
• Tweet = 280 characters +
include links, photos, videos,
gifs, broadcast live + share
Moments
• Contacts = Followers
• Latest news, global
networking, dissemination,
having a conversation.

24. • Profile (bio): information about you/your account
• Share an update: tweet
• Likes: tweets you’ve liked
• Home: feed of tweets from accounts you follow
• Moments: curated stories (we can all create moments)
• Notifications: e.g. when someone mentions you, likes or shares your tweet
• Messages: private/direct messages (DM or PM)
• Share someone else’s tweet: re-tweet (RT)
• Replies: mention by username e.g. @UniversityLeeds
• Hashtags: #keyword - discover content you are interested in and make your
content more discoverable
• Lists: to sort, filter and raise profile
• Trending topics (by location): top conversations on Twitter
Twitter 101

25. Good or bad tweet?
[Useful for all platforms]

26. Use your
own
campaign
hashtag
Use visuals
(video, GIFs
+ photos)
Speak
emoji ☺
CTA
Storytelling
= great
Good tweet!

27. Participate in takeovers [not just on Twitter]

28. Participate in Twitter chats
• Live one-hour chat
• Pre-planned questions,usually 5-6
• Chat-specific hashtag
• 1 or 2 facilitators
• Everyone follows the hashtag
• Questions begin Q1, Q2 plus hashtag
• Answers begin A1, A2 plus hashtag

29. Facebook - 2.27 billion monthly users
• Personal Timelines, Groups +
Pages
• Contacts = Friends
• Personal Timelines best for
private, personal use.
• Timeline “subscribe” feature
useful to share public posts
but careful management
required.

32. Facebook Groups: why use?

33. Facebook Pages – should you have one?

34. Instagram - 1 billion monthly users

35. “Steve Rubel in his blog The Revolution Won’t Be Televised; It Will Be
Instagrammed, categorises the three reasons that he believes images are
increasingly becoming the way in which people are sharing and consuming
information online:
1. Images are global. They eschew all language and cultural boundaries.
2. Images are distributable. The bandwidth required to transmit photos is
minimal, yet the opportunities for quick, creative expression are
plentiful.
3. Images are digestible. You can glance at a picture for as short or as long
as you want. Photos are a non-linear, shared consumption experience.”
http://www.researchtoaction.org/2013/10/using-instagram-for-research-
communication/

37. Grow your audience

38. Grow your following
• Make relevant connections – keep focused on your aims /
objectives + intended audience
• Never buy followers
• Don’t play the follow/unfollow game
• Research #hashtags + use relevant ones (different
depending upon platform) - http://hashtagify.me/
• Mention other accounts when you share their content
• Collaborate
• Serve your community – social media is about the
collective, not the individual

39. Grow your following cont.
• Make people aware you exist: use lists, like, share +
comment on relevant + appropriate content
• Take care with duplicate content on Twitter
• Participate in + facilitate Twitter chats and live
streams/broadcasts
• Promote your social accounts outside social media
• Use apps to analyse
• Be your own ambassador,promote institutional
Twitter account content from own professional
Twitter accounts,email etc.

40. Apps to monitor + grow
• Native analytics e.g. Twitter Analytics
• Google Analytics if you have a blog / website too
• Third-party apps are being blocked from accessing follower data – only
use apps aligned with the terms of use of each platform otherwise your
account may be suspended

41. When to post?
Different for every account +
platform:
• When are your followers
online?
• When are the people you
want to attract online?
Followerwonk– analyse your
followers
https://moz.com/followerwonk/

42. What to post?
• Align content + engagement with your aims, objectives, values
+ target audience
• Re-purpose content for different platforms
• Visuals (photos, graphics, infographics) + video
• Quotes turned into images
• Add value but don’t sell
• Keep it legal, decent, honest + true

43. Remember: New digital
accessibility regulations September
2019
How can we make media
accessible? Consider:
1. Images – photos and graphics
2. GIFs
3. Videos
Make social media accessible!

44. Evaluate

45. Who is talking about your work? - Altmetrics
• Apply to a variety of scholarly outputs – articles,
data, presentations, software etc.
• Gives wider picture of how a piece of research is
being discussed on social media, in the media,
bookmarks on reference managers, citations in
Wikipedia, policy documents etc
• Good for early career researchers
• Quicker to accumulate than citation-based
metrics
• Doesn’t indicate quality

46. How to find Altmetric data
https://www.altmetric.com/details/173
51598
Install the free Altmetric
bookmark to display metrics
for any published research
output with a DOI -
https://www.altmetric.com/
products/free-tools/

47. Evaluate
• Monitor your digital identity (not just social
media)
• Evaluate your social media activity (account,
objectives, content, engagement, impact)
• Keep updated with platform + mobile app
developments
• Monitor your privacy settings
• Keep updated with legal developments