Workshop: a strategic and

practical guide to using social media

With @jennacondie & @alangnixon for #SSAPChat

SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PSYCHOLOGY

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Workshop Plan • Using social media to publicise your

work and yourself (professional identity)

• Using social media to build your network and collaborate

• Using social media for doing and sharing your research

• Using social media to manage information

• Communicating effectively online

• Finding the time for social media

• Future landscape of social media

Our guiding principles- We aim to build a culture around @ssapchat

for online dialogue and peer support - We recognise that social media exist in an

ecosystem so whilst we are Twitter centric (and Academia.edu centric for today!), we aim to make the most of the whole web

- We want to avoid creating more work for you (time poor!).

- We aim to highlight the value of finding a purpose for your social media use.

Using social media to publicise your work and yourself • Are you Googleable? • Publishing and publicising

(Carrigan, 2016)• ‘Static pages’ e.g. Academia.edu, Research Gate, LinkedIn• Combined with active

engagement e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Blogs

Task: • Set up an Academia account if you do not

have one• Add an article to your Academia profile• Search for and follow some useful profiles• Bookmark some useful articles from the

people you follow

Using social media to network and collaborate – Twitter as ‘active’!

Your starting point - @SSAPChat #SSAPChatConnect with your colleagues – 3 lists of SSAP staff (48), PhD students (13) and Masters students (6)Reply – give your thoughtsRetweet – show your support/share with your audience Favourite – show support and read later!

Why academicsuse Twitter:

Start something in your field: Hashtags

Start something in your field cont…

Peer recommendation(covert self-promotion!)

Potential new contactGrowing networks

Visuals are good!

Start something in your field cont…

#PPSD2015 – People, Place and Social Difference @garthlean

Extended networks

Up to date content

Tutor autonomy

Student engagement

Connected to Vuws

Using social media for doing researchOpen Peer Review on Academia.edu

Using social media to manage information

Atheism hashtag as example

Documenting an article on the topic

Documenting a useful site

Colleague Sharing through additional hashtag

User Feedback (data)

• Find a hashtag related to your work• Find a good twitter account related to your work and

follow it • Tweet your Academia webpage using #SSAPchat

hashtag• Tweet an article (from Academia) or news item that

relates to your work (if appropriate use the hashtag you found) and add #SSAPchat hashtag

• (If appropriate) Get the person you are sitting with to publicise a piece of your work (maybe one on your Academia.edu webpage)

Task: Using social media to publicize your work and yourself

Event-related tweetingFollowing event hashtags is a good way to keep up with conference happenings and network with others at a conference Search example - #TASA2015Afternoon Task:

Live tweet this afternoon’s talksTag with #SSAPChat to follow and participate in the conversation

We will post a ‘storify’ of tweets after the event

Finding time for social media

• Juggling tasks in academia• Finding a purpose for social media• Embedding social media into daily practice• A small amount of time per day can lead to big

gains • Network growth and promotion are key

aspects of academic practice and success

Finding time for social media: Why?• Measuring impact – altmetrics

• “If (social media interaction is often) then (Open access + social media = increased downloads)”

Melissa Terras (2012)

Future landscape of social media• Public engagement • New platforms• Digital scholars:‘The use of digital, networked open tools and approaches will have an impact on some areas of scholarly practice, which in turn will affect all scholars, regardless of whether they themselves use the technologies or not’ Weller (2011)

Workshop: a strategic and

practical guide to using social media

With @jennacondie & @alangnixon for #SSAPChat