Using Twitter as a Doctoral Researcher

What is Twitter? Twitter is a short messaging service where users ‘tweet’ short messages of up to 140 characters (including letters, numbers, spaces, symbols and links) The basics…..

Tweets appear in chronological order on a user’s timeline

Your home page

@connect…. The popularity page

#Discover – the twitter search engine

@ and # A way to group conversations Twitter follows everybody using the hashtag in real time Often TV programmes and shows use hashtags to encourage discussion Anybody can join in, anywhere Great for conferences #TGSfridays #SGM2013 #PhD

Why use social media? It’s your responsibility as researchers to talk about your work Taxpayer money funds research Trust between scientists and the public “Trust is not about information; it’s about dialogue and transparency*” Getting your work known The best person to explain your research is you Funding often now requires evidence of outreach *Managing the Trust Portfolio: Science Public Relations and Social Responsibility – Borchelt, Friedman & Holland, 2010

Social media is an excellent tool for public engagement, sharing of literature, ideas, debate and data collection Keep up to date – news, papers, trends and opinions Social media transcends cultural, geographical, publication and professional barriers Networking opportunities are huge Exposure can help with funding and citations (Twitter data can be quantified)

Other useful things you can do with twitter…

Datamining “Reading the Riots” Collaboration between Twitter, the Guardian and the LSE Twitter donated 2.65 million tweets Looking for patterns, underlying reasons for the riots, and the roles of individuals in spreading information (real and erroneous) about the riots

Crowdsourcing How can you use crowdsourcing for your research? You can ask from an online forum what are the uncovered topics in your field of research. generate enough buzz among experts. Among their replies you could harvest some nice ideas for future research or engage in new collaborations.

Debate

# Inspiration

Things to remember… Whatever you post, imagine that it WILL be read by: – Your family – Your boss – Your competitor Don’t post personal information Never post when tired or drunk Be polite and give credit (MT, RT) Never post unpublished data or confidential information. Ever. Not one bit. No no.

Final thoughts You do have time to use social media as a researcher It’s worth your while Go forth and create impact

Twitter guide for academics: itter-guide/ Social media for scientists: sushi/2011/09/27/social-media-for-scientists-part-1-its-our- job/ sushi/2011/09/27/social-media-for-scientists-part-1-its-our- job/ Using Twitter as a research tool: research-tool/ Analysing Twitter data: analysis/ analysis/ Handbook of Social Media for Researchers and Supervisors (VITAE) pen_University_Social_Media_Handbook_2012.pdf