Twitter for the early career researcher

From journals recommending we tweet our publications to health organisations asking us to guest blog, it has become vital for early career researchers to be skilled social media users. ‘Social media’ refers to any website or application (e.g. an ‘app’ on your phone) that allows you to create and share content, and to socialise with others. Twitter is one such application. It is an essential tool to have in your academic toolbox.

Why Twitter?

Twitter is easy to use, can be easily integrated into your everyday work, and facilitates connections with a range of people. Specifically, it can:

• Give you an online expert profile accessible to journalists, policy makers + more
• Assist in networking, particularly at conferences 
• Bring research to you through following others in your field (or outside of it)
• Allow you to advertise your research to potential participants
• Connect you with ‘hard to reach’ groups (e.g. people living in remote areas)
• Enable you to engage with the community you conduct research with and on
• Provide you with a tangible example of community engagement for funding applications

The basics

Getting started

• If you have not yet set up an account, go to twitter.com and you will be guided through the simple process to do so. When picking a username (also called a ‘handle’), pick something that is easy for people to remember. Mine, for example, is @Researcher_Kate.
• The New User FAQ section can assist you to navigate the site for the first time. Many people, however, simply play around with the various clearly labelled functions to work out what they each do.

Fine tuning your profile

Below is an example of an excellent profile. It is clear who the person is, what institution they work for, and what their research interests are. The photos are striking, engaging and appropriate. Including a relevant hashtag (a word or phrase that starts with a # to direct people to related messages) is also a great idea as it will lead people to your interests.

Anatomy of a tweet 

Key points about a tweet:

• A maximum of 280 characters can be used for each tweet
• Use websites that shorten a URL address (e.g. tinyurl.com) to maximise your characters
• Using more than three hashtags is usually excessive
• Tweets with a striking image or ‘gif’ (animated image) are usually more engaging but use sparingly for more impact
• Always acknowledge sources (e.g. a person or organisation) within your tweets. Use their Twitter handle to do this or retweet their original tweet with your comment (an option available to you when you press the ‘retweet’ symbol). This is both respectful and an opportunity to connect with others. If someone is not on Twitter, acknowledge them by their full name so that your mention can be easily located should someone search for this person.  

What do I tweet?

Tweet whatever you like as often as you like. I prefer to stay ‘on brand’ and only tweet about matters relating to gender equality and health; others tweet about a range of topics. Find what you feel comfortable with. Whatever you use, be authentic. Social media users tend to pick up on people attempting to be someone or something they are not.

Who do I follow?

Find a few people that you like and/or know (the latter presumably increases your odds of being followed back). This could include a mix of researchers, policy makers, organisations, and celebrities. Their tweets will likely lead you to other tweeters who are relevant to your work. If you find that you do not like someone’s content, you can unfollow them and they will not be notified.

How many followers is a good amount to have?

I personally think this is a matter of quality over quantity. Fifty followers who are engaged with you and your work is likely to produce better outcomes for you than 3000 followers who barely register your tweets.

Tips & tricks

Smart tweeting

• Search a term related to your research and spend a few minutes reading through tweets to get a sense of what hashtags are relevant to your work and then use them in your own tweets. If there is no relevant hashtag, make one up and start using it!
• Check out what terms are trending in your area on your home page (there is a ‘trends’ panel on your home page; you can set these to be specific your location). If you can relate your research to one of these terms, it is a great way increase your exposure.
• Tweet and comment on a media piece related to your research area. If you want to point out something a journalist may have misinterpreted or missed, do so respectfully 

Integrate tweeting into your everyday work

When I have run workshops on social media, attendees are usually most concerned about whether social media is worth taking so much time away from their work. My answer is this: social media for academics is part of your work—it should not take from it but rather facilitate and enhance it. Here are some ways I do this:

• I peruse my Twitter feed on my home page for about 5 minutes or so when on public transport to the office. If there is relevant breaking news or a new journal publication, the people I follow will usually alert me to it. Let the news and research come to you!
• Whenever I read a journal article that I like, I press the Twitter or ‘share’ icon (most journals and press media outlets have this feature) and I tweet about the article with the authors’ Twitter handle. It takes <10 seconds to do, gets important research out to the world, and connects you with other great researchers.  

• If I am reading a book (for work or pleasure) and I come across an interesting sentence that reads well out of context, I will often tweet it with the author's handle. I find this particularly useful for encouraging interdisciplinary relationships.
• If I am pondering something, I will sometimes tweet a question to other academics using relevant hashtags to attract them (e.g. #phdchat #ecrchat #AcademicTwitter):  

Conference tips

Most conferences will have a hashtag; it is usually displayed on the conference website and in your welcome materials. If you tweet anything about the conference—including before it starts or after, or while at the conference—use this hashtag so that attendees can find you. In terms of what to tweet, I suggest the following:

• Announce when you have been invited to present or your abstract has been accepted 
• Tweet that you are looking forward to attending about a week before the conference starts and/or ask who else is attending
• Tweet an interesting point or two from each presentation you view; this is a useful way to ‘note take’ as well!
• Tweet what day and time you will be presenting 
• Join or start conversations among other attendees on Twitter (e.g. congratulate someone on their great work when they tweet about their presentation)
• Tweet when the conference ends, perhaps farewelling attendees and thanking the organisers

Such tweets are a great way to meet people both at the conference and those who could not make it (such as those on parental leave). It can be daunting to attend a conference at this stage in your career when you may not personally know many in your field. Twitter makes this more manageable by initiating the conversation in a ‘safe space’ online before having face-to-face contact.

For your conference presentation, it is also worth including your Twitter handle in the footer of each slide so that the audience can better connect with you and tweet your work. 

Keep track of your reach

If you are interested to know just how many people you are reaching with your tweeting, there are a range of tools available to see this. Clicking on the metrics symbol on an individual tweet of yours will give you a range of figures including impressions (how many people saw your tweet) and link clicks (how many people clicked on the link you included). Another great option is Altmetrics, which are available on most journal websites these days. This will allow you to see who has tweeted your article, if anyone has blogged about it, and if it has been picked up by press outlets. 

Tips & tricks from the Twitterverse

I asked my followers if they had any advice for you all and here is what some of them said:  

Things to think about

• When you tweet, you tweet to the entire world. You are communicating with your students, participants, patients, boss, colleagues, journalists, policy makers, grant assessors, and more! Even those who do not use Twitter can read your tweets. Your reach is potentially enormous; this is a great thing for the mindful tweeter but not so much for the careless one.
• Many universities support ‘academic freedom of expression’—they will not police what you say to the media and on social media. You may wish to check with your marketing department what the policy is at your institution. They may also run social media training; I highly recommend doing this if you are keen to expand your online profile.
• When tweeting about certain things (like pretty much anything to do with women), it is not a question of if you get ‘trolled’ (when a person says something deliberately inflammatory to another) but when. There is no right way to deal with trolls; everyone has their method. I personally prefer to ignore and block them.
• Twitter and other social media platforms can give you a lot. But they take things from you too. It can be intellectually and emotionally draining to participate in the Twitterverse. It is wise to set flexible boundaries about when you will and will not use social media. I, for example, recently removed Twitter from my mobile and am currently only tweeting on my computer during designated work times.  

I hope you found this post useful. Find me on Twitter and share your own tips & tricks!

This post is based on a workshop I developed for the International Society of Psychsomatic Obstetrics & Gynaecology's 19th congress.

Author: Dr Kate Young