Part of the Becoming a Networked Researcher workshops I run at the University of York.

1. TwitterBecoming a Networked Researcher part 3
Ned Potter
Academic Liaison

2. Aim of today: explore why
Twitter might be useful in the
research environment, look at
some academic examples, set
up Twitter accounts (if you
don’t already have them) and
discuss Tweeting well.

3. Whatis Twitter?

4. Twitter is a social network which
allows users to exchange public
messages of 140 characters or
less, known as Tweets.
It’s easy to tweet, via:

5. Tweets can be entirely text-based or they can
contain multimedia such as images or
video, and links to anything online.

6. Your tweets are seen by other Twitter
users who follow you; you see the
tweets of users you follow. You can
quickly build up a network of peers
with shared interests. There are around
half a billion Twitter users worldwide.
It works like this:

7. FIVETwitter
MYTHS

8. 1: YOU CAN’T SAY
ANYTHING IN 140
CHARACTERS.
Yes you can, because Twitter is meant to
be a conversation rather than a
broadcast. It’s easy to ask, and
answer, questions in 140 characters or
less.

9. 2: IT’S JUST PEOPLE
SAYING WHAT THEY
HAD FOR LUNCH.
No it isn’t – only celebrities really do
that, because they have so many
followers that meaningful dialogue isn’t
really possible.
For the rest of us, it’s a conversation.

10. 3: IT’S A WASTE OF
TIME AND DOESN’T
BELONG IN HIGHER EDUCATION.
Twitter is definitely NOT a waste of time
if you engage with the right people – it
can lead to better understanding, career
opportunities, collaborations, exposure,
reputation.
(More than 70% of academics use social media now.)

11. 4: I DON’T HAVE
TIME TO TWEET.
If you have time for conversation you
have time for Twitter.
If it’s useful, if it helps you
professionally, if it gives you ideas and
tips that actually save you time, then
you definitely have time!

12. 5: THERE’S NO POINT IN MY
BEING THERE AS I DON’T
KNOW ANYONE ON IT.
Firstly you probably do know people on
it (search for your peers’ names) but
secondly Twitter is a great leveller – it
provides the chance to engage with
people you don’t know, including the
leaders in your field.
(As someone said, Facebook is where you lie to your friends,
Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers.)

13. Whyuse Twitter?

14. Connect with your peers

15. Connect with your peers
Twitter is a brilliant networking tool – for
finding researchers with similar interests, for
keeping in touch after conferences , for finding
and engaging the leaders in your field.

16. Keeping up to date

17. Keeping up to date
If you follow the right people on
Twitter you’ll always know when
the latest papers are
published, when calls for papers
announced, when conferences are
happening, when developments in
your field are occurring, when new
technology emerges which is
relevant to what you do, and
what’s going on in HE.
On Twitter, the information comes
to you.

18. Share what you’re doing
with the world

19. Share what you’re doing
with the world
Twitter is a great way to tell
people about your research
outputs, your current projects, and
your professional activities.
It can also be a brilliant funnel for
all your other social media
activities too – nothing is more
likely to get people reading your
blog (etc) than people tweeting
about it.

20. (Highly tweeted articles are 11
times more likely to be cited than
less-tweeted articles)
Eyesenbach, 2011, Can tweets predict citations?
Journal of Medical Internet Research 13 (4)
Hat-tip to Michelle Dalton – see
http://t.co/6MV8xQEujV for more stats.

21. Also
Twitter is FUN.

22. Some more
academic perspectives
(Click the
image to go
to Storify.)

23. FOURquotes about Twitter

24. It's like proprioception, your body's ability to know
where your limbs are. That subliminal sense of
orientation is crucial for coordination: It keeps you
from accidentally bumping into objects, and it
makes possible amazing feats of balance and
dexterity.
Twitter and other constant-contact media create
social proprioception. They give a group of people a
sense of itself, making possible weird, fascinating
feats of coordination.
Clive Thompson http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/15-07/st_thompson

25. Services like Twitter, no matter how selectively we curate
the sources we follow, require us to become active
participants and not merely either information producers or
consumers. Academics are trained to manage data streams
and to make informed appraisals of the sources we find.
These skills suit social media perfectly; what is still needed is
to develop strategies to listen to our peers and audiences
better, and to learn how to react publicly.
Twitter can considerably level the playing field: you are not
on the podium or on a stage. It is not meant to be an
auditorium, but a seminar room.
Ernesto Priego
http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2011/sep/12/twitter-revolutionise-academia-research

26. In the end, the value of Twitter for academics is
what you make of it. So, can academics manage
without Twitter? Of course they can. But the better
question might be “What can academics manage
with Twitter?” I find thinking about that question
to be much more exciting.
Carole McGranahan
http://backupminds.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/the-academic-benefits-of-twitter/

27. Twitter is a profoundly practical service and yet it is
difficult to convey this because much of the
terminology, interface and minutiae of Twitter are
inherently confusing until you have engaged with
the service.
So why should you make the leap? The only reason
I can give is that people just like you are finding the
service astoundingly useful.
Mark Carrigan
http://markcarrigan.net/2013/02/21/what-does-twitter-have-to-offer-academics/

28. Keyconcepts
defined

29. Tweet: your tweet is your message. 140
characters. Seen by a: your followers who
happen to be online at the time and b: anyone
who happens to look at your profile, and
potentially c: by the followers of anyone who
ReTweets it.
ReTweet: if you RT someone else’s tweet, it will
appear in your timeline and your followers can
see it. Being ReTweeted yourself is a really good
thing – it means your ideas are being exposed to
new networks.

30. @reply: you can converse directly with someone
by putting their username (beginning with @)
into your tweet – this will ensure the tweet
shows up in their ‘@ replies’.
Your tweets will be seen by anyone following
both you AND the person with whom you’re
conversing. (In other words, you don’t see every
tweet from every person you follow – Twitter
filters out the noise.)

31. Hashtag: a #hashtag is a way to bring together
disparate users on the same topic, without the
tweets needing to know each other alredy. Hashtags
can also be a way to archive conversations on a
theme, and discuss events or conferences.
You can click on any #hashtag (for example
#altmetrics) and find all recent tweets which have
included it.
Direct Message: a DM is a private message, within
the network, which only you and the recipient see.

32. E.g.
Academic Tweeters

33. Find Tweeters by discipline:
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2011/09/02/academic-tweeters-your-suggestions-in-full/

34. @uniofyork is the main account of the University
@UoYLibrary is the Library’s account
@UoYITServices is the IT services account
@RDT_York is the Researcher Development Team account
@TFTV_YORK is the TFTV account, one of the many Departments on
Twitter
@UoYEvents is the account for Events at York
@UoY_Yorkshare is the VLE team’s account
Departmental tweeters:
Wider HE tweeters:
@timeshighered is the Times Higher’s very active account
@lseimpactblog is the LSE Impact Blog’s account (don’t be put
off by the name, it’s relevant to all researchers interested in Web
2.0 tools)
@gdnhighered is the Guardian’s Higher Education account

35. Time to get started.
Go to Twitter.com and follow the
instructions in the hand-out.

36. Time to get started.
Go to Twitter.com and follow the
instructions in the hand-out.
Hi Slideshare people – if you’re
interested, the handout we used at this
point can be found on Scribd:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/14776868
0/Twitter-for-academics-workshop-
handout

37. well
Tweeting

38. Above all, remember it’s not
about broadcasting, it’s
about conversation!

39. Consider the 1 in 4 rule*
Tweets directly
about your work

40. Consider the 1 in 4 rule*
Tweets directly
about your work
*actually it’s more of a guideline…
A ReTweet?
A link to something useful?A reply?

41. Try not to think of it as
purely personal or purely
professional – it works
better when it’s both.

42. Try not to think of it as
purely personal or purely
professional – it works
better when it’s both.
(Personally I think it works well when you major
in professional and minor in personal…)

43. Embrace the smartphone!
(Soon there will only BE smartphones
so you may as well get started now.)

44. Embrace the smartphone!
(Soon there will only BE smartphones
so you may as well get started now.)
Tweet from conferences (including
pictures), converse on the train, reply in
the supermarket queue.
Twitter doesn’t have to be something you
MAKE TIME for.

45. Don’t just make
statements, ask questions.

46. You need to actually tell people
you’re there.

47. You need to actually tell people
you’re there.
@username on your
business cards
on your PowerPoint
presentations
on your name-badge at
conferences
in your email signature

48. Okay, that’s it.

49. Thanks for coming!
If you’re interested in Parts 1 (Blogs) and
Part 2 (Collaboration & Dissemination)
they’re both on Prezi.
Blogs:
http://bit.ly/anetworkedreseaercher1
Dissemination:
http://bit.ly/networkedresearcherpart2
Absolutely every picture via www.iconfinder.com