{"id":279,"date":"2017-11-14T10:35:32","date_gmt":"2017-11-14T10:35:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/osc\/?p=279"},"modified":"2023-04-27T09:48:43","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T08:48:43","slug":"top-10-social-media-tips-for-researchers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/osc\/2017\/11\/14\/top-10-social-media-tips-for-researchers\/","title":{"rendered":"Using Social Media: Top 10 tips for researchers"},"content":{"rendered":"

1) Pick your platform(s) \u2013 don\u2019t do too much<\/h4>\n

There are wealth of options… blogs, twitter, facebook, Instagram, researchgate, academia.edu, snapchat… the list goes on, and on, and on. Unless this is going to be all you\u2019re planning on doing for the next few months, then pick one or two platforms and commit to them, rather than spreading the message thinly in a lot of places.<\/p>\n

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2) Decide what you want to achieve<\/h4>\n

Why are you using social media for research? To recruit research participants? To share your research findings? To connect with your network or engage with your research users? Any of these reasons & more are areas that social media can help, but the time you spend and the way you engage (and the platform you shoes!) will vary depending on what you would like to achieve.<\/p>\n

To read more about achieving specific objectives, see our blog posts on Using Social Media to promote your research: Twitter <\/a>and Recruiting Research Participants via Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n

3) Link with key partners<\/h4>\n

The key part of social media is the links you make \u2013 whether engaging with research users, networks or recruiting participants, your message will reach a far wider group of people where others are sharing your content \u2013 whether tagging, mentioning or resharing. While these interactions can all be online, it is worth asking when you meet with people for their social media links.<\/p>\n

4) Be human \u2013 people love stories<\/h4>\n

Where your key aim may always be to disseminate your research to a wider audience, some people will click on a link because they are interested, where some need a hook \u2013 3 reasons why I love my research topic, 7 things I wish I\u2019d known before starting writing a book \u2013 social media users are as often interested in the person behind the research as they are in the research itself.<\/p>\n

5) Keep your audience in mind<\/h4>\n

Who are you writing for? If you are aiming at other academic colleagues in the same niche area as you, then technical, specialist language is expected \u2013 if you\u2019re writing for the general public, then avoid jargon. Also, bear in mind what your audience will be interested in.<\/p>\n

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Academic papers generally start with the background and rationale, then move onto the research methodology, and finally what you found. When writing for the public you need to draw people in with the ‘highlight’ findings, explain the implications (‘So what?’) and then give any necessary details of how the research was conducted.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

6) Don\u2019t sink more time in it than you\u2019re benefiting from<\/h4>\n

It is very easy for social media to take a lot of time, to detract from the key things that you are aiming to achieve or the key audiences that you would like to reach \u2013 there are many social media management tools that you can use (contact us) that can help by scheduling your social media posts, and limiting the time you commit to them.<\/p>\n

7) A picture says 1000 words<\/h4>\n

It isn\u2019t just on image based social networking (Instagram, snapchat, pinterest) where images can be useful \u2013 they can introduce a human element, keep your tweet in your character limit, or help your entry stand out from the crowd. Relevant images, infographics or photographs can quickly convey a key message that will attract people as they are scrolling through their social media feeds.<\/p>\n

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8) Measure! Use the tools that there are to see if you\u2019re getting what you need<\/h4>\n

There are plenty of tools out there to measure whether you are getting the results you expected from the time you spend on social media \u2013 most social media sites have in built monitoring, as do most of the scheduling apps.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re disseminating your work, then always make sure you include the DOI (if it has one!), rather than a picture of the output as this then tracks back to your research. There are also tools such as KUDOS<\/a> that can monitor across social media platforms and show where your highest levels of engagement are coming from.<\/p>\n

9) Expand your network<\/h4>\n

One massive advantage of social media is the ability to expand networks \u2013 but research done on twitter use is that researchers broadly recreate their existing networks. When you first start to use social media, invest some time in looking at who the people you know are following, then who they are following \u2013 expanding your social media network can be a key way of reaching a new audience, with minimal effort on their part.<\/p>\n

10) Anything can go viral… and it isn\u2019t logical<\/h4>\n

Just be aware. Once the tweet, post or picture has left your computer, it is out of your control \u2013 it may never get seen, it may become the most popular post of the year. It isn\u2019t logical, it isn\u2019t predictable, it isn\u2019t likely. But it is good to remember.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1) Pick your platform(s) \u2013 don\u2019t do too much There are wealth of options… blogs, twitter, facebook, Instagram, researchgate, academia.edu, snapchat… the list goes on, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":282,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[278469,257583,185219,278468,185200],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/osc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/osc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/osc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/osc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/osc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/osc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":796,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/osc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions\/796"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/osc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/osc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/osc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/osc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}