{"id":69,"date":"2017-09-25T15:50:39","date_gmt":"2017-09-25T14:50:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/osc\/?p=69"},"modified":"2023-04-26T16:23:27","modified_gmt":"2023-04-26T15:23:27","slug":"social-media-facebook-pages-groups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/osc\/2017\/09\/25\/social-media-facebook-pages-groups\/","title":{"rendered":"Using Social Media to promote your research: Facebook Groups and Pages"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the\u00a0second in a series of Social Media ‘Getting started’ guides. We\u00a0will make the series available as a downloadable guide via our website once we have sufficient posts.\u00a0Over the coming weeks we will look at Kudos, blogging, academic network sites such as ResearchGate & Academia.edu, Instagram, Youtube and Facebook, before moving on to intermediate level guides.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Getting started<\/h2>\n

\"FacebookOften seen as a place to socialise, connect with friends, and share pictures, an increasing number of academics and departments are turning to this popular social network — in particular the groups and Facebook ‘pages’\u00a0— for academic networking and research dissemination purposes. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Note: Groups and pages require you to have an associated Facebook account <\/em><\/p>\n

If you already have Facebook you can do this from your main account and specify in your settings whether you wish for the group or page to be an open or closed, whether join requests need to be approved, and whether it should appear on friends’ homepages.<\/p>\n

If you don’t currently have Facebook, head over to\u00a0https:\/\/en-gb.facebook.com\/<\/a>\u00a0to sign up before following the steps above – please read Facebook\u2019s terms for guidance on accounts and names.<\/p>\n

Even if setting up your own\u00a0group or page is not right for you, many journals and funders have their own pages through which you can \u2018like\u2019 to follow their feeds if you wish \u2013 these will often post about new papers and about relevant developments\/news articles\/any website downtime etc.: e.g.: Funders: Wellcome<\/a> and EPSRC<\/a>; Publishers\/Journals: Nature group<\/a> and Medical Law Review<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Benefits of a Facebook group\/page<\/strong><\/p>\n

Facebook is an effective tool for University departments and divisions. For individual researchers I suggest it is most effective as a Research tool through its group and page functions. Whilst you could set up a new profile for work most of your peers are unlikely to use the site in the same way, so it\u2019s likely\u00a0your news feed would be a mix of work and personal. If you would like guidance on using Facebook please contact us<\/a> for help.<\/p>\n

Creating a Facebook \u2018group\u2019 or \u2018page\u2019 for your research centre or group has a few key benefits, in its position\u00a0as attached (but separate) from your personal account.<\/p>\n

1) it doesn\u2019t require people to be your \u2018friend’ on\u00a0Facebook in order to be members \u2013 particularly useful when this includes students or members of the public whom you may not wish to give access to your personal info\/family photos.<\/p>\n

2) Groups allows you to have an area dedicated to your research topic rather than needing to sift through your news feed. Most groups will alert all members when a new post is added (particularly if they are also \u2018friends\u2019 with that person) similar to a mailing list,\u00a0 unless they have specifically opted out.<\/p>\n

3) Additional functionality including polling and events (see sections below)<\/p>\n

Once you’ve set up a group or page, you control whether you are posting as yourself or as the group\/page by clicking on your profile picture in the top bar and selecting from the drop-down list.
\n<\/strong>
\nWhen used for research, functionality can be similar to Twitter \u2013 you can \u2018share\u2019 a post or event which works in much the same way as retweeting (be mindful of the privacy level of the original post), and if you add the URL of a news item or article DOI\/Kudos link the post will show a preview.<\/em><\/p>\n

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What’s the difference between a group and a page?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Anyone with an account can create a Facebook Page or Group. Bear in mind that ‘Pages’ were intended for companies, organisations, brands and public figures and are typically used by celebrities, sports teams, companies and even the Royal Family – they are a great choice if you wish to send updates to your ‘followers’ but don’t need a forum for collaboration or discussion. Updates will appear on the newsfeed of followers, and (unless they have disabled this in their settings) they will receive notifications each time you post an upgrade. \u00a0Groups\u00a0are perfect for communicating with your research group (select closed group)\/those with the same interest (open group) and for people to share their common interests and express their opinion.<\/p>\n

Example group: https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AutismResearchKent\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Example page: https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CeCILUniKent\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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Other useful features<\/h4>\n


\nPolling<\/strong><\/p>\n

For simple research, just click the \u201cQuestions\u201d tab and then write the question you want to ask your friends. You can leave the answer open or add options they can select from. For more options you can use the Facebook Poll app which can be found on Facebook, using the Search bar.<\/p>\n


\nEvents<\/strong>
\nOne really useful feature in Facebook is the Events feature. People are increasingly using this tool to organise and publicise informal events and even conferences on Facebook. When you create the event on Facebook, you have three choices:<\/p>\n