Quick introduction to social media (blogs and Twitter) for the OU Health and Social Care Nations and Regions Conference, #ouhscnr, 25 June 2013 - part of a session on social media for academic purposes.

1. #ouhscnr
Social media for academic purposes:
Quick introduction to social media
www.slideshare.net/dougclow
Doug Clow
HSC Nations & Regions Conference, 25 June 2013
This work by Doug Clow is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

2. Quick Quiz: Blogs
a) I’ve heard of them
b) I have an idea about what they’re like
c) I have a blog
d) I have blogged a fair bit
e) The Huffington Post want me to write
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo by Swaminathan: http://flickr.com/photos/araswami/2168316216/

3. cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo by Mike Baird: http://flickr.com/photos/mikebaird/398077070/
• Blogging: keeping an online blog
– a log, or diary: originally ‘weblog’
• Short-ish blog posts (ca. 50-2,000 words)
• Bloggers update rarely to many times a day
• Often links to interesting websites

4. Places to set up a blog
• OU VLE if directly teaching-related
• OU official blogging platform
–Intranet > blogs (at top) > Request blog
• www.wordpress.com
• Blogger (Google)
• edublogs.org
• Your ISP
• Many others

5. Quick quiz: Twitter
a) I’ve heard of it
b) I have an idea about what it does
c) I have a Twitter account
d) I have Tweeted a fair bit
e) I am Stephen Fry

6. cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo by Cris: http://flickr.com/photos/chrismatos/6917786197/
• You can see the Tweets from people you follow,
gathered in to your timeline
• Following isn’t mutual: You (can) get a message
when someone follows you but you don’t have to
follow back
• Short (140-character) Tweets
• Often what you’re doing, or links
• Not (just) what you had for breakfast
• Usernames start with @ e.g. @dougclow

7. • Hashtags start with a #
• Collect together Tweets about a topic or
event, e.g. #OUHSCNR, #bbcqt
• And/Or indicate e.g. #sarcasm, #silly
(cc) Jefferyw http://www.flickr.com/photos/7927684@N03/7789223820/
• @replies are Tweets that are replies to a specific
Tweet (start with @username)
• You can easily see your replies and mentions
(when someone uses your @username in a Tweet)

8. cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo by LASZLO ILYES: http://flickr.com/photos/laszlo-photo/4093575863/
• Retweeting passes on a
tweet to your followers
–Starts ‘RT @username …’
or little double-arrow icon
• URLs are often shortened
t.co bit.ly owl.ly goo.gl
–Twitter will do this for you
• Best way to learn is to start using it
• Look at other people’s ‘following’ to
find people to follow
• You don’t have to follow back
• It’s Ok not to read it all

10. cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo by Vince Alongi: http://flickr.com/photos/vincealongi/2537227873/
#ouhscnr
• Doug Clow @dougclow
• Kythé Beaumont @KytheBeaumont
• Sara Mackian @Squeaksthoughts
• Christine Taylor @acroliths
• Beyondmalerolemodels @beyondmaleroles (Martin)
• Online CYP resources @CYPmedia (Tony)
• OU Health and Social Care @ou_hsc
• … many others!

11. (cc) gareth1953 http://www.flickr.com/photos/gareth1953/5477477947/
Doug Clow
@dougclow
dougclow.org
doug.clow@open.ac.uk