Slides from the Making an Impact through Social Media Workshop at the University of Edinburgh Digital Humanities: What Does It Mean? information session, organised by Forum Journal, in Edinburgh.

1. Making an Impact through
Social Media
Nicola Osborne, Social Media Officer
http://edina.ac.uk/
Digital Humanities: What Does it Mean?, Thursday 3rd April 2014, Edinburgh

2. Introduction

3. What is Social Media?
• Social Media are any websites that allow you to contribute, to
engage, to connect with others and are “Web 2.0” tools
(O’Reilly 2005).
• Examples include:
– Blogs (WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, etc.)
– Twitter
– YouTube and Vimeo, Vine
– Facebook
– Google+
– Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.
– LinkedIn, Academia.edu, etc.
– Mendeley, Delicious, Diigo, Reddit, etc.
– FigShare
– Stack Overflow, Jelly

4. Why Use Social Media?
Social media tools…
• Are go-to spaces for expertise and advice.
• Offer new ways to tell stories, to engage in
dialogue, to reach out to your audience(s).
• Rank highly on Google, Bing, etc.
• Can enable direct access to key figures from
Principal Investigators to Research Councils to press
and potential research participants.
• May generate media interest in your work, new
collaborations and other unexpected opportunities.
• Offer inexpensive ways to raise your own profile
and that of your research.

5. What tools should you use?
• Blogs - make your work visible, enable semi-formal
ways to share working methods and progress, and
provide a way to find and engage in dialogue with your
audience.
• Twitter - very effective way to share key research
updates, build a network around your work, find peer
support and advice, track news.
• Video or Audio - can bring clarity to complex concepts
quickly. Well-made short videos or animations can
convey complex concepts and research quickly,
accessibly and in very engaging sharable ways.
• Flickr, Pinterest, etc. – any images bring a project to
life – research is about people, ideas, events,
collaboration, equipment... Images make your ideas,
achievements and discoveries far more tangible.

6. What should you share?
• What your research is about and what it aims to
achieve.
• Processes, updates, changes of approach – to the
extent that such transparency is appropriate and
acceptable.
• Quirky, playful and accessible content around your
work and research area.
• Publications, presentations, press mentions and
materials that reflect research outputs and
expertise.
• CHECK ANY EXISTING PRIVACY, NON-DISCLOSURE
OR SOCIAL MEDIA POLICIES AND ENSURE YOUR
SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE OR ACTIVITY COMPLIES.

7. Some examples…

8. Blogs: LSE Impact of Social Sciences
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/

9. Blogs: Mary Beard
http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/

10. Facebook: I Fucking Love Science
https://www.facebook.com/IFeakingLoveScience

11. Blogs (Tumblr): NPR’s Seed to Shirt
http://seedtoshirt.tumblr.com/

12. Twitter: Melissa Terras
https://twitter.com/melissaterras

13. Blogs: The Conversation
http://theconversation.com/

14. Planning Social Media Use
• Consider what goals you want to achieve, what you
want to share about your research. How can you
track progress?
• Think about your audience(s): where do they hang
out online? What will engage them in your work?
How can you make it relevant to them?
• Be creative – what social media tools could help you
to communicate in new ways?
• Be pragmatic - what best fits your project’s style,
expertise, and time availability?

15. Planning Social Media Content
• Brand your presences and ensure you complete
your profile information. Always link back to your
definitive research profiles and project websites.
• Regularly share interesting engaging content,
use images, listen to and engage with the audiences
you are reaching out to.
• Ensure you keep profiles and presences up to
date and relevant, review their effectiveness, and
ensure they represent your work as you want it to
be seen.

16. What should not be shared
• Commercially sensitive data or other material
your employer/PI would not want shared or that
might breach guidelines.
• Personal information about colleagues,
participants, those at partner organisation that might
breach Data Protection law or ethical guidance.
• Material (images, discussion board posts, tweets,
etc.) that might impact on your own professional
reputation or the credibility of your research.
• Anything you would not want a funder, professional
peer, project partner, or future employer to see or
read.

17. Points for Discussion
• Think about your goals or ambitions for using social media. Why
do you want to use these tools? What do you want to achieve?
• How are your peers and the people you admire or trust in your
field using social media – are there good (or bad) ideas you
might want to explore yourself?
• What story do you want to tell? It may change but starting with
something you want to convey will help you work out what
content or tools you might use and, much more importantly, how
you might use that content and the appropriate tools.
• What content and skills do you have that can help you choose
between social media opportunities?

18. Q&A
Questions?

19. Useful Resources
• LSE. 2013. Impact of Social Sciences blog.
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/
• Minocha, Shailey and Petre, Marian. 2012. UK: Vitae Innovate and Open University.
Available from:
http://www.vitae.ac.uk/CMS/files/upload/Vitae_Innovate_Open_University_Social_Med
ia_Handbook_2012.pdf.
• O’Reilly, T. 2005. What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next
Generation of Software. In O’Reilly, 30th September 2005. Available
from: http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html
• Patel, S. 2011. 10 ways researchers can use Twitter. In Networked Researcher, 3rd
August 2011. Available from: http://www.networkedresearcher.co.uk/2011/08/03/10-
ways-researchers-can-use-twitter/
Privacy Settings Links:
• Facebook Privacy Settings:
http://www.facebook.com/help/privacy
• LinkedIn Privacy Settings:
http://learn.linkedin.com/settings/
• Guide to Google+ Privacy Settings:
http://lifehacker.com/5827683/a-guide-to-google%252B-privacy-and-information-
control/

20. Managing Your Identity Online
Useful Search Engine
• Google: http://www.google.com and Google Blog Search:
http://www.google.co.uk/blogsearch/
• Bing: http://www.bing.com/ and Bing Social Search:
http://www.bing.com/social/
• Whos talkin: http://whostalkin.com/
• Social Mention: http://www.socialmention.com/
• IceRocket: http://www.icerocket.com/
• Twitter Search: https://twitter.com/#!/search-home
• Topsy: http://topsy.com/
Useful Tools for Automatic Checking and Task Management
• Google Alerts: http://www.google.com/alerts
• Tweetbeep: http://tweetbeep.com/
• IFTTT: https://ifttt.com/