Slides for a talk on "Using Social Media to Promote 'Good News'" given by Brian Kelly, UKOLN at a media conference for the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) held at Queen Mary, University of London, London on 17 April 2012. See http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/ahrc-social-media-2012/

1. Twitter: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/ahrc-social-media-2012/
#ahrcmedia@qm
#ahrcmedia
Using Social Media to
Promote ‘Good News’
About your research activities, your organisation,
your events, …
Brian Kelly Acceptable Use Policy
Innovation Support Centre Recording this talk, taking photos,
UKOLN having discussions using Twitter, etc.
University of Bath is encouraged - but try to keep
distractions to others minimised.
Bath, UK
Web: http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/
Blog: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/
Twitter: @briankelly Personal/professional
@ukwebfocus Automated announcements of new posts
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Attribution 2.0 licence (but note caveat)

2. Idea from Cameron Neylon
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Social Media Icons adapted with permission from originals by Christopher Ross. Original images are available under GPL at:
2 http://www.thisismyurl.com/free-downloads/15-free-speech-bubble-icons-for-popular-websites

3. Introduction About Me
Brian Kelly:
• UK Web Focus: national advisory post to UK HEIs
• Long-standing Web evangelist
• Based at UKOLN at the University of Bath
• Prolific blogger (1,000+ posts since Nov 2006)
• User of various devices to support professional (and
social) activities
• Prolific speaker (~380 talks from 1996-2011)
• Part of UKOLN’s Innovation Support Centre
UKOLN:
• Supporting innovation across higher & further
education
3 • Funded by JISC

4. Introduction About You
How many :
• Have a blog?
• Publish a work-related videos on, say YouTube?
• Have a work-related Twitter account?
How many:
• Publish information on a web site?
• Use email for work purposes?
• Publish information in print format?
Aim of talk:
• To show why social media should form an
essential part of an outreach strategy
• To illustrate ways in which social media is used
• To provide example of tools for evaluating success
4

5. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Web sites
Google
(Bing, …)
Real Databases
world
Summary of key approaches:
• Apply various techniques to Web resources to
make resources easier to find in Google, …
Directories
• Resources may include organisational Web
suites, third party Web sites, databases, …
• Resources may also include real world objects
and ideas (i.e. your research ideas, your
The invisible conferences, your organisation, …)
researcher • Based on understanding of importance of
Google to end users
5

6. Beyond SEO The engaged
researcher
Web sites
Social Web
(Blogs,
Facebook,
Real Databases
Slideshare,
world
Twitter, …)
Directories
Summary of key approaches:
• Use of social networking services which people
use of discuss your services
• Services may include WordPress, Twitter,
Facebook, Slideshare, …
• No need to touch your Web sites (so useful if
6
you can’t!)

7. It’s About The Individual!
Focus of the Social
Web has been the
individual. Challenges:
• ‘It’s my space’
• ‘Sustainability
• Privacy
• Editorial control
• Branding
• …
7

8. I also write peer-
reviewed papers and
deposit them in Opus
63 items
60 full text
8

9. Are They Popular?
Most downloaded
items in Opus
since launch
9

10. Reasons For Paper’s Popularity
Possible reasons
• Quality of paper
• Quality of metadata
• Provision of full-text,
rather than just metadata
• Importance of co-authors
• Formats used (HTML as well as PDFs)
• Role of social media
• Other suggestions?
10

11. Evidence
How do we find out more?
• Peak statistics for repository
only available for 1 year
But:
• Blog post about availability in Opus published on
11 August 2009
Conclusion: Blog post responsible for initial popularity
11

12. Evidence
How do we find out more?
• Peak statistics for repository
only available for 1 year
But:
• Blog post about availability in Opus published on
11 August 2009
Further investigation (of all my
paper downloads) confirms
large peak in August 2009
Conclusion: Blog post responsible for initial popularity
12

13. Beyond the Individual Paper
Most downloaded papers
from UKOLN staff
16 out of top 20 mine!
Evidence of value of
13 particular techniques?

14. SEO or SMO
SEO:
Helping Google find your papers through:
• Writing style, document structure, …
• In-bound links
SMO:
Helping other people find your papers through:
• Viral marketing
• Sharing on social media services
SMO: Good for new papers, but not relevant for popular
papers written from 2004-8
SEO: Document structure consistent. Difference
appears to be significant nos. of in-bound links
14

15. Third Party Services
Significant use of third party
services to link to Opus:
• LinkedIn
• Researchgate
• Academia.edu
• Mendeley
15

16. Popular Elsewhere?
Survey of Russell
Group university
use of services
published on UK
Web Focus blog
on 5 March 2012
Conclusions
• Popularity of LinkedIn &
Academia established
• Let’s encourage our
researchers to include
links to papers in IR
16

17. Using the tools
17

18. Also note link to this week’s featured paper
Twitter helps develop writing skills
140 characters!
7.
Use the W3C’s Mobile
Web checking service.
Compare the findings
for your service with
your peers as
illustrated at
http://bit.ly/eZ47Tv
Twitter expertise can help you to get your message across succinctly
18

19. Tangential Aside
“Heatmap: An F-shaped principle of how
web-pages are read: two horizontal strips
and one vertical. Using this principle we've
suggested where your visitors' eyes will first
be directed to on the main page.
This will help you to increase the site's traffic
and raise profitability.”
Do you draw people’s attention to:
• New content
• Terms and conditions
• About the resources
• Links to resources elsewhere (including social
media presence)
• Things you want to ’market’
• …
19

20. Chris Sexton
IT Services
director at
Sheffield
University
Social Web services, such as blog posts, tend
20
to be embeddable in other web sites

21. 21 Tweets are also increasingly embedded

22. W4A Conference Web Site
Tweets embedded in conference Web sites
22

23. Twitter as Success Story
What happens when you tweet an
open access paper? Nov 2011
• Blog post on Melissa Terras’ blog
on “Adventures in digital humanities
& digital cultural heritage”
• 500+ downloads in one week
Is blogging and tweeting about
research papers worth it? Mar 2012
“What next? From now on, I will
definitely post anything I publish
straight into our institutional
repository, and blog and tweet it
straight away”
23

24. Twitter as Infrastructure
Twitter seems to be becoming part of the
dissemination & engagement infrastructure:
• SpringerLink Mobile App lets you share ‘frictionlessly’
to Twitter & Facebook network (or on email)
• CrowdoMeter is a “crowdsourcing project that tries
to classify tweets about scholarly articles using the
Citation Typing Ontology”
Crowdometer is an example of
an alt.metrics tool:
“measuring impact in [a]
24
diverse scholarly ecosystem”

25. Mobile as Infrastructure
Importance of tools which are mobile-friendly
• People (86% of non-random sample!)
use mobile devices in bed for work
purposes!
• Growing importance of graphics in posts
to provide distinctive personalised
newspaper
• Importance of having a
distinctive Twitter avatar
and not the egg
(default avatar often
used by porn stars &
spammers)
25

26. Text, Multimedia or Links?
Which should be prioritised:
• Well-written text?
• Well-produced images / video?
• Hypertext links & embeddable content?
Image may be worth a thousand words, but
embeddable content can be viewed by
many eyeballs (even if content is flawed –
e.g. timely posts).
Reflections:
• Editorial processes for content are well-
understood
I can find embeddable
• Picture / video production processes
content in many ways.
The content can lead to are well-understood
new discoveries • Need to prioritise use of links!
26

27. Blogs and Two-Way Links
A pingback can provide a form of a two-way link
27

28. Importance of Wikipedia
Wikipedia is
very popular!
This talk is partly about “frictionless sharing”, a term described in Wikipedia
28

29. The article is
easy-to-find
(though beware
of implications
of personalised
search – it
won’t be no. 1
for everyone)
29

30. My Greatest Impact This Year?
Did someone influential cite
the page?
I created the Wikipedia entry for “frictionless sharing” on 14 Jan
2012. There have been 3,665 views since it was created.
30

31. Links From Wikipedia
There are two links from Wikipedia to University of Bath’s
repository. Should we try and get more? Is this ethical?
31 (Content should come from a NPOV)

32. Links to Bath Repository
Should we
analyse
incoming links
& be proactive
in maximising
number &
quality of
links?
32

33. Best Practices
There’s a need to understand (a) best practices and (b)
your practices
Social Bros used to analyse my Twitter account
No URL (e.g. to blog) in
No URL
Twitter profile means: 3
2
• No way of finding out
more
• Difficult to decide 1
whether to follow
• See “You Have 5
Seconds to Make an
Impression!” how this
bio led to award winning
paper!
33

34. Evidence of
international
reach
Should time
zones be
considered
when
tweeting?
34

35. My Twitter community:
• Normally tweets
daily
• Normally tweets up
to five times per day
Regular tweeting
helps to build and
sustain your
community
35

36. Majority of my Twitter
community follow:
• 100-500
Me: 2,852 • 500-1,000
• 1,000-5,000
People who try our
Twitter but admit they
@LadyGaga: 22.7M
“don’t get it” may:
• Not have reached
critical mass
• Have not used
clients which
Me: 988 provide means of
filtering
36

37. Further Evidence
Many social media
analytics services
are available
•Are you familiar with
bit.ly URLs & use of
+
http://bitly.com/I3EFsI
http://bitly.com/I3EFsI+
•Sign in to bit.ly to
view your stats
37

38. Case Study
90 second video
clip with 178 words
Paper on “A Challenge to Web
Accessibility Metrics and
Guidelines: Putting People and
Processes First” delivered at W4A
2012 conference on 16 April
Co-authors agreed on:
• Importance of raising visibility
of our work
• Need to disseminate across
our networks
• Value of tools such as blogs,
Twitter and YouTube
38

39. Beyond Text and Links
Might embeddable cartoons have a role to play?
Note this gives a summary of this talk
35 words
46 words
39

40. Beyond Text and Links
37 words
44 words
Cartoons created (in ~30 minutes) using Pixton
40

41. Context is King!
Social Web:
• Initial focus on use of popular
services by individuals
• Of relevance to organisations –
but need to beware of risks e.g.
lack of authenticity; failed
approaches to marketing; etc.
What percentage of
respondents agreed
that “The NHS should
allow gipsies to jump
the queue?”
41

42. Conclusions
• We know about traditional approaches to marketing
research (although not always implemented)
• Many new opportunities provided by social web
• Key aspects to successful use:
 Having an authentic voice
 Getting your content to places where it can be
seen, used and re-used
 Embracing culture of openness
 Being willing to take risks
42

43. Questions
Any questions or comments?
43

44. Acknowledgements
Images copyright Shuttlestock and used under licence:
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