Building a Better Online Identity

@melissadewitte mdewitte@ucsc.edu

THE ORIGINAL AUTHORITY ONQUESTIONINGAUTHORITY

This presentation was originally delivered on January 29, 2015 by Melissa De Witte at UC Santa Cruz as part of the Digital Humanities Research Cluster’s “Brown Bag Lunch Series” sponsored by Graduate Student Commons and Institute for Humanities Research

Where does your online presence start?

….with search! !The first thing you do when you hear of someone, you Google them. !Your Google results are your new CV.

!!!

The first impression

If you are not active with maintaining your online identity, you are letting

Google piece together your profile - the good, the bad

and maybe the ugly.

Exercise: Google yourself right now.

Who do you think you are?

Google yields an identity by default. !For most academics, it is their campus directory listing, a review on ratemyprofessors.com or a Google Scholar citation.

Show the world who you think you are

3 out of the 4 search results for my name are social. !Social media helps improve your visibility in search !Why not harness social to give your online presence a voice?

Make search social

Use social media to leverage your search results. Use social media to stay current, topical and relevant to your academic peers, your students and the world.

Use social media to take control of your voice online.

Beyond search

But social media is more than search. What do you think of when you hear the term? !Exercise: write a list of words that you think define social media. What words or concepts do you associate with it, and why?

The definition

Barriers for academics

•Time • Not recognized as legitimate scholarly output • Don’t feel they have anything to share • No one would follow them • Privacy issues • Lack of support to get started • Overwhelmed !

Academics are lagging behind on social and digital media adoption. Reasons cited:

Compliment your online presence with social media

!• Make yourself accessible to a wider audience • Stay relevant in your field • Engage with your professional peers • Share your research and ideas • Connect with peers at conferences and events • Position yourself as a thought leader (and

maybe lead the thought leader pack) • Gives your work a voice

But how they REALLY use it…

Voices of Experience

Faculty Voices: “Upon blogging and tweeting, within 24 hours, there were on average seventy downloads of my papers.” - Melissa Terras, Professor of Digital Humanities, University College London

Voices of Experience

!Graduate Voices: “Social media platforms can inform every step of the research process: helping faculty get a pulse on movement in their industry, providing feedback during research and then assisting in the promotion of the published work.” - Amanda Alampi, NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service

source: http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2012/jul/24/social-media-academic-research-tool

Getting started

!!!!

Ready to go?

Getting started: create your personal brand

#

#LETGO! Stop thinking it’s a bad thing. !Your personal brand is about how people perceive you. Your online activity, including social media, is part of your collective identity.

Getting started: create your personal brand

• Define your niche. Think of 3 or 4 keywords that differentiates you, your focus and your area of expertise. Why? These 3 or 4 keywords will be what you share and discuss online.

• Define your goals. What do you hope to achieve? How do you want to be perceived? Why? This will determine how much effort and involvement you will put into it.

• What is the first impression you want to make?

Getting started: find your domain name/ handle

• Be consistent with your own name. Do you sometimes include a middle initial?Do you sometimes go by Jon or Jonathan? Jon R. Smith or Jonathan Smith? Pick one!

• Find out if you your full name is available as a URL with ideally a .com

!Tip: Some academics at UCSC use their CruzID as their Twitter handle.

Getting started: write a stellar About sentence/ summary

Do

Do: use hashtags with your keywords! Hashtags become searchable links !

Do: link to your affiliations !Do: link to your website or profile page if you don’t have one

Do: show your personality through an interest or hobby

Do: Have a user pic!

Write a slightly longer statement for LinkedIn & your website

Tips: • For LinkedIn, keep your about

statement to 3-4 short sentences; longer on your website

• Stick to layman terms • Remember to be concise

Getting started: Find connections

Wondering who to follow and friend? !Connect with: !• Professional acquaintances • Colleagues • Peers in the field • Academics, journalists, thought leaders you admire • Your institution, your division and your department • Follow students carefully. It’s OK to follow graduate

student or post graduate student who Tweet professionally.

!

Creating a website• Many ways to create a website: Google, Wordpress,

SquareSpace, Wix, Joomla

• Grad Student or Faculty? UCSC provides a WordPress service to you free of charge. Visit: sites.ucsc.edu

• Committed? Consider buying a domain name (.com ideally) through GoDaddy, WordPress. Minimal $.

• Yes, it takes Time

Examples of a UCSC Wordpress Site

jessicataft.sites.ucsc.edu

There are 4 base themes, with 14 design templates

available

Consider Your Media

Consider what and how you share ideas

and content. Each different is distinct.

…and other digital/ social media

if anything…• If you can’t create a

website, at least make sure your campus directory listing is as robust it can be.

• Use up-to-date photos, include latest publications, presentations and more.

Exercise: Twitter 1

Exercise: Can you explain your research in 140 characters?

Exercise: Twitter 2

Exercise: write your about statement for Twitter.

What keywords can you include? What affiliations can you link to?

Tip: things to include are your affiliations, your industry specialty and your research focus. What makes you, YOU?

Exercise: Twitter 3Exercise: Make connections! Search for your favorite author, academic, journalist on Twitter.

Or find you alma mater - or better yet - find if your department at your alma mater is Tweeting.

What do you like about what they do online? What is there “persona” like on Twitter versus their other media?

Appendix: Useful Reading

How to Maintain your Digital Identity as an Academic: https://chroniclevitae.com/news/854-how-to-maintain-your-digital-identity-as-an-academic !Is Blogging and Tweeting about research papers really worth it? http://melissaterras.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/is-blogging-and-tweeting-about-research.html !Social media is more than simply a marketing tool for academic research: http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2012/jul/24/social-media-academic-research-tool

Appendix: Social Media Adoption

source: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/09/social-media-update-2014/