#SWSAPC17

A guide to usingTwitterDan Richards-DoranCommunications Manager, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences

@_DanRichards | @OxPrimaryCare

Why tweet

Getting started

Thinking about your content

Getting the most out of Twitter

Acting with caution

Why should scientists tweet?

• Scientists are a trusted voice for people without a background in science

• Connects you with your research community

• Supports the generation of impact*

*Liang X et al (2014). Building Buzz: (Scientists) Communicating Science in New Media Environments. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly.

Getting started – your bio

• Get the right balance between personal info and professional info

• Include link to your researcher biog

• Include “views are my own”

• Are you identifiable?

Who to follow

• Your university, department and funder(s)

• Your PI, head of group, past PhD supervisor

• Other influencers and researchers in your global research community

• Academic publishers

• News and blogs in your research area

• Twitter lists

*Liang X et al (2014). Building Buzz: (Scientists) Communicating Science in New Media Environments. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly.

Think about your audience

Familiarise yourself with your institution’s social

media policy or guidelines

Using twitter and blogs to advance your research. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOq55U6M7tg Professor Susan Rvachew, School of Communication Sciences and Disorders. McGill University00:00 – 1:29

LSE Public Policy Group 2011: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/files/2011/11/Published-Twitter_Guide_Sept_2011.pdf

Your chosen style:

• Middle ground

• Drop the jargon

Things to tweet about

• Publications, website updates or blog articles

• Invite feedback on new ideas

• New developments in your area i.e. government policy change, a think tank report, new journal article

• Tweet quotes from speakers at conferences using the conference hashtag

Promote yourself

• Include your twitter handle in your biogs, email signature, department profile, presentations

• Ask relevant people for retweets

• Follow people, they will follow you back

Develop a wider strategy• Consider ethical restrictions?

• Do you have the right audience?

• What do you want to achieve?

• Develop your key messages

• Keep up the posting frequency – other content?

• Influencers and advocates

• Actionable and sharable content

Develop a wider strategy• Set a posting schedule

• How will you monitor your posts?

• How does your social media output contribute to your wider impact strategy, if you have one?

• Integrate your social media strategy with other communications.

• Get some advice – Press team or other comms staff

Develop a wider strategy

Create a social media strategy for your research that delivers real impact

Prof Mark Reed

www.fasttrackimpact.com

http://www.fasttrackimpact.com/single-post/2015/10/27/Create-a-social-media-strategy-for-your-research-that-delivers-real-impact

Publication: What to include• Include:

• Name of journal

• Name of paper or finding in laymen’s terms

• Credit your department

• A hashtag

• Direct link to paper

• An image

ShareAsk for retweets

Keep up the momentum

Tweetdeck and Hootsuite can help

Getting more out of Twitter – boost your engagement

Hashtags!

Source: https://blog.bufferapp.com

#primarycare

#generalpractice

#obesity

#heartfailure

#hypertension

#ptexp

#dementia

#dementia

#WhyWeDoResearch

https://www.symplus.com/healthcare-hashtags

Twitter as a sounding board“If I run into a genomics or bioinformatics problem, I know that I can go to Twitter, tweet about it, and because I’ve got enough bioinformaticians and computational biologists following me, probably within a few minutes I’ll get an answer.”  Jennifer Gardy, in The Scientist

Images and infographicsAccording to Twitter, tweets with an image are

retweeted 35% more than text-only images

Design software:

Adobe Illustrator – can be expensive

Inkscape - free

Gimp – free

Pictogram - free

Try Powerpoint and save as .JPG

Images:

Pixabay – royalty free

Monitoring - tweets

Twitter Analytics

What to monitor• Audience engagement – is your audience

interacting with your content

• Impressions: how many people see your tweets on their timeline

• Audience profile: Do you have a relevant audience?

• Audience size and reach: What is your follower count and potential reach

Altmetric: article-level metrics

Tweet with caution You could get quoted

Think “would I be happy if this was printed?”

• Don’t tweet late at night after a few drinks

• Respond to your questions, it could be fruitful!

• An unhappy follower? Being trolled? Try to take it offline

• Tweets can be deleted

Your challenge today – Set up a twitter account and share your

experience of the conference#swsapc17

Thank youdan.richards-doran@phc.ox.ac.uk

@_DanRichards | @OxPrimaryCare