The Digital Academic

Influential Actively reaching

out

Focused and (easily) findable

Useful (brings you benefits)

How would you characterise your digital footprint?

Large Small

Are you happy with where you stand?

What could you do to move towards a better position?1. Passive, low risk and essential:

curate your online profile (next)2. Active, higher risk and up to you:

online engagement (later)

Audit your profileYour University profileYour other online identities

Prune/cultivate your online identitiesRemove/make private non-professional IDWithdraw from platforms that don’t give you a

good return on time investmentFocus on platforms that give you most benefit

for least time input – connect and promote them via your University or personal homepage

Curate your digital footprint

Actively manage your online identityMinimum: regularly update and review

profilesOptimum: have a clear online strategy

that you actively pursue

Being strategic online:Research goals: networks, info,

opportunitiesImpact goals: online influence to offline

impact

Curate your online profileCurate your digital footprint

Small, highly focused social media networks

Engagement with academic social media platforms e.g. Piirus and ResearchGate

Google Scholar

Achieving research goals onlineAchieving research goals online

9

Passive footprint

Active online engagement

Achieving impactvia

social media

Have you ever eaten (or avoided eating) at a restaurant, based on the recommendation of a friend?

Have you ever read a book a friend loved?

Have you been inspired by a friend to start a good habit or break a bad habit?

Why social media for research impact?

People have to learn about your research before they can benefit or act on it and generate impact

We learn best from other people we perceive are like us, who we trust

We change behaviors and make decisions based on feedback from people we trust

As researchers we are more likely to be viewed as trustworthy sources than the majority of (fairly anonymous) users

Social media gives us opportunities to build trust and rapport with targeted groups who can use our research

Unique issues, unique advantage

If you want to get a message out as a researcher, you have a one competitive advantage over most other social media users…

• 1 hour before Obama’s news conference, Keith Urbahn (Chief of Staff to Donald Rumsfeld, just over 1000 followers) tweeted the news

• Re-posted 80 times in first minute, over 300 times within two minutes

Then picked up by NYTimes reporter, Brian Stelter (>50K followers)

•Just 24 minutes after Keith Urbahn’s tweet, long before Obama addressed the nation, the news was being mentioned on Twitter 30,000 times per minute

•A number of others guessed the news earlier and were ignored – impact is about credibility of source as much as it about connectedness

http://blog.socialflow.com/post/5246404319/breaking-bin-laden-visualizing-the-power-of-a-single

In one field, 77% of management actions by practitioners were found to be based solely on anecdotal evidence rather than scientific data

Where do most people turn first when they need information to support a decision? Can they find your evidence?

Sutherland, W.J., Pullin, A.S., Dolman, P.M. & Knight, T.M. (2004) The need for evidence-based conservation. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 19, 305–308.

Do you us social media?Professionally?

What is social media?

“a group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, which

allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content”

What is social media?

Kaplan AM, Haenlein M (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media. Business Horizons 53: 59

What is social media?

Put simply:

What is social media?

public conversations through digital media

2 major issuesfor researchers using social media

Issue 1No time

Try an experiment:How big is your news-shaped hole?

Try replacing it with tailored news and other content via Twitter

See if you become more efficient in your intake of news whilst adding value to your network

Try an Experiment

Average week day news intake: Average week day news intake90 minutes 35 minutes…

…including active engagement & outreach via social media

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TwitterFacebookLinkedIn

Issue 2Social media will intrude on my personal life, attract unwanted attention or harm my reputation

Lower riskMore passive

Higher riskMore active

Watcher Sign-poster Content generator

What is social media?

Summarise your research in a

Exercise:

Tweet140 characters or less

Online influenc

e

Offline impact

Social Media Strategy

1. What offline impacts do you want to achieve via social media?

2. Who are you trying to reach, what are they interested in & what platforms are they on?

3. How can you make your content actionable, shareable and rewarding for those who interact with you, so you can start building relationships and move the conversation from social media to real life?   

4. Who can you work with to make your use of social media more efficient and effective?

Social media strategy

Social media strategywww.fasttrackimpact.com/resources

The numbers game

1. Have a social media strategy

2. Set up a professional (project or thematic) account(s) from which you can promote research to specific audiences

3. Curate your top 3 tweets; follow/unfollow strategy

4. Read and engage from your personal account

The numbers game

Online influenc

e

Offline impact

Case study• Research funding

• New collaborators e.g. Charles Cowap & South West Water NERC project

• Twitter: • Engagement with journalists• Debate with stakeholders• Communication with policy-makers• Connecting with NGOs (legacy account)

• Driving traffic to online media

Read and discuss• Targeted engagement with Corporate Sustainability Officers via LinkedIn

Influencing public opinion: social media campaign with Project Maya and Seedball

“PUVV”the basic design principles that grab people’s attention

PersonalUnexpected

Visual Visceral

Find out morewww.fasttrackimpact.com/resources

Fast Track ImpactTraining by researchers for researchers

www.fasttrackimpact.com

@fasttrackimpact