how to tweet about science and sustainability

Michelle Kovacevic @kovamic for @FutureEarth

#popupwebinars futureearth.org/blog/pop-webinars

Tweeting about science and sustainability

Knowing the landscape

Build and grow (sustainably)

Doing it live

Twitter = important 4

science

Twitter = important 4 science Outreach Succinct, plain English training Feedback on research Cultivate networks Stay up to date Find support and encouragement

http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/twitter-science/483827

1.8 million articles published each year, in about 28,000 journals

Only 10% are cited

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/half-academic-studies-are-never-read-more-three-people-180950222/

50% only read by their authors and journal editors

h"p://www.nature.com/news/online-‐collabora6on-‐scien6sts-‐and-‐the-‐social-‐network-‐1.15711

h"p://www.nature.com/news/online-‐collabora6on-‐scien6sts-‐and-‐the-‐social-‐network-‐1.15711

Discover jobs

Discover peers/network (It’s like a conference coffee break!)

Actively discuss research/stay up to date

Collaborate and ask questions

Twitter democratises and humanises science

Twitter easily fits into a scientist’s existing work routine

Adapted from http://www.blogtips.org/category/blogtips-primers/making-a-social-media-strategy/

When promoting content, see Twitter as part of a wider strategy

Twitter can augment a scientist’s existing work routine in many different ways

Self-promotion and Work promotion – A Talking Business-Card (always up-to-date, easy to contact)

Literary Resource – Getting hold of obscure articles.

News – About your Field, Institution, Prizes, Funding…

Jobs – Advertising Post-docs, PhDs, Tenured positions…

Events – Conferences, Promotion, Organisation, Interaction

Teaching – Interacting with students of all levels about their program

Research – Collaboration, Promotion of; Research, Website, Blog, and pose Questions to other specialists.

Societies – Grants, Funding, Open Positions, Elections…

Networking – making new contacts in related field.

Knowing the landscape 11 basic Twitter terms you need to know Types of Twitter users How do I find the right people and conversations?

11 basic Twitter terms you need to know Follower The basic social connection on Twitter. You follow people to see their updates and they follow you to see yours.

If you follow someone they do not have to follow you back.

Tweet Messages you send to your followers. Must be 140 characters or less

Feed Constantly updating list of tweets, usually sorted chronologically. Your homepage is a feed of tweets from the people you follow, your profile page is a feed of your tweets.

Retweet (RT) A way to share tweets by others that you find interesting. Click at the bottom of the tweet and it will appear in your feed and to your followers

Favorite Notifies the user that you like/agree with their tweet. Doesn’t appear in your feed.

@Mention A way to direct messages to other Twitter users. E.g. @kovamic Hi there! If used at start of tweet, it will only appear on the homepages of people who follow me, but if you put it later in your tweet (e.g. Hi there @kovamic!) then everyone who follows you will see it.

Direct Message (DM) Private message sent between two twitter users. Do not appear to anyone else. You can only send to someone who is following you. Limited to 140 characters.

Hashtag Turns any word or group of words that directly follow it into a searchable link. This allows you to organize content and track discussion topics based on those keywords. A hashtag immediately expands the reach of your tweet beyond just those who follow you, to reach anyone interested in that hashtag phrase or keyword.

URL shortener Programs that shorten your weblinks so they don’t take up too many characters in your tweet. Bit.ly and goo.gl are common but now Twitter has an inbuilt shortener that makes all URLs 22 characters long (t.co) leaving you 118 characters for the rest of your tweet.

Engagement The practice of responding to and making conversation with your followers and other people on Twitter. Can be measured.

Trending When a term is extremely popular at any given time on Twitter either globally or in different regions. Trends evaporate as quickly as they appear.

Complete glossary: https://support.twitter.com/articles/166337

Types of Twitter users

h"ps://onlineacademic.wordpress.com/2015/03/25/twi"er-‐taxonomy-‐types-‐of-‐user/

How do I find the right people & follow conversations?

h"ps://onlineacademic.wordpress.com/2015/03/25/twi"er-‐taxonomy-‐types-‐of-‐user/

Hashtags

Create lists

(we’ll come back to this soon)

Build and grow (sustainably) Writing a catchy bio The anatomy of a tweet Writing awesome tweets Using hashtags...wisely How to grow your following Twitter management and analytical tools

What is a Twitter bio?

•  First splash of information someone gets about you

•  160 characters •  Google uses this to index

your Twitter account

Writing a catchy bio

Originally an army medic, Professor John H Smith Ph.D. joined the Department of Forensic Science and Psychology at the prestigious London Holmes University in 2001. Dr Watson teaches courses in Criminal Psychopathy 101, Understanding Perverted Genius 221, and Army Medical Forensics. Recently awarded the Conan-Doyle prize for his research in child psychopathy, Prof. Watson adds this to his long list of merits as well as his most recent accolades for fictional writing. In his spare time Prof. Watson writes blogs and writes crime fiction, as well as tutoring at the Sherlock Boxing school for boys. John is husband to Mary and father of two.

https://onlineacademic.wordpress.com/2015/06/19/great_twitter_bio/


Medic, PhD and Professor of Forensic Science and Psychology at the London Holmes University Teaching Criminal Psychopathy and Army Medical Forensics. Won the Conan-Doyle Prize | Crime Fiction Writer who likes Boxing. I’m a Husband and Father.



PhD Professor Forensic Science Psychology London Holmes University Teach Criminal Psychopathy Army Medical Forensics Conan-Doyle Prize | Crime Writer Boxing Husband Father



PhD Professor Forensic Science Psychology @HolmesUni Teach Criminal Psychopathy Army Medical Forensics @CDoylePrize Crime Writer Boxing Husband Father (162 characters, still too long)



PhD Professor Forensic Science Psychology @HolmesUni Teach Criminal Psychopathy Army Medical Forensics @CDoylePrize Crime Writer Boxing Husband Father (161 characters)



Prof Forensic Science Psychology @HolmesUni Teach CriminalPsychopathy Army Medical Forensics @C-DoylePrize Crime Writer Boxer Husband Dad



Prof Forensic Science Psychology @HolmesUni Teach CriminalPsychopathy Army Medical Forensics @CDoylePrize Crime Writer Boxer Husband Dad


Try it yourself

Change your bio slightly over the next month and see how this affects your follower growth.

Your profile pic

Keep it consistent across social media channels – people will come to recognise you.

Your background banner pic

Prime real estate – something related to your work, advertise a conference you are organising, your latest book chapter etc

The anatomy of a tweet

Engaging 90-100 characters of text

https://onlineacademic.wordpress.com/2015/07/01/twittercomposition/

One fact or point.

What are you Tweeting for?

Do you want to just tell people the news, incite friendly conversation or lively debate?

Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2 °C global warming is highly dangerous J. Hansen1, M. Sato1, P. Hearty2, R. Ruedy3,4, M. Kelley3,4, V. Masson-Delmotte5, G. Russell4, G. Tselioudis4, J. Cao6, E. Rignot7,8, I. Velicogna7,8, E. Kandiano9, K. von Schuckmann10, P. Kharecha1,4, A. N. Legrande4, M. Bauer11, and K.-W. Lo3,4


Tell people the news

Friendly conversation

Lively debate


Can you explain a hard idea by only using the 1000 most common words in the English language? http://splasho.com/upgoer5 http://tenhundredwordsofscience.tumblr.com/

Using hashtags

There is no preset list of hashtags, no one “owns” hashtags.

Hashtags are only as important as the people who use them.

Popular hashtags meaning that people consistently use them.

Create a brand new hashtag simply by putting the hash before a series of

words. If it hasn't been used before, you've invented a hashtag.

Using hashtags

DO DON’T

Keep them short (otherwise it takes up too many

characters)

Use spaces.

Use numbers (e.g. #survivephd15) Use special characters - , . ! ? ‘ “ * &

Group multiple words together (e.g. #Climatechange)

Use the @ symbol at the beginning of the tweet

unless you want to tweet at that user directly.

Use capitals to differentiate between words (e.g. #FieldworkFail)

Some popular science hashtags Biodiversity, ecological and environmental themes

#Biodiversity

#Conservation

#Ecology

#Environment

#Extinction

#UrbanEcology

#UrbanWildlife

#Wildlife

Environmental policy discussions

#AusPol

#ClimateChange or #climate

●  #climate

●  #COP21 (each conference will likely have its own hashtag)

●  #action2015

Help with statistics, figures and geographic information system (GIS)

#GIS

#RStats

#figureclub

Online communities

#ECRchat (early career research chat)

#EMCRforum

#PhDchat

#WomenInSci

#STEM

#ScholarSunday

#icanhazpdf (can be a violation of journal publishing

agreements)

#OA and #openscience

Help with academic writing

●  #acwri (academic writing)

●  #acwrimo (academic writing month)

●  #GetYourManuscriptOut

Science communication and public outreach

#CitizenScience

#CrowdFunding

#SciComm

http://euanritchie.org/2014/06/17/twitter-revolutionising-scientific-communication/

#FieldworkFail

#AcademicValentines

https://storify.com/BeckiePort/75-of-the-best-academicvalentines

How many hashtags should I use in one tweet?

h"ps://blog.bufferapp.com/a-‐scien6fic-‐guide-‐to-‐hashtags-‐which-‐ones-‐work-‐when-‐and-‐how-‐many

Lists also help you listen

URL/hyperlink

Don’t always need one, particularly if you’re asking a question or having a conversation. When you do use links, make sure you’ve copied it over right and check it works You can use a shortener (bit.ly, goo.gl) but Twitter will shorten the link to 22 characters automatically.

Images

People see tweets more prominently if they have an image. If you don’t include a link in your tweet use a photo! Photos take 23 characters (leaving you with 117 characters for the rest of your tweet). You can load multiple photos to one tweet without affecting the number of characters left.

Images

Can also be a sneaky way to add extra text to your message. Canva is a great free design tool to create beautiful images for social media: canva.com

Writing awesome tweets - use emojis!

h"p://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/06/23/the-‐psychology-‐of-‐emojis h"p://getemoji.com/

“Emoticons are a new form of language that we’re producing, and to decode that language we’ve produced a new pattern of brain activity” Dr. Owen Churches, from the school of psychology at Flinders University in Adelaide

How to grow your following

1.  Proofread your tweets before sending them

2.  Retweet/share from trusted sources

3.  Tweet regularly (conferences are a good place to start)

4.  Schedule posts for different timezones

5.  Thank people who get in touch

6.  Ignore online bullies (trolls)

7.  Know your audience

8.  Use positive words

9.  Organise your followers in lists - great list of resources

10. Don’t make every Tweet all about you

11. Don’t tweet angry or drunk

12. Learn from others - find people who tweet well, generate interest and interact with people

Adapted from https://onlineacademic.wordpress.com/social-media-for-academics/twitter-for-academics/twitter-for-academics-part-four-my-twelve-rules-of-tweeting/

Twitter management and analytic tools

Tool Used for Link

Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, Buffer •  Easily monitor different conversations

•  Schedule posts to different timezones

https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/ https://hootsuite.com/ https://buffer.com/

Twitter analytics •  See follower growth •  Your best performing tweets

(most retweeted, engagement etc)

https://analytics.twitter.com

Tweetreach, Hashtracking •  See how a hashtag is performing (how many people are using it in their tweets)

https://tweetreach.com/ https://www.hashtracking.com/

Crowdbooster (paid) •  See follower growth •  Your best performing tweets

(most retweeted, engagement etc)

•  Advises you to schedule tweets when followers most active

http://crowdbooster.com/

Doing it live Why livetweet? How to livetweet Controversy Advice to presenters Using storify

Why live tweet? •  “Helps me focus more and understand content” •  Potential to reach thousands more people beyond the room and generate exciting conversations •  Helps you get new followers •  Networking - catch up with people in the coffee break

“I’m always thanked by multiple followers after I finish a live-tweet — from scientists interested in the work, to members of the general public.”

How to livetweet?

●  Use conference hashtag ●  Monitor conference hashtag ●  Be prepared- find twitter handle of presenters ●  Add value ●  Retweet others ●  If you make a mistake, don’t panic - you can delete It’s a skill so it needs practice!

There’s been a little controversy lately...

http://www.nature.com/news/conference-tweeting-rule-frustrates-ecologists

Advice to presenters from the Online Academic

1.  Assume everyone is going to Tweet your

presentation – every part of it.

2.  Say at the beginning of your presentation that you

have data/results which are sensitive

3.  Indicate specifically, which of your slides you do

not want Tweeted. Put a symbol up. That way

people can see you don’t want your stuff putting on

the web

https://onlineacademic.wordpress.com/2015/02/02/tweeting-etiquette-at-conferences/

It’s all our responsibility to be polite and think about what we do at the conferences.

Can tweets tell a story?

Storify provides a way to help your audience make sense of the stream of information flowing out of social networks. I think of it as a very visual blog that helps you capture and curate the best reactions and conversations around an issue or event. Types of storify stories:

1.  Key takeaways from a presentation: https://storify.com/GlobalSciAdvice/1000-days-in-the-life-of-a-science-advisor

2.  Breaking news story: https://storify.com/mkramer/how-twitter-tracked-down-the-suspects-from-a-ppd-v

3.  Main outcomes from a Twitter chat: https://storify.com/mark_scheuerell/editor-s-tips-to-writing-a-good-scientific-paper

Using Storify

DO DON’T

Break up tweets with narrative Get bogged down in too much backstory

Include a variety of perspectives Dump redundant information

Give just enough background for readers who are new to the story

Just use tweets

Use strong visuals Leave it too late - you can only search back 7

days*

*though you can go further back with topsy and link to your storify...it’s just a bit of mucking around

https://storify.com/lizhannaford/you-can-storify-old-tweets

Know what kind of user you want to be

To grow a following know your audience, be active and

add value

Get started by live tweeting your next conference, event

or workshop

Twitter can augment a scientist’s

existing work routine in many different ways

Michelle Kovacevic @kovamic for @FutureEarth

futureearth.org/blog/pop-webinars

Questions?

how to tweet about science and sustainability

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