This presentation shares tips on what to write on Twitter to promote science and academia. It includes tweet examples of leading institutions in the field.

1. Social Media & Science, Part 1:
What to Write on Twitter
Katja Reuter, PhD
Associate Director of Communications
Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI)
University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)
Sunday, June 10, 2012

2. Half a billion registered Twitter users
generate 175 tweets a day, 11 tweets per second.
Data May 2012
Sunday, June 10, 2012

3. Tweets “Worth Reading”
36% of tweets are worth reading
39% are OK
25% are not worth reading
Ref. Quality ranking of 43,738 tweets by users www.cs.cmu.edu/~pandre/pubs/whogivesatweet-cscw2012.pdf
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4. Make your tweets count!
Here are 10 tips: What to do and what to avoid...
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5. What to Share
1. Share links: Tips, novel information, interesting facts, stats, quotes.
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6. What to Share
2. Provide context, insights, perspective.
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7. What to Share
3. Invite questions from followers: Users see crowdsourcing via questions as one
of Twitter’s core functions. Ref. www.cs.cmu.edu/~pandre/pubs/whogivesatweet-cscw2012.pdf
Bradley Voytek, PhD, is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of California, San Francisco.
Communities Specialist for nature.com.
Sunday, June 10, 2012

8. What to Share
4. Ask followers to do something. (e.g., answer a question, sign a petition, see a
link)
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9. What to Share
5. Answer questions: Help solve problems, send supportive comments, and join the
chat. Example shows inter-organizational conversation between programs.
Published via CTSI’s Early Translational Research (ETR) program.
Add-on response from CTSI Communications team.
Sunday, June 10, 2012

10. What to Share
6. Share random thoughts: A moment of introspection to inspire others.
Tweets that are interesting, surprising, and “funny” are rated worth reading.
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11. What to Share
7. Dare to self-promote: Twitter users find self-promotion useful when it provides
helpful information and links. (Ref. www.cs.cmu.edu/~pandre/pubs/whogivesatweet-cscw2012.pdf)
“80-20 rule”: 80 percent not self-promotional content, 20 percent self-promotion.
Sunday, June 10, 2012

12. What to Share
8. Promote, encourage, and support others.
.
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13. What to Share
9. Add images to your tweets: Research shows that pictures make content
memorable. People have the most impact. (Ref. http://www.popphoto.com/news/2011/05/mit-study-
shows-people-make-memorable-photography)
Sunday, June 10, 2012

14. What to Avoid
What are you doing right now? There is no need to answer this unasked
question.
Puns: If readers don’t know immediately what a story is about they’re less likely to
click on the link. Focus on the facts.
Opinion/complaint: Avoid it, unless the remark is especially witty and useful.
Conversation pitfalls: Avoid including personal responses in general tweets. Use
direct messages for personal responses. Don’t retweet one-on-one conversations.
“Butterfly syndrome”: Focus on a topic, theme or question related to your
expertise.
Sunday, June 10, 2012

15. CTSI is a member of the National Institutes of Health-funded Clinical and
Translational Science Awards network.
Under the banner of "Accelerating Research to Improve Health," it
provides a wide range of services for researchers, and promotes online
collaboration and networking tools such as UCSF Profiles.
Sunday, June 10, 2012

16. Katja Reuter, PhD
Associate Director of Communications
Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI)
University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)
ctsi.ucsf.edu
https://twitter.com/CTSIatUCSF
Sunday, June 10, 2012