Presentation given in 2012 to Communication Officer colleagues at an international consortium skills-sharing workshop. Illustrates the use of Facebook and Twitter in a university research unit

1. HEU on Facebook &
Twitter in 2012
Allison Stevens
Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town
RESYST Research Uptake Workshop
September 2012, Cape Town

2. Source: http://www.fredcavazza.net/2008/06/09/social-media-landscape/

3. Entering the social media
landscape
• Reciprocal communication and attribution
(Priego, 2012)
– Discover viewpoints
• Help others by sharing interesting links
– Include information from other institutions
• Source news
• Reach more people
• Becoming mainstream, if not already?
Priego, E. 2012. How Twitter will revolutionise academic research and teaching. Guardian professional online

4. Loose networks
Photo Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SNA_segment.png
We live in a world of loose connections – you will discover news
from someone you will never know via a series of repostings that
eventually reach you via social media (Neylon 2012)
Neylon, C. 2012. Research assessment to support research impact, UCT seminar, August

5. Social media @ the HEU
• 2009:
– RSS feeds Still very popular
– Blog Discontinued in 2011
• 2012:
– Facebook
– Twitter

6. HEU Facebook Page

7. Messages & networking

8. Viewpoints & conversations

9. Others share your posting
with their networks

10. Insights for monitoring

11. Highlight & pin features

12. The CHEPSAA project on
Twitter

13. Send short, timely news
broadcasts

14. Share external news

15. Receive news

16. Get notable followers

17. Retweets & mentions

18. Other Twitter functions
• Conversations
• Live Twitter chats
• Search for topics and who to follow
• Hashtag major events

19. Digital professionalism
• Practise good online management
– Constant updating
– Content creation
– Hootsuite
• Coach researchers within your institution to
use social media

20. Thank you
www.facebook.com/uct.heu
https://twitter.com/hpsa_africa
The HEU is a partner of the RESYST consortium.
RESYST is funded by Ukaid from the Department
for International Development
http://resyst.lshtm.ac.uk/