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

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

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/

#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

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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