Slides accompanying the University of Edinburgh Digital Day of Ideas 2016 (#DigScholEd) workshop on Tweeting and Blogging for Academics run by Nicola Osborne (EDINA) and Lorna Campbell (EDINA/LTW). The workshop took place on 18th May 2016. Read more about the event here: http://www.digital.hss.ed.ac.uk/ddi/ddi-2016/

1. Tweeting & Blogging for
Academics
Nicola Osborne (nicola.osborne@ed.ac.uk) &
Lorna M. Campbell (lorna.m.campbell@ed.ac.uk)

2. Introduction

3. Why Use Blogs, Twitter, Social Media?
Social media, and Blogs and Twitter in particular…
• Are go-to spaces for expertise and advice.
• Offer different ways to tell stories, to engage in
dialogue, to reach out to your audience(s).
• Rank highly on Google, Bing, etc.
• Can enable direct access to key figures from
Principal Investigators to Research Councils to press
and potential research participants.
• May generate media interest in your work, new
collaborations and other unexpected opportunities.
• Offer inexpensive ways to raise your own profile
and that of your research.

4. Which tool should you use?
• Blogs - make your work visible, enable semi-formal
ways to share working methods and progress, and
provide a way to find and engage in dialogue with your
audience.
• Twitter - very effective way to share key research
updates, build a network around your work, find peer
support and advice, track news.
Complemented by…
• Video or Audio - can bring clarity to complex concepts
quickly. Well-made short videos or animations can
convey complex concepts and research quickly,
accessibly and in very engaging sharable ways.
• Flickr, Instagram, etc. – any images bring a project to
life – research is about people, ideas, events,
collaboration, equipment... Images make your ideas,
achievements and discoveries far more tangible.

5. Today, we’ll be looking at…
• Using blogs and Twitter to communicate your
research project or activity
• Using social media to amplify academic
events

6. Using Blogging & Tweeting to
Communicate Your Research
Nicola Osborne
nicola.osborne@ed.ac.uk

7. Blogs are great as a…
• Platform for getting your voice heard and get your
organisation’s work shared throughout the year, not
just at key media-friendly focal points.
• Way to bring organisations to life, and to highlight
ongoing work and activity.
• Form for playful storytelling and more human angles,
opinion, stories.
• Place to expand on key events, news, reports, issues,
successes.
• Space to develop and engage your audience, to build
a sense of community and engage in discussion.
• Alternative news streams and routes to engaging the
media, funders, etc.
• Search engine-friendly content management system.
• Content sources for social networking sites, sharing,
buzz generation.

8. Popular Blog Platforms & Communities
• WordPress.com – world’s largest blogging platform, SEO-friendly, offers wide
range of themes, templates, etc. Very broad and active range of bloggers and blog
readers/commenters in the community. Some “Following” and related options that
are only available on WordPress hosted blogs. Great options for describing your
posts with tags, categories, featured images, extracts, etc.
• WordPress.org – widely used and well supported self-hosted blogs based on the
same software (and functionality) as WordPress.com. Appropriate privacy and
commenting settings crucial as can be target for hackers. Again, a wide and varied
community of users. Self-hosted bloggers tend to be organisations, freelancers,
techies.
• Medium – newer blog/writing platforms, for long form opinion pieces. Designed on
a “story” basis, expecting single articles to be shared more than “blogs” as a whole.
Minimal design flexibility but good social sharing functionality.
• Blogger – long standing platform, owned by Google so works well if you already
use Google Apps, Google+, etc. Integrated with Feedburner (but you can use this
with any blog).
• Tumblr – highly visual site, a cross between a blog and Pinterest. High usage with
younger internet users and some specific communities (e.g. graphic novel/comic
book communities). Useful creative possibilities, and engaged community in the
right interest/age ranges. Allows more formatting and blog like functionality than
Instagram but shares a similar dynamic and mobile-first style.
• LinkedIn Pulse and Long-Form Posts/Facebook Notes – LinkedIn and
Facebook both have blog-like functionality built into them. Formatting options are
minimal but these are effective spaces if your community is very active in one of
these spaces. Sometimes appropriate to repost from traditional spaces to these
tools using, e.g. IFTTT, Known, etc.

9. Twitter is a powerful tool…
• For networking, building
personal connections, sharing
your work.
• For promoting your blog,
encouraging participation in
discussion.
• For publicising papers,
publications, forthcoming
conference appearances,
milestones and achievements.
• Staying up to date with your
field and engaging in dialogue
with your own and the wider
community.

10. Where do your own audiences hang out?
• Loose blogging and Twitter communities
exist for almost any interest, agenda, and
location imaginable.
• Your audience may already be embedded
in these communities, using a particular
preferred platform, following key
bloggers, hashtags etc.
• Your own project or personal blog should
look and feel like the right space for your
intended audience(s), and/or you can
always provide guest content for others
blogs.
Tip: indulge in a little benign “stalking”, see
what works well and why.

11. What makes a great blog?
• Designed with a specific audience and purpose in mind - or
structured into clear segments for different audiences or
purposes.
• Regular relevant and engaging content
• Clearly branded with standard logos, “about” text, etc.
• Clear path for audience to engage with or contact the
organisation.
• Embedded within, or well linked to, key authoritative web
presences and information.
• Clearly connected to other social channels, with sharing
buttons/functionality that make it easy for your audience to share
content.
• Visually appealing design, which may be differentiated from main
web presences but is in-keeping (e.g. colours, fonts, etc.)
• Strong navigation and routes to explore content – via menus,
tags, categories, authors, search, use of featured images for content,
etc.

12. Academic Blogging: Mary Beard
http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/

13. Storytelling: NPR’s Seed to Shirt
http://seedtoshirt.tumblr.com/

14. Guest/Collaborative Blog: Dangerous Women Project
http://dangerouswomenproject.org/

15. What makes a compelling blog post?
• Images – at least one, more if they have a real role in the
story.
• A compelling story that speaks to your audience.
• Something surprising, unexpected, delightful, important,
playful.
• Something useful, purposeful, relevant to your research
area/project and to your intended audience.
• Clear concise, well checked writing – whether 100 words,
250-300 words, or longer (if your audience engage with long
form content).
• Good use of links and appropriate resources (e.g. embedded
video, audio, images) within the text.
• A genuine call to action and clear next step for your
audience/readers – even if that’s to read on...
• Good tagging, categories, author information, sensible URL.
• Good promotion, sharing, follow up.
• Feedback and engagement with any comments,
acknowledgement and reward for participation.

16. And what should you share?
• What your research is about and what it aims to
achieve.
• Processes, updates, changes of approach – to the
extent that such transparency is appropriate and
acceptable.
• Quirky, playful and accessible content around your
work and research area.
• Publications, presentations, press mentions and
materials that reflect research outputs and expertise.
• Work that you are proud of and that helps others
understand what you do, and how they can
collaborate or follow your work.

17. What should not be shared
• Commercially sensitive data or other material
your employer/PI would not want shared or that
might breach guidelines.
• Personal information about colleagues,
participants, those at partner organisation that might
breach Data Protection law or ethical guidance.
• Material (images, discussion board posts, tweets,
etc.) that might impact on your own professional
reputation or the credibility of your research.
• Anything you would not want a funder, professional
peer, project partner, or future employer to see or
read.

18. Use what you already have…
You can write great blog posts around existing assets like:
• Key achievements, past successes, notable milestones and
outcomes.
• Events, activities, reports, feedback, publications.
• Press and blog coverage, news.
• Behind the scenes details and information on process,
discoveries or interesting staff achievements.
• Relationships with other organisations, events, project
partners, notable stakeholders.
• Resources - Images, video, audio, slides, content, etc.
• Interesting people to highlight or contribute – colleagues,
students, stakeholder community members, peers, etc.

19. Planning Blog & Twitter Activity
• Consider what goals you want to achieve, what you
want to share about your research. How can you
track progress? What would success look like?
• Think about your audience(s): where do they hang
out online? What will engage them in your work?
How can you make it relevant to them?
• Be creative – what images, video or new digital
tools could help you to communicate your work in
new ways?
• Be pragmatic – what is the best fit for your project,
your own and your stakeholders’ style, your/your
team’s expertise and time availability?

20. Building Engagement
What are your priorities for this post/series of posts/project?
• Who are you trying to reach? How can you do that?
• What do you want your audience to get out of it?
• What next step would you want an audience member to
take?
• Do you want feedback or comment? Do you have a purpose
or use in mind?
• How can you encourage and support them to participate or
contribute?
• What would success look like?
Start by thinking about your audience:
• What is their interest here?
• Why should they engage? What’s in it for them?
• What recognition or reward is there for taking part? What will
make them come back and take part again?

21. Engaging your audience
What level of engagement are you looking for?
• Sharing of the post – easy, lightweight. Will you
repost/retweet/share onwards to encourage this?
• Comments – more involved. Are there questions or limitations that
you can set to make this easy? Will you respond to comments? What
will you do with comments you receive? How will you handle problem
comments/reported issues? Can you seed the comments by asking
particular people to be involved?
• Participation/attendance of an event – more involved, may require
encouraging your audience to spend money. How can you build
excitement and encourage them to take that next step? What do you
need to signpost here? Are there tags/hashtags your post should
include to encourage buzz?
• Guest posts, participation in a project or much more involved
participation. How can you motivate your audience? Who is/is not in
scope? How can you make the process clear and coherent? How will
you manage expectations (and potential disappointment)?

22. Calls To Action
Calls To Action are triggers for your audience to do
something, to take a next step. They might be:
• A request to comment, e.g. “What was your highlight of
DDI 2016? Tell us in the comments below.”
• A link or sign post to the next step, e.g. “Click here to
book for this seminar.” or “Join our mailing list to find out
more.”
• An encouragement to take part, e.g. “We are looking
for representatives from the BME community to be part of
our advisory group. Contact use to find out more.”
• Follow up information and encouragement to share
the post, or content in another channel, e.g. “Share your
pictures of #DigScholEd on Twitter and Instagram.”

23. Task: Calls to action
Consider a blog post you would like to write…
• What is your goal for this post? What do you want it to
achieve?
• What do you want your audience to do after they read
this post? What is their next step?
• Is there other content, or an obvious next step – a
face to face event, a publication they can read - that
you want to signpost them to?
• Can you create discussion around this post? What
question, invitation or provocation will stimulate that?
• How will you respond to that discussion? What is the
motivation and reward for taking part?
• How will you promote the post around your call to
action? What might make it stand out?
• Could the action your audience takes next lead to
more content, another post, some follow up activity?

24. Maintaining Social Media channels
• Brand your presences and ensure you complete
your profile information. Always link back to your
definitive research profiles and project websites.
• Regularly share interesting engaging content,
use images, listen to and engage with the audiences
you are reaching out to.
• Ensure you keep profiles and presences up to
date and relevant, review their effectiveness, and
ensure they represent your work as you want it to
be seen.

25. Tweetdeck

26. Managing and Moderating Feedback
Blogs are public and can present some risks.
• Always use Comment Moderation and have a clear process
for who will approve comments. Quick approval (and
response) will be much more encouraging for your audience.
• Spam Prevention and settings matter. For WordPress
Akismet works well. Always “blacklist” repeat offenders.
Check settings to minimise any risks (e.g. not allowing
comments with links without moderation; self-hosted
WordPress sites should switch off XML-RPC).
• For projects, consider having “House Rules” or commenting
policies that help your audience understand what is, and is
not appropriate behaviour (many media sites offer good
examples, e.g. Guardian, BBC, etc.)
• Ensure more than one person has access to the blog,
and to moderate comments, and that it is always clear who is
expected to manage the comments around a post, and
understands processes for managing difficult or problematic
content

27. Social media guidelines can be helpful…
http://edina.ac.uk/about/social_media/social_media_
guidelines.html

28. Managing Expectations
The biggest risk around commenting is not getting any
comments at all.
• Be realistic about what you are asking your audience to do.
• Make it easy to take part. If you get a lot of responses, be
open about any delays or issues arising from that (in a
positive way).
• Be swift and clear about how you will manage comments.
• Respect and reward contribution. Promote it when
appropriate.
• Manage colleagues expectations around participation and
engagement.
• Do make an effort to encourage participation but don’t be too
needy – your audience might be enjoying what you do but
not interested in commenting.
• Reflect on what does and doesn’t work and feed that into
future plans.

29. Task: Draft a blog/Twitter schedule
Make a plan for the next 3-6 months for your own or your
project’s blog and/or (key) Twitter activity...
• What are the key events, significant dates, project
milestones or engagement opportunities?
• What makes those events, opportunities or moments unique,
interesting, and relevant?
• What assets do you have (or might you need) for this post –
images, video, audio, publications, etc.
• What call to action could you use?
• Who will write the content? When could it be written?
• When should the posts go live?
• How will you promote this content and engage your audience
with it?
• Can you use this content again?
You might also think about any dependencies that you may
have here – press releases that need to go out before you can
share the blog, project reports being complete, publications
going live, etc.

30. Evaluating Success
It is much easier to understand success if you already know how you
will measure it…
• Establish SMART Goals for your blog, particular campaigns/series of
posts, so that you have something clear to evaluate against.
• Think about what success would look like, what you’d like to
achieve, how you will know you’ve achieved this.
Put measuring and evaluation tools in place, which could include:
• Google Analytics – including tracking codes for specific promotional
channels or referrals if you have capacity to set these up. Work out
which of the many metrics, or KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
you want to use against your SMART goals as there are more than
you can usefully capture.
• Use in-built analytics/measures (e.g. WordPress.com stats; Twitter
analytics, Bit.ly links; Tumblr reposts and likes; Blogger stats; etc.)
• Include your blog in existing audience research where appropriate
– surveys, focus groups, informal feedback processes.
• Capture engagement for each post – number of comments, shares,
or any key follow on work or outcomes associated with it, including
new opportunities, impact stories, etc.

31. Google Analytics

32. A successful post… But why?
Our most popular post, every
year since it went live..
• A niche subject but of high
interest.
• Originally timed to fit release
of the film War Horse.
• Well publicised and shared on
release.
• Well linked to and well tagged
– easy to find and well ranked
by search engines.
• Included rare content.
• It’s a good post but… We won’t
make all our posts the same as
it doesn’t fit our wider goals
and objectives.http://mediahub.blogs.edina.ac.uk/201
2/02/01/war-horse-highlights-on-jisc-
mediahub/

33. Taking this forward: Action Plan
Take a look at the action plan
after today’s session – it
should help you to capture
your notes and ideas for
knitting this all together and
putting it into action. Be
realistic and reflect, and re-
evaluate regularly.

34. Q&A
Questions?

35. Contact
Nicola Osborne
Digital Education Manager and Service Manager
eLearning@ed Convener
EDINA, University of Edinburgh
Nicola.Osborne@ed.ac.uk
http://nicolaosborne.blogs.edina.ac.uk/
@suchprettyeyes
CC BY Nicola Osborne, unless otherwise indicated.

36. Using Social Media to Amplify
Academic Events
Lorna M. Campbell
lorna.m.campbell@ed.ac.uk

37. What is event amplification?
“An amplified conference is
a conference or similar
event in which the talks and
discussions at the
conference are 'amplified'
through use of networked
technologies in order to
extend the reach of the
conference deliberations.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amplified_con
ference

38. Social media can be used to amplify
• Audiences voices, discussion & debate
(Twitter, blogs).
• Speakers and keynotes (audio & video
streams, Twitter, YouTube, Periscope,
MediaHopper, liveblogs, sketchnotes).
• Slides (SlideShare, Prezi).
• Conference outputs (Flickr, SlideShare,
YouTube, Storify, TAGS, tableau, reflective
blogs, sketchnotes).

39. Why amplify an event?
• To encourage audience engagement.
• To encourage remote participation.
• To enable wider participation and
public engagement.
• To ensure your event is accessible.
• To keep an archive of your event.
• To add to your academic portfolio.
• To encourage conversations to
continue after event.
• To reflect on and analyse event

40. What kind of events benefit from amplification?
• Conferences.
• Seminars.
• Workshops.
• Project launches.
• Pretty much
anything!

41. Hashtags!
“A hashtag is a type of label or
metadata tag used on social
network and microblogging
services which makes it easier
for users to find messages with
a specific theme or content.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashtag
Can be used across multiple
channels (Twitter, YouTube,
Flickr, blogs).
#EdinDS
#DigScholEd
#DDI16

42. Choosing & using your hashtag
• Keep it short, no spaces or
underscores, include date.
• Check it’s not being used already.
• Circulate well in advance.
• Use hashtag to disseminate event,
e.g. CFPs, dates, registration info.
• Use the hashtag to build up
community around event.
• Don’t use multiple hashtags for
different conference strands.
• Display hashtag on event website,
programmes, agenda, etc.

43. Using twitter to amplify events
• Display hashtag prominently.
• Remind participants to use it.
• Invite questions for speakers
from remote participants on
twitter.
• Consider having an official
twitter live feed for keynotes,
etc.
• Use speakers’ twitter handles,
e.g. @lornamcampbell
• Twitter walls and fountains.
Image credit: Luc Van Braekel, CC BY
2.0, https://flic.kr/p/5F6WfB

44. Beware the backchannel
“Backchannel is the practice of using networked
computers to maintain a real-time online conversation
alongside the primary group activity or live spoken
remarks. The term "backchannel" generally refers to
online conversation about the conference topic or
speaker.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backchannel
Backchannel conversations may or may not use the
hashtag.

45. Playful use of twitter for amplification
• Add participants’ twitter
handles to name tags.
• Use for games and social
activities.
• All build community round
events.
• Useful to engage remote
participants.
• Natural Sciences
Collections Association
#NatSCA2016 and
#NatSciFashion

46. Livestreaming
• Live film or audio broadcast of speakers.
• Expected of major events.
• Important for remote participation and public
engagement.
• Think about cost and logistics.
• Need to manage expectations.
• May be institutional facilities available.
• Periscope offers quick and dirty solution.
• Requires media permissions.
• Recorded streams can be shared on YouTube,
MediaHopper, etc.

47. Livestreaming
Image credit:
Anna Page, CC BY 2.0
https://www.flickr.co
m/photos/acpage/25
944147414/in/album-
72157665077094714
/

48. Photography
• Can use official photographer…
• …or encourage all delegates to share
photographs.
• Upload to Twitter, Flickr or Instagram.
• Use the hashtag.
• Not necessary to seek permission but..
• …polite to ask
• Allow participants to opt out of
photographs.

49. Sketchnotes
• Visual
representation of
presentations.
• Another way to
capture and
disseminate
information.
• Nice take away
for speakers.
Image credit: Bea de los Arcos,
https://twitter.com/celTatis/status/7227979103044
32128

50. Sketchnotes
Image credit:
Beck Pitt, CC BY 2.0
https://www.flickr.co
m/photos/40959105
@N00/sets/7215766
7593223021

51. Sharing Presentations
• Ask presenters to upload to
SlideShare.
• Can also use dedicated
conference account.
• Ask permission to upload.
• Tag presentations.
• Can also use Prezi, Google
Slides, etc.
• Particularly valuable for
keynotes.

52. Blogging
• Live blogging – captures a
realtime transcript of talks
and discussions.
• Reflective blogging –
reflective blogs posted after
presentations.
• Consider using volunteers to
blog conference sessions.
• Set up dedicated conference
blog.
• Use blog feeds to aggregate
tagged post.
• Use the conference tag.

53. Archiving amplified events using Storify
• https://storify.com/
• Storify allows users to create stories or
timelines from social media.
• Add content from Twitter, YouTube, Flickr,
Instagram, SoundCloud, etc.
• Add links, comments annotations.
• Share and embed stories.
• Notify people named in the story.
• Use the hashtag.

54. Storify Interface

55. #edDDI Storify

56. Social network analysis with Tableau
• https://public.tableau.com/
• Visualise and share social network
data.
Image credit: Simon Thomson,
https://twitter.com/digisim/status/73
0038722247458817, #nlc2016

57. Social network analysis with Tableau
Image credit: Simon Thomson, https://twitter.com/digisim/status/729743091658280960,
#nlc2016

58. Archiving Twitter with TAGS & TAGSExplorer
• https://tags.hawksey.info/
• Developed by Martin Hawksey.
• Free and powerful.

59. TAGSExplorer #OER16

60. TAGSExplorer #OER16

61. Last but not least
• If you want your delegates to tweet,
blog & share images make sure they
have access to power and wifi.
• If you’re taking pictures, sit at the
front.
• USE THE HASHTAG!

62. Activity
Create a Storify of the Day of Digital
Ideas tweets.
https://storify.com/

63. Contact
Lorna M. Campbell
OER Liaison – Open Scotland
University of Edinburgh
lorna.m.campbell@icloud.com
lorna.m.campbell@ed.ac.uk
https://lornamcampbell.wordpress.com/
@lornamcambell
CC BY Lorna M. Campbell, unless otherwise indicated.