As part of our discussion, we proposed that social media can be a tool to help social work academics and practitioners to discover and share knowledge as well as build relationships for collaborative work. Social media platforms are well-placed to allow social workers across the professional continuum to engage with each other, creating communities of learning and practice that bridge the gap between practice and research in social work.

1. Social Media
For Social Good
Grand Challenges
#GC4SW
Melanie Sage, PhD, LICSW
Laurel Iverson Hitchcock, PhD, LCSW, MPH

2. Bik, H. M., & Goldstein, M. C. (2013). An introduction to social media for scientists. PLoS Biol, 11(4),
e1001535.
Peoples, B. K., Midway, S. R., Sackett, D., Lynch, A., & Cooney, P. B. (2016). Twitter Predicts Citation
Rates of Ecological Research. PloS one, 11(11), e0166570.
Dissemination:
why share on Social Media?
• Widens scholarly
audience + citation
impact
• Improves research to
practice reach
• Offers opportunities for
feedback & discussion
• Help identify potential
collaborators
• Social citation altmetrics
• Influence audiences &
Informs field

3. Social Media
for Social Good
Interventions on Social Media
Most commonly health-related
• Social influence (social network)
impact on health bx such as
physical activity/diet
• Live chat to increase safe sex in
consumers with high HIV risk
• Teen mom educational program
to reduce infant obesity
• Organ donation registration

4. Research with Social Media
• Content and Network
Analysis of posts, images,
hashtags, etc.
• Visual Mapping Tools
• Software: Nvivo and NodeXL
• Examples:
• Symplur Hashtag Project
• Inequaligram

5. Social Media
for Social Good
Outreach on Social Media
Finding and working with
vunlerable populations:
• FaceBook Groups for people
with rare diseases
• Texting – text4baby and
parenting tips for low income
families
• Homeless Youth
• Ratings on Yelp or
Healthgrades.com