10 Commandments of Twitter for Academics by Tom Downes

10 Commandments of Twitter for Academics - Do Your Job Better - The Chronicle of Higher Education

5/20/12 2:36 PM

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Do Your Job Better

May 9, 2012

10 Commandments of Twitter for Academics By Katrina Gulliver Most of my friends (the ones who are not already on Twitter) have heard my Twitter pitch, and it's true that since joining several years ago I've become quite an evangelist. Recently over dinner, a colleague told me he had never really gotten the point of Twitter, but now that he had a book to promote, he wished he had followers he could share it with. Twitter is what you make of it, and its flexibility is one of its greatest strengths. I'm going to explain why I have found it useful, professionally and personally, and lay out some guidelines for academics who don't know where to start. The first and most obvious benefit has been helping me get to know a lot of great people whom I probably wouldn't have met otherwise. A number of my pre-Twitter, real-life friends are regular tweeters, too, but most of the people I follow and almost all of those who follow me are people I know only through Twitter. I've also used it to engage directly with scholars whose work I admire (and not just academics: I've been retweeted by Margaret Atwood and Susan Orlean, and both times it made my day). Thanks to Twitter, I have been sent copies of obsure articles much faster than I would have received them from an interlibrary loan. I just need to tweet "Does anyone have access to the Journal of X, 1972?" and within an hour someone will have e-mailed me the PDF. It's tremendously useful. It's important to have a keyword, or hashtag, that others can search for when you want to communicate with networks beyond your own followers. In 2009, I created a hashtag for historians on Twitter: #twitterstorians. At first I was just curious to find and connect with other historians. But the hashtag has turned out to be a useful way http://chronicle.com/article/10-Commandments-of-Twitter-for/131813/

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10 Commandments of Twitter for Academics - Do Your Job Better - The Chronicle of Higher Education

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of marking posts on historical topics and finding colleagues working in the same topic. It's great to be able to search and see what other people are posting related to your field. Other fields have their own tagsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;#histsci and #histmed for the history of science and of medicine, for instance. Whatever your discipline, there's probably a hashtag in use, but if there isn't, create one. A common error I see some academics make on Twitter is to set up an account solely to promote a new book or project. As academics, we all have things to promote from time to time: books, conferences, calls for papers. But in order to promote something successfully on Twitter, you need to already have an audience. Why would anyone follow an account whose sole purpose is a sales pitch? Build an audience first, and the audience will follow if they like you and will then listen once you have something to pitch. You can ask for or about anything on Twitter. I'm consistently in awe of how knowledgeable my Twitter friends are. Asking about academic issues in my field has generated some great conversations about history. I recently founded a journal, and half of the members of the editorial board are people I got to know through tweeting. I've also used the network to find colleagues who are willing to comment on my work or serve on conference panels I'm organizing. I once tweeted for recipe suggestions, having found several bags of dried flageolet beans in my cupboard. Lickedy split I had a recipe for lamb with beans, and also a fabulously delicious bean-and-garlic soup. I've been able to get tips on everything from leather-coat repair to how to treat a burn. When travelling, the first thing I do is tweet asking for local recommendations on restaurants and such. Which brings me to my next point: You are allowed on Twitter to admit to having a life outside of academe. Some scholars are reluctant to show any persona on Twitter beyond a professional one. That's understandable, but it leads to some tedious feeds. ("Today I am at the library/in the lab," or "This afternoon I am reading The Journal of Highfalutin Studies"). It's great to let your followers know what the life of an academic involvesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;indeed, many professors have used the #dayofhighered hashtag recently to demonstrate how they spend their time. But tweeting only when you're engaged in worthy academic activity http://chronicle.com/article/10-Commandments-of-Twitter-for/131813/

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10 Commandments of Twitter for Academics - Do Your Job Better - The Chronicle of Higher Education

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creates a sterile feed. It looks artificial, like you're trying to present yourself as an academic robot. And as it turns out, showing your personality actually impresses students. Should you tweet your students, or allow them to follow you? I see a number of professors not only talking with their students but also using Twitter as a tool to send messages to the class. Whether that would work depends on your institutional culture, but again, the beauty of Twitter is that not everyone has to use it the same way. Another common mistake is just to post links to articles from major publications without any personal commentary. Occasional links to articles or columns that you find particularly interesting are greatâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; especially if you say why you like them. But if your feed just looks like the first page of Google news, no thank you. The immediacy of Twitter does mean that to get something out of it, you've got to participate regularly. But the brevity of it means you can just dip in and out. Twitter can be something you have on in the background while you work. I use Twitter for Mac (the program is free to download), and the little blue bird lights up at the top corner of my screen if someone has written to me. You can also use a smartphone for Twitter if you don't want to use your computer. Because I mostly work from home, Twitter is the "water cooler chat" I would otherwise have with colleagues in the office. My colleagues just happen to be scattered around the world. In closing, let me share my 10 commandments of Twitter use, some of which will repeat points I've made already: 1. Put up an avatar. It doesn't really matter what the picture is, but the "egg picture" (the default avatar for new accounts) makes you look like a spammer. 2. Don't pick a Twitter name that is difficult to spell or remember. 3. Tweet regularly. 4. Don't ignore people who tweet at you. Set Twitter to send you an e-mail notification when you get a mention or a private message. If you don't do that, then check your account frequently. 5. Engage in conversation. Don't just drop in to post your own update and disappear. Twitter is not a "broadcast-only" mechanism; http://chronicle.com/article/10-Commandments-of-Twitter-for/131813/

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10 Commandments of Twitter for Academics - Do Your Job Better - The Chronicle of Higher Education

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it's CB radio. 6. Learn the hashtags for your subject field or topics of interest, and use them. 7. Don't just make statements. Ask questions. 8. Don't just post links to news articles. I don't need you to be my aggregator. 9. Do show your personality. Crack some jokes. 10. Have fun. To get you started, here are some great Twitter accounts of academics to follow: Lauren Hall-Lew, linguistics at the University of Edinburgh (@dialect); Mark Sample, English at George Mason University (@samplereality); Rebecca Goetz, history at Rice University (@historianess); Greg Restall, philosophy at the University of Melbourne (@consequently); and Kate Clancy, anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (@KateClancy). Katrina Gulliver, who has a Ph.D. in the humanities, is a research fellow at a major university in Europe. She has held faculty and administrative positions in Europe and Asia. Her Twitter account is @katrinagulliver. Comments

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polstergeist 1 week ago This is very helpful--I'm on Twitter, but am more of a reader/follower than a tweeter. These suggestions are great. Also--I would like to propose a new hashtag: #highfalutinstudies Because it's delightful. I'm going to follow you, Prof. Gulliver, and resolve to tweet useful, amusing things if you should be interested in following back.

5 people liked this.

http://chronicle.com/article/10-Commandments-of-Twitter-for/131813/

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10 Commandments of Twitter for Academics - Do Your Job Better - The Chronicle of Higher Education

5/20/12 2:36 PM

ikd82 1 week ago I've used Twitter in class assignments, but I found it useful to use a unique account for my students to follow. This might be a solution for those of us who have snoopy bosses, love sending risque photos, or both.

2 people liked this.

Alicia 1 week ago Love this, Katrina!

Sue Beckingham 1 week ago This is a splendid post and captures Twitter as I see it too. The only point I would argue against is number 8 'don't post links to news articles, I don't need you to be my aggregator'. For me such tweets are equally useful as I regularly come across news snippets across the globe I might have otherwise missed (including this post - so thanks to fredgarnett !). The people I choose to follow offer a variety of insights and filter the 'shared useful', Through the use of lists, I can then dip in and out of different topics and engage in the conversations most relevant at the time. My top Twitter tips can be found here

http://www.slideshare.net/sueb...

7 people liked this.

chronanon 1 week ago in reply to Sue Beckingham Concurred. I use twitter in part as a news aggregator; there are some great highered tweeps out there! There's a list to get you started at https://twitter.com/idealranki...

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reinking 1 week ago The responses thus far seem to be from the converted despite that the article's target audience seems to be non-tweeters. I am in that target audience and remain unconvinced. In fact, some of the reasons cited reinforce why I am not inclined to become a twitter user. For example, I feel a need to be more, not less, insulated from random information and contacts (e.g., the doc student who emailed me from afar asking for 10 viable dissertation topics). I also often feel a need for more, not less, filtering of information. I have a variety of non-twitter sources that keep me connected with noteworthy information and sources that are not shared at whim and thus more likely to be carefully reasoned and vetted from reliable sources. Some of the information cited as usefully available through twitter, could just as easily be found through other online avenues. For example, a host of lamb and bean recipes could be found with a few clicks on the Internet without bothering anyone else. Likewise, email or blackboard forums allow easy communication with students. Likewise, the retrieval of an obscure article might also be found through other means just as easily. Nor do I feel a need to validate my professional identity or accomplishments by being re-tweeted by a "celebrity." That is not to say that twitter may have some charms and benefits and that it may serve some people quite well for their purposes. But, for me, I found nothing in this article that leads me to add twitter to an already rich and extensive repertoire of online options for communication.

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http://chronicle.com/article/10-Commandments-of-Twitter-for/131813/

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10 Commandments of Twitter for Academics - Do Your Job Better - The Chronicle of Higher Education

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mkt42 1 week ago in reply to reinking Yup, another twitter devotee wrote a similar article a couple of months ago so at that point I finally gave twitter a try. I signed up to follow a variety of people, recommended by that author or based on my personal interests. The results: In those 2-3 months I've found almost nothing that was useful, and after a couple of months I stopped regularly checking the account. Some examples: in telling other people why I was reluctant to try twitter, I used to say "I don't care if it's President Obama, I'm not interested in reading his tweets. If he has something important to say, it'll be on the news". That one turned out to be clearly true very quickly, I never did get an interesting tweet from the White House and I quickly stopped following the White House tweets. Obama says plenty of stuff that's of interest, almost every day, but when I want to see what he's said, I check an online new site, it's way more efficient than wading through dozens of irrelevant tweets. Same for the higher ed people that were recommended; only once did a tweet lead me to a semi-interesting article that I otherwise wouldn't have read. The rest of them led me to articles that were not of interest to me, or that I would've read anyway (articles in IHE or the CHE e.g.). The one twitter stream that I found a little bit interesting was the New Yorker's. But what I've since found is that it's way more efficient to simply go to the New Yorker's website when I feel like finding an article to read. I followed a few entertainment sites, but once again found that if I wanted to see what was going on, it was more efficient to just go to their website. Tweets coming in when I'm too busy or not in the mood for entertainment are not of value. The only set of tweets that I've ever truly liked were from the person impersonating the Bronx Zoo Cobra. But once again, what I found was that the best way to follow "Mia" was to go to her twitter site when I felt like getting a laugh. The actual twitter feed is not something that's useful. Now it is true enough that there is some potentially useful social networking that can go on. A group of people with similar interests sharing information and views with each other -- great! Moreover, that's a function which used to be filled by UseNet (virtually useless nowadays, rumors of the Death of UseNet turned out to be true), and is only partially filled by blogs and boards (the unmoderated public ones are a horror show of trolls and flamewars). If there are groups of people on twitter sharing information in a useful way, that'd be great and I should keep on looking for such groups. But: twitter is unmoderated, right? How long will it be before those twitter groups become infested with trolls and flames?

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disembedded 1 week ago Very elementary.

Jacquelyn Gill 1 week ago in reply to disembedded Clearly this is targeted at people who are looking to break into Twitter. You'd be surprised at how little of this is known -- I've had a number of people ask me questions like this.

2 people liked this.

Patrick Dunleavy 1 week ago Interesting piece here, but perhaps not quite addressing the more fundamental issues for academics or researchers new to Twitter and to the concept of develoing a specialist newstream that can alert you to lots of stuff and also get awareness of your reserhc papers, blogs etc up a lot. http://chronicle.com/article/10-Commandments-of-Twitter-for/131813/

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10 Commandments of Twitter for Academics - Do Your Job Better - The Chronicle of Higher Education

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So readers might find useful the longer "Twitter Guide" covering research, teaching and impacts uses, produced by the Impacts project at the London School of Economics. It is free to donwload at:

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impacto...

7 people liked this.

dr_bibliotekar 1 week ago Not to rain on the parade, but your suggestion that Twitter is useful for accessing scholarly journal materials made at least one reader a little nervous. I'm sure it happens all the time and the sharing of information is good but the legal channels of ILL exist because they accord with copyright laws. Were this to become a widespread phenomenon, I'm sure database and ejournal vendors would consider yet more ways of safeguarding their content, either through preventive or punitive measures. While ILL response times may leave a little to be desired in this day of instant access, copyright violations done in private are one thing. Copyright violations that leave publicly visible hints of either direct or contributory infringement are another. I'll take my lawyer hat off now and mention that I enjoyed the post.

25 people liked this.

Lacie Marie Bremer-Crone 1 week ago I am an avid user of Twitter and have found it useful when preparing for a job interview. By following what is being tweeted within academia and nursing, I find that I can stay on top of a decent amount of what is relevant to my professions. One of the more powerful examples of the potential of Twitter came when I was stuck at BWI and wanted to find a Starbucks. I tweeted my lack of caffeine, only mentioning I was at BWI (no hashtags) and immediately received a response from the airport asking what concourse I was on. When I replied to that I received directions to two different coffee shops and an apology that neither was a Starbucks.

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westtexas 1 week ago Eleventh Commandment: Meet someone for lunch or softball instead.

Richard Grayson 1 week ago I guess if you have the time to kill and want to spend more of your life looking at a screen, this is a wonderfully helpful article. Thanks.

16 people liked this.

elimba75 1 week ago Katrina said: "Twitter can be something you have on in the background while you work. " Well, this statement from a researcher in the humanities is quite understandable. I am afraid that in many other disciplines (ex. hard sciences) where you really need to focus on the task at hand,

http://chronicle.com/article/10-Commandments-of-Twitter-for/131813/

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10 Commandments of Twitter for Academics - Do Your Job Better - The Chronicle of Higher Education

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Tweeter is too much of a distration. Imagine that you got 300 followers on Twitter with a third whispering in text something to you every 3 or 5 minutes with the expectation of an instant reply. This may sound like music to the ears of someone in the humanities like Katrina but a real nuisance to others. In addition, the benefits of Twitter listed in this article in relation to research are nothing but illusion. There are many well established channels used by serious researchers to get the same benefits without the distractions. Researchers have been communicating, exchanging information, finding what they need successfuly long before Twitter and other social media even existed. I have a question: Why is the Chronicle of Higher Education pushing lately on researchers these kind of articles on social media tools ? I have a hint: Academia is a big market that has been reluctant for some time, to join the social media frenzy. To Tweet or not to tweet ? Who has the answer ?

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agailey 1 week ago in reply to elimba75 Oh, I see. We in the humanities are such lightweights that we can afford to be constantly distracted, whereas great minds like yours can only afford to be distracted by opportunities to post broadly insulting comments on discussion threads.

30 people liked this.

Gretchen Jennings 1 week ago Though not an academic I am a senior museum professional, and wrote a similar post, "Twitter for the Rest of Us" on my blog, Museum Commons http:museumcommons.blogspot.co... I agree with all you have said. The learning possibilities are endless, and the only way to know is to get on and try. No amount of description can substitute for the experience.

Layl M de De Sedas 1 week ago very true!

Monterey Bay Forum 1 week ago "pay attention to those who tweet you" sounds great. how to do it not on Mac computer. what settings ?

Katrina Gulliver 1 week ago in reply to Monterey Bay Forum On the twitter website, you can look up all the @ mentions you have received. There are also a number of twitter client programs available. All will be able to show when you get a mention.

http://chronicle.com/article/10-Commandments-of-Twitter-for/131813/

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10 Commandments of Twitter for Academics - Do Your Job Better - The Chronicle of Higher Education

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Ian Ashton 1 week ago I like your take on twitter. Some elitists and some snobs pride themselves on never going on 'social networks' . You make it what it is and make it work for you. Without twitter I would not have read this article.

5 people liked this.

edwebb 1 week ago in reply to Ian Ashton I, too, only read this because of a tweet (by @dandrezner). This is a nice piece for those who have not yet found productive uses for Twitter. Those who don't like it/the sound of it don't have to use it.

1 person liked this.

Cristian Opazo 1 week ago The Twitter Paradox: a tool that apparently requires the least amount of effort to use (140 characters, plain text, zero bells & whistles, etc.) ends up being the most timeconsuming to use. IMHO, that's the main hurdle for adoption among academics. It takes a while to see you are making any impact at all.

3 people liked this.

awegweiser 1 week ago 140 character limit? Who decided on that magic number and why? It does give people a fine chance to make up distortions of the proper use of language. Twitter seems as silly to me as its name - and yes, I know millions love it. I'll stick with email and telephone - perhaps Facebook at times.

1 person liked this.

asongbird 6 days ago Well, posting on Twitter as if it's Facebook seems a waste of time due to the nature of the beast. I have to say I use it mainly as a billboard; the very nature of Twitter....how fast it goes by...negotiates against it. I personally do not have time or inclination to remain glued to the feed, even "on the side" ...so I still really don't think Twitter is all that useful. I personally ignore the "twitterings" on the side of Facebook...and personally too I only visit Facebook or LinkedIn once or twice a day, during a break. I actually have...gulp, sorry....OTHER THINGS TO DO!!! IN REAL LIFE!!!! PS I am actually on the computer most of the day, too...as a musician AND as a humanities scholar.

bibliothecula 6 days ago This is great advice for folks new to Twitter or social media in general. My activity on Twitter has resulted on sales of my books, conversations about the future of important issues in my career and life, and sparked many an idea for research or just plain fun things to do.

http://chronicle.com/article/10-Commandments-of-Twitter-for/131813/

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10 Commandments of Twitter for Academics - Do Your Job Better - The Chronicle of Higher Education

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Ralph Poore 4 days ago Katrina, when I use hashtags my tweets don't show up in the stream for that topic. Searching around, it appears that hashtags don't work anymore.

Katrina Gulliver 4 days ago in reply to Ralph Poore Not sure what the problem is that you're having. I just searched for a number of hashtag phrases, they seem to be working....

brynnn 2 days ago Here's a commandment I would very much like every academic I know to follow: do not -- I repeat, do not! -- use Twitter to complain about your students. I am shocked every time I witness this. Though you may be out of the classroom at that particular moment, please, continue to attempt to have some class.

http://chronicle.com/article/10-Commandments-of-Twitter-for/131813/

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