Three months into shutdown, much of our existence is in the digital space. We no longer meet colleagues, travel to attend conferences or enjoy the serendipitous moments where you meet the right person when the right thought is in your head. Instead our personas are online and our engagements across various online platforms. It’s therefore timely to either start thinking about how to build up a more effective online presence or to refresh your profiles and engagement with new goals in mind.
This Pop-Up session is currently in Zoom – because of a technical hitch with Collaborate on the morning of our session – but will expire on July 14th (if it’s not working and you want me to re-record the session, let me know).
Session recording – watch until July
Session slides – improving your online presence
I’ve also put together a short handbook based on the session and the questions we discussed.
This includes a few links – there’s so much advice out there that it’s probably best for you to look for good practice from researchers in your own field.
A reminder of some key points:
Work out what you want an enhanced online profile to deliver
Look for good practice from people who are achieving these aims and decide what you are comfortable with (you want a sustained and consistent approach, not one that will exhaust you to maintain or feel inauthentic)
Make sure that your profile is up to date – engage with site owners if not to have old material removed
Try to be visual if you can – I mentioned Canva and Piktochart in my talk as well as referencing the excellent researcher mental health visuals created by Dr Zoe Ayres.
Social distanced doesn’t have to mean socially isolated – it’s a great time to be more visible online for all kinds of reasons, but connecting with a community could bring particular benefits at the moment.
PS
My colleague Nicola had a look online at different support around engaging people with your research and building your research profile and found lots of information
https://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/do-engagement/choose-method/social-media
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2011/09/29/twitter-guide/
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/a-z-social-media#
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/comment/why-academics-should-make-time-for-social-media-app
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/career/tips-academics-blogging-and-social-media
https://www.bath.ac.uk/guides/engaging-public-groups-with-your-research/
She’s also reminded me that we have another workshop and a complementary online resource Social Media and Boosting the Impact of Publications. The workshop (Social Media: Sharing, Connecting and Building an Audience) will be advertised through our usual booking channels when scheduled but in the meantime, the following online guide is available: http://www.docs.hss.ed.ac.uk/iad/Researchers/Research_staff/Boosting_the_Impact_of_Publications_Online%20Resource_FINAL.pdf
This training was developed to support our research staff including our Train@Ed cohort of fellows. Train@Ed has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska‐Curie grant agreement No. 801215
