Tips for academic social media
PN Cohen photo: flic.kr/p/2hyVLDx
I gave a talk on using social media to a great group of students attending or preparing to attend graduate school, at the Organizational Science Summer Institute at UNC-Charlotte.
The good parts about using social media for academics are worth appreciating. These include the ability to engage in instant, free, multidirectional communication, which allows you to expand your network in unexpected ways, and also to shape your own image with intentionality. It’s also valuable to express yourself, if the conditions are right. On the other hand, social media present the risk of waste a huge amount of time, substituting fleeting, ephemeral work for substantive investment on weightier contributions. It may be risky, too, as the cost of a bad tweet can be shockingly high. Further, for some people the constant cycle of attention and rejection provokes anxiety, fuels imposter syndrome, and generates FOMO. And at the extreme side, social media sites are cesspools of hate and abuse, built on a business model the runs on polarization and outrage, where women and scholars of color suffer targeted attacks, and hate groups organize at will. So, pros and cons.
After that cheerful introduction, I offered some specific tips. (First I shared the pointers I planned to give on Twitter, and incorporated some of the suggestions from that thread.) It happened to be:
10 best practice tips for academic social media
1. Be generous
Lift up others, especially those with smaller platforms than you, or members of marginalized groups. Share things that are helpful to readers.
2. Be shameless
Promote your work. Share praise of your work, with gratitude. Delete posts that don’t work out.
3. Follow exemplars
Find some people who are more successful at doing what you’re trying to do, and do what they do.
4. Be a friend
Develop reciprocal relationships with people in adjacent roles, like other academics, journalists, or activists. Don’t overreact to negative things, don’t hold grudges.
5. Reach beyond your network
Don’t just talk to people, listen to them. Find ways to help: promote their work, do descriptive analysis, share resources. Don’t expect immediate rewards, don’t grouse about credit.
6. Don’t punch down
Don’t make jokes at the expense of weaker people, or direct harsh criticism at junior scholars or nonscholars – unless they are truly bad actors. Err on the side of kindness.
7. Help people do the reading
When promoting scholarly work, write short versions, twitter threads, or blog posts, to tell the story simply; use pictures. Make it easy to understand and convenient to share.
8. Don’t post paywalled links
Sharing links to things people can’t read free is rude, unless you make it clear you’re giving them information about something to buy. Do the work of finding free versions.
9. Set limits
It was there before you got there, and it will be there when you’re gone. When you’re using social media, it’s hard to see the valuable things you may be missing elsewhere. Spend time away and don’t try to catch up. Pick your pace; don’t let others suck you in. Respond tomorrow!
10. It’s OK to block people
Unless you are a government official performing your duties on social media, following you is a privilege, not a right. If someone proves to be an irredeemable hassle, pain in the neck, or abuser, blocking them is a very reasonable response. We take a risk by speaking openly to the public without restriction. To make it worthwhile, and safe, sometimes we need to exclude bad actors.
