Martyn BullISIS Neutron and Muon Source

martyn.bull@stfc.ac.uk

twitter.com/moomoobull

www.isis.stfc.ac.uk

twitter.com/isisneutronmuon

Broadcast yourself:

Maximising your reach

with social media

A short introduction to social media for scientists. I give some

starting points on what to use when, and emphasise the

importance of using online activity to support real-world

events.

www.idfive.com

A (somewhat incomplete) timeline of social media

2000 2005

I define social media as a way of exchanging a message

between two people who are not physically close to each

other.So, the first postal service in Persia could be thought of as

the first social network.Amazingly, only with the arrival of electricity and powerful

computing have we been able to do any better.And only in the last decade have we really begun to harness

the power of sharing information in creative ways using

computers.

Most of the familiar names we associate with social media

such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, were barely functioning

5 years ago.

The problem for you and me is that there are hundreds of

possible social networks available to use. Why should you

bother to use any of them? How do you make good choices

between them?

http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/social-media-

stats/2011-social-network-analysis-report/

Luckily, some social networks are dead…

Plaxo

Others are dying out...

hi5

…or cover odd regions of the world.

Facebook

Those that are popular are continuing to grow, and have wide

use across income ranges, age and gender. Facebook is one

of the most widely used social networks.

Flickr

Flickr for photo sharing is strong in the UK

Linked in

LinkedIn is growing and in the UK is becoming more

widespread with particular use as a business-to-business

professional networking tool

Twitter

Twitter has exploded in popularity because it is simple and

easy to use and very effective. It also has a wide spread of

use across the world.

YouTube

YouTube is a global phenomena for video sharing, but also

includes strong social networking capability that is heavily

exploited.

UK Demographic - April 2011

In the UK, the YouTube demographic is around 30% female

use, and for both male and female has strong participation in

the 13-24 age range, key demographics for STFC public

engagement

http://www.vincos.it/world-map-of-social-networks/

It’s worth contemplating the global reach of Facebook and

how this is increasingly dominant

…although in 2011, we see that new networks in Russia are

leading the fight back.

UK media consumption habits

Ofcom 7th annual communications market report August 2010

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/market-data-

research/market-data/communications-market-

reports/cmr10/

When thinking about social media, you have to think about

what your audience is doing at a given time. At 9pm in the

evening, most people in the UK are watching TV, whereas in

the morning radio dominates

40% of time on a computer is spent communicating with other

people: for all age groups, communication makes up a large

proportion of activity done on a computer. For 16-24s, it peaks to

over 50% computer time. They are more likely to use social

networking (23% of all computer activity) and instant messaging

(14%)

A significant fraction of activity on computers is devoted to

communicating

And in the UK now, home internet access has good reach

across all ages and socio-economic groupings

User-generated content sites continue to grow: YouTube remains the most

popular video-sharing site, growing by 13% year-on-year to reach 17.5 million

monthly unique users.

Commenting on blogs saw a significant growth in take-up between 2007 and

2009, from 19% to 27%

The younger an internet user is, the more likely they are to have experience

of a given social media activity.

Mobile devices are finding greater use for social networking

Most people are comfortable uploading pictures or updating

their profile, but are less comfortable updating Wikipedia or

creating video

And looking at how valuable different activities are to people,

communicating digitally is very important

Increasingly, people are multitasking and consuming media

on two or more screens

Where are you?

Where is your audience?

Which means that not only do you have to think about what

your audience is doing, but where they are doing it. No longer

are computers tied to desks with wires.

blends science into the mix of

everyday culture

shares knowledge beyond the

paywalls of journals and

newspapers

Why use social networking?

For scientists, I believe there is great value in using social

media, not just to communicate with other scientists, but as a

way of bridging the gap between science and other parts of

life

rapid alerting for your

networks - saving them time

make use of the things that

fall in the cracks between

publications

Why use social networking?

You can save people time, alerting your peers to new work,

and find an outlet for all the things that research publications

aren’t bothered with

shows you to be

active and vibrant

share context and

interpretation

Why use social networking?

Social media gives you a voice beyond your lab, and enables

you to contribute to discussion about research with a wider

audience than your research colleagues

explain the process and

business of doing science

a powerful way to reinforce

real world activity continuing

the engagement after events

Why use social networking?

With social media, you can discuss how science works with a

non-specialist audience, giving deeper understanding to the

background behind results, and it allows you to continue

conversations with an audience once an event is over.

Why use social networking?

clearly communicate your

research to people beyond

your specialist area

One of the biggest benefits is that social media allows you to

practice explaining your research to non-specialists

Making sense of it all: Social media dashboards

I recommend using social media dashboards to keep on top

of the different services you use. They are easy to use and

configure, and will keep you from being buried in a never-

ending river of updates.

Making sense of it all: Collaborate

work in a group to share the

load and provide a variety of

perspectives

it takes time to build

community, so don’t be

discouraged if you don't get

immediate results

I also recommend sharing the task of updating the networks

with a group of colleagues. It keeps the workload per person

at a manageable level.

Making sense of it all

online activity complements

face-to-face activity

have social media be part of

your overall communication

aimsOnline activity alone will not replace on-the-ground activity,

but it can form part of your communication strategy for a

particular project

Making sense of it all: what to use

+ mobile apps to update on the move

Here is my recommendation on social media services to use,

starting with simple and easy-to-use services and moving on

to those requiring more investment of time and skill.

Social networking confidence

Consumer

Curator

Creator

Online Ninja

Constant practice makes you

a better communicatorAnd over time you will move along the curve of social media

confidence from consumer to online ninja