Social media for scientists:Boosting your impactJulia VeitchMarketing & Communications, Central Clinical School, Monash University17 September 2014
Central Clinical School
Social media for scientists 217 September 2014
This presentation covers:
• Part 1: Overview of social media – how & why it’s useful
• Part 2: How Central Clinical School is using it
• Part 3: Case study of a publication
Central Clinical School
Social media for scientists 3
What are the main features of social media?• Social i.e. interactive
• Easy to show & share things with people
• Easy for others to share your news – capacity to amplify
• Individually driven : “Views expressed are my own” – individual profile belongs to the individual, not the org
• Scalability – e.g. a video can be viewed an infinite number of times.
• Following is voluntary – capacity to target and develop highly specialised interest groups & networks.
Central Clinical School
Part 1: Overview of social media
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Figure 1. Monthly potential audience by communication methodology – capacity to amplify
Bik HM, Goldstein MC (2013) An Introduction to Social Media for Scientists. PLoS Biol 11(4): e1001535. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001535
http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001535
White fill - social media
Grey fill - traditional
Social media for scientists
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http://melissaterras.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/is-blogging-and-tweeting-about-research.html
“Upon blogging and tweeting, within 24 hours, there were on average 70 downloads of my papers.”
Melissa Terras
The papers that were tweeted and blogged had >11x the number of downloads than their sibling paper which was left to its own devices in the institutional repository.
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• http://cameronwebb.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/can-social-media-increase-the-exposure-of-newly-published-research/ (2013)
• http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001535 (2013)
• http://melissaterras.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/is-blogging-and-tweeting-about-research.html (2012)
The metrics, for all the caveats, indicate that
if you tell people about your work, they look at it and are more likely to cite it.
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Part 2: Central Clinical School communications
Traffic out from a communications platform with quality, current content
• Increases traffic in - the more ways, the better
• Increase our connections to relevant networks – capacity to amplify
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How does social media help the school?
Specific benefits
• Increases views and downloads of publications & products.
• Increases recruitment to events, varying on the type of event and the target audience.
• Enables widespread, rapid dissemination well beyond the School’s own capacity
• Value for effort is high
• Case study: FODMAP
Central Clinical School
43%
17%
17%
11%
7%
2013 FODMAP public lecture (N=488 survey respondents)
Website
Social media
Word of mouth
University
SIG
Advertisement or notice
Natalie Nott
Medico referral Dec-1
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500
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FODMAP app downloads
Apple
Android
Cross-promotionbenefit:
Oct 2013 peakwith FODMAP public lecture promotions
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Platforms used by CCS:
Central Clinical School
Website: Content Management SystemStable repository of institutional, quality controlled information
Social mediaFlexible, fast, capable of interaction & customising for niche groups.Channels for both broadcasting & dialogue. Output linked back to either web pages or blog entries.
• Blog: Google blogger (similar function to website but news specific & easy to share)
• Short posts: Twitter (owned by FB, needs Hootsuite workaround for feed to G+ page)
• Video: Youtube (owned by Google & direct feeds to G+ page)
• Images: Pinterest (virtual pinboard for photos and videos)
• Google+ page (hub for CCSMonash social media channels)
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Presentation title 1017 September 2014
Notes:
Facebook owns Twitter – therefore no RSS feed of Twitter to Google+ except via Hootsuite. Google owns Blogger, Youtube and Photo galleries
CCS has now set up a dummy FB profile to manage all Dept FB accounts
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Central Clinical School
CCS public website
Web viewing stats –
100 views/week to 30,000 views/weekin 3 years – spikes are media stories
Social media linked - Feed & share widgets used e.g. youtube, twitter.
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Central Clinical School
CCS blog• Feeds to Google+ page
• Features CCS original news only
• Story links emailed weekly to distribution list (≈800)
• Searchable by search engines
• Linked & categorised
• Stats: 4,800 unique visitors (counted only once) in 12 mths;12,600+ page views
• Spikes of activity on creationof new entries & mailout. Traffic out = Traffic in
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Central Clinical School
CCS Twitter• Feed from CCS Youtube
channel
• Broadcasts CCS news
• Publications scheduled from Faculty monthly pubs lists
• Searchable within Twitter
• Linked back to informationsources
Statistics
• Launched in May 2013
• 443 followers
• 301 retweets from 1,150 tweets (ratio of 1:4) i.e. going into other channels
• Traffic out keeps on going out
2 RTs of this went to 19,500 people
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MAPrc28%
Admin24%
Immunology17%
Gastro10%
Medicine7%
NTRI3%
Inf. Diseases3%
Baker3%
ACBD3%
CCS followers by Department (N=35)
Central Clinical School
@CCSMonash followers
Individual44%
Organisations16%
CCS
SIG13%
Monash6%
Media5%
All followers segmented (N=443)
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Central Clinical School
CCS youtube channel home page
Statistics• 76 video clips
• 28,500+ views (15,000 FODMAP)
• 133 subscribers
• Videos sell themselves – post them and they havea life of their own
Content:• HODs
• Research
• 3MT
• Student profiles
• Events
Deployed:• Web pages
• Blog
• Google+
• Events
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Dec 2013 FODMAP lecture upload
Aug 2014 recipe upload for Catalyst broadcast
16
Central Clinical School
CCS Google+ social media hub pageContent:
• Feed driven:
• Videos
• Blog
• Twitter via Hootsuite
• Photos (75% of all views)
• Events
• Ad hoc posts
Connections:
• ‘Circles’
• SIGs, Alumni, Professional
Statistics
• 175,000+ views in 8 mths
• 90 followers
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Part 3: Case study – Professor T.R. Vidyasagar
TwitterIf you start leading, people will start following.
YoutubeA visual blog, with a much longer life thana tweet
What Sagar has done• Created Twitter & Youtube accounts
• Timed Twitter & Youtube output to amplify effect i.e. increase views of his paper
• Linked back to source material
• Added a Twitter feed window on his web page
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18Social media for scientists
Tweet build & impactLink to Sagar’s youtube video, in which he gives an extempore, short account of content of a recent paper published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience which is open access. This tweet has been retweeted (RT) 9x, to 6400 people.
Having a good follower base:
Sagar has a ‘fan’ – a fellow scientist with 881 followers on Twitter. She ‘powers up’ his tweets by RTing. Her followers then RT further. He RTs her tweets, to show goodwill since he has only 24 followers at this point. Lacking a Silvia, use your institution’s Twitter feed.
Ow.ly – shortens the link since a tweet is only 140 characters long. Link goes directly to the Frontiers paper
# Hashtag – indexes the item so it’s easierto find
Twitter ‘handle’ or name – make it obvious
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Embedded Twitter feed
• Stable anchor point of host web page in organisational context
• Dynamic feed through widget window - host web page does not require updating
• Options for viewers
• following or browsing
• Communicating via the medium
• Sharing the item
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Youtube
Setting up the channel & entry – links, links, links
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ResultsViews of the paper
No. of views of the Frontiers paper before (72 views in 20 days) and after the tweet went out (a further 130 in 5 days) i.e. 10x more/day. It is a spike & dwindles quickly. A further tweet of the youtube link explaining the research created further views. Total to date is 640. 9 retweets (RT) resulted in a total Twitter audience of 6,438.
Youtube will have a longer term effect than a tweet to create views and downloads of the paper, as youtube is searchable from any internet search engine. 218 views to date on the video.
Sagar’s warning: Beware the ‘Digital Drain’ – be very targeted. Get your Comms officer to help you.
30/11/13 Sagar’s tweet of
his video
1/12/13 Silvia’s RT of Sagar’s video
5 day blocks1 2 3 4 5
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140DownloadsViews
Downloads (DL) of full paper
• 142 DLs in 3 months. (Nov 8 - Feb 11), 25 in 5 days following tweets. Average DLs approx 50/mth. Compare with:
• 286 DLs in 27 months. (2011 Frontiers paper) Average DLs 11/mth.
Paper viewsYoutube views
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Summary
Central Clinical School
• What drives web & social media traffic? Traffic out Traffic in; Capacity to share
• What is good for the visitor? They find what they want & need i.e. accurate, linked, current, regularly updated, accessible (indexed & clearly written) information attractively presented in a variety of suitable formats (calendars, text, pictures, video) which is easy to share e.g. retweet for Twitter.
• What is good for authors? The platform is easy to use, & content is easy to share including dynamic, automated feeds to pages and channels; resulting in increased dissemination & citations of content. Central support is available from Monash; but social media done by in particular by individuals to peers can substantially boost the impact, especially since there is a relative window of opportunity while the market is still not saturated.
• What enables it? In real estate, the mantra is ‘Location, location, location’. In the digital world, it’s ‘Links, Links, Links’
• What is bad for authors? Time consuming, potential to be ‘trolled’. See appendices for lists of pros and cons.
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Central Clinical School
Julia Veitch [email protected] x30026
• Fulltime
• Developing & managing all aspects of CCS comms
Vithya Premkumar [email protected] x30368
• 12 hrs/week
• Systems set up, support, cms, enews, intranet, calendars etc
Dussy Kuttner [email protected]
• 12 hrs/fortnight
• Journalism, social media
The CCS comms team & what we do
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Appendix: Table 1. Comparison of Online Tools
Bik HM, Goldstein MC (2013) An Introduction to Social Media for Scientists. PLoS Biol 11(4): e1001535. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001535
http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001535
Platform Pros Cons
Blogs Longevity; posts are accessible via search engines
Robust platform for building an online reputation
Time investment for preparing thoughtful posts Posts should be disseminated and advertised via
other platforms
Twitter Low time investment, short posts Ability to rapidly join online conversations The most current source for breaking news
and topical conversation
Posts are quickly buried under new content Twitter does not make its archive database
accessible to search Gaining followers can be a slow & difficult process
Facebook Established juggernaut in the social media world
Ability to create ‘groups’ and ‘pages’ for a person or cause
Privacy concerns Frequent changes to layout, features and settings
Google+ Integration with Google tools Easily manage privacy/visibility by grouping
contacts into ‘circles’
User base not unique compared to other sites Users still unsure how to use it
Social media for scientists
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Appendix Figure 2. Flowchart showing a decision tree for scientists who are interested in communicating online
Bik HM, Goldstein MC (2013) An Introduction to Social Media for
Scientists. PLoS Biol 11(4): e1001535.
doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001535
http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001535
Social media for scientists
• Who
• Why
• How
• Time
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Appendix Figure 3. Common online communication fears and suggested solutions
Bik HM, Goldstein MC (2013) An Introduction to Social Media for Scientists. PLoS Biol 11(4): e1001535. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001535
http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001535
Wasting time [JV add]
Social media for scientists
Work with your Communications officer to save time and to link into other bigger networks
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