Birds of a feather tweet togetherEsther De Smet

Identify your impact

Be proud

Be open

SELF: KNOWLEDGE & DEVELOPMENT

Science is based on building on, reusing and

openly criticising the body of scientific

knowledge.

Panton Principles

He who works with his door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he

can alsooccasionally get clues as to what the world outside

is and what might be important.

Richard Hamming (mathematician)

Pixar says:Why must

you tell this story?

What’s the belief burning

within you that your

story feeds off of?

That’s the heart of it.

AUTHENTICITY

MEANINGFUL ENCOUNTERS

Discoverability of you and your work

Funding

Training

Network

TIME TO BE BRAVE

NETWORKS - TOOLS

• Self-promotion• Time

pressures/procrastination

• Exposure of person/ideas

• Plagiarism/commercialisation

• Obligation• Institutional rules

Status anxietyAccelerated academy

Open science

CHALLENGES

IS IT WORTH IT?

Highly tweeted articles were 11 times more likely

to be highly cited. (Eysenbach 2011)

Blog posts about recent articles help boost

citations but is looks like a correlation, not

causation. But science blogs are on the rise.

Social media promotion doesn’t have a significant effect on article download rates when your readers aren’t on social media.Factors driving social

media and citations are different. Social media can not be seen as an alternative to citations.

(Haustein 2015)

What do you want to achieve by engaging with social media?

Consider producing social media content as a normal part of your (working) life

Develop a sense of the advantages and limitations of each different platform

Be realistic about the time available to you. Know who can help you.

Be aware of your digital footprint. Invest in visibility.

Re-use content but adapt. Get your timing and story right.

Have fun!

MAKE IT WORK FOR YOU

Generate/refine ideasHone writing skills

Discover/share resourcesCreate a network

Professional developmentCareer opportunities

Media/public engagement

Create involvement

Conference back-channel

SOCIAL

TWITTER

Online collaboration: Scientists and the social network, Richard Van Noorden, Nature 512, 126–129 (14 August 2014)

Determine a strategy and

stick to it

Management of expectations: bio & content/activity to

match

Tweet ‘thickly’ and according to the rules

Build a network and include influencers

Social medium = interact

Authenticity, nice/politeness, and

integrity

Convinced?

Why not create your own Twitter account!

#ShareMyThesis

#TweetYourThesis

@lolmythesis

Typing numbers wrongly in hospitals can kill people. Understanding why it happens can help design better systems and stop it!

Does UK learn from history in Middle East? Could it improve? Crucial research to avoid past mistakes & save blood & treasure.

Can we forecast average weather conditions months in advance? Sure. What about malaria? Yep. How?

I killed a ton of chicken embryos and pulled out their eyes for months, just to find out that chicken eye neurons don’t like chemicals.

Male baboons don't care about the symmetry of female baboon butts, but other females might.

The key to coexistence between big cats and livestock farmers? One word: compassion.

Esther De SmetResearch Department

Ghent University@sterretje8

Thank you for participating!