• Keep your username short and easy to remember. This is particularly important when using Twitter, as short usernames take up less space in twitter messages (remember you only have 140 characters in a tweet). This is important when replying to other people’s Tweets, as their username is at the front of the message.
   
• Having an informative bio helps people work out who you are. If you are using your real name there might be others with the same name – so having a user picture and bio that indicates who you are can be very useful.
   
• Use photos in your posts – this will make your posts more eye-catching when they appear on other's Twitter or Facebook feeds. So if you have a picture related to your tweet or work, use it. Just be aware they do take up part of your 140 characters and ensure you comply with copyright.
  
  
   
• Keep your tone professional, but friendly. Let your personality shine through, and don’t be afraid to post fun things occasionally, even if you want a mostly academic account.
   
• When to post is important – think about when you are posting, are the people you want to talk to likely to be online? Who your tweets reach can depend on the times you post.
   
• Engage with people - as well as promoting your own work make sure to take an interest in other people. Try to take time to re-tweet interesting tweets and reply to tweets aimed at you, or share blog posts written by others.
   
• Don’t spam – If you are going to be tweeting a lot in a short period of time (for example live tweeting a conference), let your followers know.
   
• Don’t forget to advertise your account – you might want to put it in an email signature, on your blog etc.

• The Times Higher Education A-Z of Social Media for Academia
• Academic Social Networks (with details on promoting your research on Social Media) - Guide from the Office of Scholarly Communications  

As with any source it is important to evaluate material that you find on social media as anyone can post any information, for any purpose and at any time. The following checklist can help you to evaluate any material you find.

• Network - Do they follow or have followers from accounts that are connected to their area of research?
• Context - Do they usually post or tweet on particular topics? If so, what have they said in the past and does this give any more detail or context to their post?
• Content - Can the information be corroborated from other sources? Is this an expressed opinion or a research based post? Check any links and evaluate these as you would any other source of information
• Date account was created - Recently created accounts may be harder to evaluate as they might not have a large network established or archive of previous posts to look at.
• Location of the source - Are they in or connected to the place they are writing about?
• Bias – Is this a personal account or connected to an organisation and if so is there are possibility of bias.
• Date of post – When was this post written, be especially careful of that have been shared or retweeted as these could be referring to old information and events.

Most social media platforms have their own in-house analytical tools to show the reach and impact of your posts and tweets.

Facebook: Insights

There is a distinction between a personal profile and a business page (Insights are only available on public Facebook pages rather than personal profiles and then only after at least 30 people have liked a page)

Click on the insights tab on the toolbar

Twitter: Analytics (available on all Twitter accounts)

https://analytics.twitter.com

YouTube: Analytics (Available on all YouTube accounts)

www.youtube.com/analytics

Further reading:

Stuart, D. (2014). Evaluating social media impact. In Web metrics for library and information professionals (pp. 87–113). London: Facet.

Copy available at the Faculty of Education Library here