103 Social Media | How to Share Content Effectively
How to Manage Social Media and Your Time
“A bigger challenge is to continue tweeting regularly once you have started, which is essential to habit change”
– Ten simple rules for getting started on Twitter as a scientist
Beyond establishing a habit, ensure that you are creating value for yourself by using social media to find information you might find elsewhere. For example, follow a granting agency on Twitter to find out about upcoming deadlines or announcements.
Another way to keep posting regularly is to schedule time to do social media into your day or week. Just like exercise, once it is scheduled in your calendar, you have to do it!
Deeper DiveRead Is Social Media Consuming Your Life? Let’s Talk About Digital Wellbeing: a discussion of social media and procrastination.
Plan your social media posts in advance, so content can be posted even if you are not online, or content might be posted on specific days to coincide with specific themes (#sharkweek, #BlackinSTEM, #univresearch, #socialworkweek).
Social media planning tools like Twittimer or Hootsuite, allow you to compose a tweet in the system, that is automatically posted to Twitter at a particular selected time in the future. Other tools like Hootsuite, allow you to schedule posts for multiple social media platforms within one tool. For example, Facebook and Twitter. However, avoid posting the exact same post to different social media tools, called cross posting, for the following reasons:
- Different platforms use different image sizes and different message lengths.
- Different platforms require different tone of writing and message.
- Research has found different image content performs well on different platforms (ref)
- Users will follow you on multiple platforms and expect to receive different content on different platforms.
Finally, use a content calendar to plan your content in advance, and on specific days.
How to Manage your Social Media Account Passwords
Use a password manager to remember your passwords. Use a secure password and do not share it with anyone. If you are employing a student to work on your social media, ensure that the Principal Investigator on the project, as well as the student has access to the up-to-date password.
How to Effectively Deal with Online Harassment
If in doubt of ill intent, provide further information, as this scientist does in the example below:
Other times, ignoring, reporting or blocking the account is appropriate. Twitter has an extensive help guide of what to do when you experience harassment on Twitter. Your institution will have social media and public relations experts on staff to help you if you experience harassment. Find out who they are and how to contact them BEFORE you have a problem. They may also have supports or assistance available to you to prepare you for any issues online.
