Social Academia

Written by Luke Wink-Moran | Photo by Andrey Apoev

Today, you did something good. You opened this newsletter, you took a break from that paper you’re supposed to be working on, and you decided not to spend your free time on social media. Instead, you decided to read something; you resolved to learn. And here I am bringing social media back into the equation. Sorry about that. But social media isn’t a bad thing for academics; in fact, it can open new doors in your career and personal life, but before we learn about that (see, we are learning!), you might have some questions-- like:

Social media for academics? Really? How does my research belong on the kind of platforms that brought us “Gangnam Style”?  

First, give “Gangnam Style” a chance. Second, yes. You can find academics on almost every major social media platform, from dissertation writing tips on Instagram to scientists debunking misinformation on TikTok. Academia is already on social media; all you have to do is decide how you want to contribute to it. 

How can you possibly give academics a comprehensive guide to the entire world of social media in an article shorter than my high school SAT essay?  

I can’t. There are way too many social media platforms for me to cover. This article is more of a social media starter kit to help you orient to any platform.

Why should I listen to you, newsletter guy?

You shouldn’t. Well, you should, but only because I’m relaying what I learned from Professor Irene McKisson, a social media specialist who runs a non-profit that provides news to the entire state of Arizona, and Dr. Kyle Diroberto, who has a following of over 1000 people interested in Shakespeare and literature.

If you want to build or be part of a community on social media and share your work with that community, you need to be authentic. Think of your favorite social media personality. Do you feel like their online persona is a good reflection of who they really are? Do you feel like you know them? That’s authenticity. It’s what keeps people excited about the work that you’re doing and is the single most important quality a social media personality can have. Leslie Jordan is a great example of authenticity-- but those random people posting inspirational quotes on your LinkedIn feed, less so.

So how can you be authentic? Just be yourself—warts and all. It’s tempting to project an ideal persona on social media, but try to keep things as true-to-life as possible. Post about your research, but also post about what makes you happy.

You also need to decide where you want to focus your energy. As anyone who’s ever opened YouTube to watch just one video and time-warped two hours into the future, social media can be a huge time-suck. Knowing which platform you want to use, and where the people you want to reach are, is a great way to avoid losing time on your thesis or dissertation by creating less-than-useful social media content.

Professor McKisson recommends that you conduct “empathy interviews” to figure out which platforms you should use and what to post. Empathy interviews are like focus groups, with a strong emphasis on seeing the world from your interviewee’s perspective. To conduct an empathy interview, find some people who you think might be interested in your work and ask them questions about what social media platforms they use, what kinds of posts they like, and what information they wish to see more of online. You can talk to one person or twenty, but by the end of the process you should have a sense of where you want to spend your time.

“Say everybody we talked to is using Twitter,” says McKisson. “Obviously we need to be on Twitter. Only 20% of the people we talked to were on Instagram, so we’re not going to spend all of our resources on Instagram.” 

You don’t have to conduct empathy interviews. You might find that you naturally gravitate towards some platforms over others. Dr. Diroberto found that she preferred to use Twitter, where she follows over 1,000 other professors, Ph.Ds., and Shakespeare-related accounts – for example, an account that poses as Chaucer or the Royal Shakespeare Company’s all-tweet production of Romeo and Juliet, which inspired one of Dr. Diroberto's students to create an Instagram account for Portia of Belmont from The Merchant of Venice. Dr. Diroberto found that Twitter was a good place to talk to other people in her field, while Facebook was a good place to find conferences. But YouTube was where she really connected with people:

“At the beginning of the pandemic, I started watching people read old plays over Zoom on YouTube. I found them because I was interested in the plays, and now I’m acting in them too. I just read a play this morning at 7 a.m., because most of the others are in London; they’re academics, creative writers, and actors. I’m so exhausted, and I don’t even care.”

Once you’ve picked your platform or platforms, it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty word-smithing. Professor McKisson, who teaches editing at the School of Journalism, thinks about social media posts the same way she thinks about headlines.

“They have to be clear; they have to tell somebody immediately what the content is about. But they should also evoke an emotion. The tricky thing there is, if you evoke too much of an emotion, you get into clickbait. So, it has to be true, but it also has to evoke an emotion.”

With the right wording, content, and excitement, you can bring your work to a new audience of friends and colleagues. And don’t forget to share the love: post articles from other people in your discipline; link to interesting discoveries or other people’s personal websites. Not only will this build your network, but it keeps your online presence focused more on your community than on your work alone, And remember, “No one is going to do this right on their first try,” according to Professor McKisson. Journalists spend hundreds of hours honing their headline-writing skills, and social media posts are no different. You’re going to make mistakes while you figure out how to use social media as an academic, but whether you want to find new colleagues, or just connect with people who share your passion for your subject, if you persist long enough, it might well be worth it.