Academic Twitter Tips and Tricks

If you are a new grad student you may have been told to "have an academic twitter" or that twitter is important for your career. That may be the extent of advice you were given. This post is some twitter basics. I am by no means a twitter influencer, but I did talk with some folks who are. These are some general tips as well as how I personally use twitter. As with all things, use your best judgment and remember that less is typically more when it comes to the personal information you publish online.

Getting Started

• Your handle should include your name.
  • Your bio should include your affiliation or study areas (as well as a standard disclaimer that your retweets are not endorsements and that your tweets are your own opinions, etc.) 
  • You want people who read your work to be able to find you easily - searching your name should be enough for colleagues to find your handle. They may confirm they have the correct person by checking for your subject area or institution in your bio.
  • Having a professional account can help with professional organizations who post anything related to your work.
    • Your department may want to announce you've won an award. You DON'T want them to accidentally tag your middle school handle. Sometimes accounts are linked and a Facebook post congratulating Jane Doe on her fellowship may show up on twitter "Congratulations to @FutureMrsLegolas on her contributions to economic sociology!"
    • Twitter is a great way to share professional successes and publications. It can also show up in google searches adding another opportunity to impress potential search committees. 

• Start by following the people you work with, cite, and admire.
  • Start by looking up people active in your field, people you've met or hope to meet at conferences, any co-authors you have, and the folks in your department
    • This is a good way to find examples of academic twitter accounts and the types of content they produce and share (spoiler: most are not that active)
    • Twitter will start recommending other scholars based on your followers. This can help you widen your circle
    • Many academics will check to see who you are and will follow you back when they see your bio. This helps to expand your network in the field
  • Many journals also have twitter accounts. Follow journals - they will tweet about calls for papers and recent publications.
    
  • You can also look for "Lists" and "Topics" (both are items on your profile's menu bar) related to your field. This can be a great way to find new work in your area and keep up with what the folks in your field are talking about. 

 

• You do not have to tweet!
  • You may feel pressure to come up with hilarious, insightful, and topical threads. You may be afraid of going viral for the wrong reasons. You may worry about somehow turning off potential employers. You can have a twitter and "lurk" meaning you just read tweet. 
  • Liking and retweeting can be one way to engage with scholars you want to be in conversation with. 
  • You do not have to engage at all on twitter to benefit from being on the platform. Many people advertise fellowships, special issues, jobs, and conferences on twitter. Following people in your subfield may lead you to opportunities you wouldn't have seen otherwise.

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• You don't have to be on twitter 24/7
  • Believe me, I know that twitter can suck you in. You do not have to regularly check twitter to successfully utilize it professionally.
  • Set a time or add it to a to-do list. You may decide once a week or once a month is often enough for you. Depending on what your goals are and where you are in your career you may want to be more or less active on twitter. 

Engaging on Twitter

For this section I enlisted the help of Dr. Thomas Lecaque, a Historian at Grand View University. Dr. Lecaque's historical hot takes and political commentary has earned him twitter fame (and the elusive blue check).

1. Check out his "Pinned Tweet" (below)

• You can "Pin" one tweet that will remain at the top of your profile. Dr. Lecaque has pinned a thread that introduces him to users. You may want to pin a recent publication or popular tweet that suggests something about your work
• Because his tweet threads often go viral having an introduction with links to his work helps people who saw his tweets get a sense of who he is and what his credentials are.
• It gives users a sense of the types of content they will see if they choose to follow him

2. Check more frequently if you are attending a conference

• Be sure to follow hashtags related to any conferences you are attending
• Senior scholars sometimes advertise coffee hours or offer to meet junior scholars one-on-one using the conference hashtags. If you see these offers - take them up on it!

3. Turn your research into a "thread"

• Threads (nested tweets) are a great way to circulate your work to a wider audience.
  
  • Map out some of the most important details, findings, and supporting materials from your work.
    
  • Think about how to turn each point into a tweet - making each tweet a succinct point that can stand alone increases the likelihood one or multiple of your tweets will be shared
• Check out Dr. Lecaque's threads for some examples

From Dr. Lecaque:
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"Twitter is a tool, and it can be helpful---it is a networking opportunity, one that has provided me with contacts, CFPs, and venues for publication, both public facing and academic. And these are all positive things. But Twitter is also social media, and it as such has all of the risks and problems and genuine threats to watch out for. In the current academic climate, where social media is monitored by schools and political groups, you have to be careful. And I say with full knowledge of how aggressively hypocritical it is for me to say so---my Twitter feed is aggressively political and impolite, and has been since grad school. But social media replicates the power dynamics that are a hellscape in reality, too.

I'm a cisgender, heterosexual white man, with tenure; social media enables me to extend my own reach. So use it! Use it to circumvent the traditional power structures to the best of your abilities! But be careful. This is especially true when you have a larger following. It amplifies your message and brings in ever increasing opportunities for publications, podcasts, other media---but it also attracts scrutiny, critique, and trolling. If you end up on the radar of the largest far right platforms, your university will not protect you, and the threats go from online harassment to real life harassment very quickly, ESPECIALLY if you are not a white man."

As you can see above, Dr. Lecaque has the job security and the following to engage with trolls with humor (and sometimes swearing). He is able to weigh in on trending topics and political arguments that junior scholars may not have the same freedom to engage with.

By comparison, my tweets are more formal. I have merged my personal and professional twitter accounts and try to refrain from sharing too many specifics about my personal life. I do make my political views clear but I made that decision very carefully. If you've seen my CV, it becomes very clear that I study issues including abortion, abolition, and trans rights. These topics of study do limit the number and type of organizations interested in working with me (particularly colleges and universities with certain religious ties). I prefer to be upfront about my political views and address potential biases clearly and transparently. The degree to which you share your personal life and views online deserve careful consideration.