Not just the cry of the Rockin’ Robin, not for the last seven years. Boasting 500 million registered users, Twitter is a huge social network that favours tiny messages. 140 characters, to be exact. Twitter is an excellent space for academics to connect with students, other scholars, conferences, and all kinds of interesting people. The saying goes “Facebook for people you know, Twitter for people you want to know.” It’s also a great place to get updates on events going on around campus, find interesting news articles, and carry on casual conversations with people around the world. But this isn’t about why Twitter is cool and useful, it’s about why Twitter is cool and useful for higher education.
The Why
There are 500 million people on Twitter. Some of them are your students. Some of them are your colleagues. Some of them are in the administration, running journals, or publishing papers in your field. Some of them are journalists who might be interested in your research. One of them is Nathan Fillion. If they’re on Twitter, it gives you an invitation to connect with them casually, and creates an avenue for you to build a stronger relationship with them. It gives students the opportunity to carry on classroom conversations with you or with their classmates, conversations made easily accessible to anyone by using a class hashtag, rather than wrestling with cumbersome online course support. Twitter discussions let them talk about lessons without having to do anything differently, and they can do it right from their phone. It also gives you a great avenue to increase the public presence of you and your research. By participating in Twitter chats and talking with other people in the field, you can gain followers and start to meet people who, though not experts in your field, have a keen interest. If that’s not enough, it also helps you tap into the strange internet hive mind, which I use for everything from recipes to learning new guitar chords.
The How
Twitter can seem really intimidating at first. There’s a lot going on, and it’s not like Facebook where it’s only people that you know (or knew in high school). It’s also not like LinkedIn, where people need to get your permission to connect with you. Unless your Twitter is private (which I don’t recommend), anyone can follow you and see what you’re posting. The standard rule applies. Be yourself, don’t be afraid to make mistakes or get things wrong, be ready to learn, and treat other people with respect.There are lots of Twitter how-to’s out there, and I’ll link some great guides at the end, but here are some quick tips.
- Add a picture. It helps people see you as a person, and lets people who know you know that they’ve found you.
- Don’t worry about seeing every tweet. Twitter is like a river. When you get out of the water and then back in, you don’t worry about all the water that’s gone past since you left.
- Follow a lot of people. Follow anyone who seems remotely interesting. Unfollowing them later is easy.
- Don’t think about follower numbers. It’s just a headache. People will follow and unfollow you, and you’ll do it to other people. That’s it.
- Snoop. People who you admire, who inspire you, or just who you’re really interested in talking with? See who they follow, and follow them. Odds are good that you’re interested in the people they’re interested in.
So use Twitter to extend your classroom, chat with colleagues, follow news, and generally expose yourself to more interesting people (but avoid actually exposing yourself on the internet. It rarely has good results). Also, where else were you going to talk with Nathan Fillion? Here are some links to some great how-to guides for academics.
