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Podcast – Building your online profile and using social media

As an Early Career Researcher, having an online profile is more than just ‘being on twitter’. In this podcast our panellists Dr Lakshini Mendis [1], Dr Jack Rivers-Auty [2] and Dr Kirsty McAleese [3] discuss the importance of having an online presence as an ECR, what that might look like, all the different options, benefits and limitations.


Click here to read a full transcript of this podcast

Voice Over:

Welcome to the Dementia Researcher Podcast, brought to you by dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk, a network for early career researchers.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Hello, social media. Is it a real benefit helping to create a global community of shared ideas, fostering collaboration and cross country partnership, bringing closer the utopian vision of a world united by beautiful science and the pursuit of knowledge and truth, or is it just another thing to add to the already long list of early career researchers, things they’re being asked to do: fellowship writing, conference attending, poster making, presentation giving, networking, mentoring, career development, healthy eating, going to the gym, podcasts?

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Broadly speaking, I think there are three groups of people, those who do not engage with social media, those who have accounts but are inactive and those who engage with social media, social media butterflies. I think it’s fair to say that our panel are biased towards the last group, all are advocates of social media and actively engaged on it. Welcome to Dr. Lakshini Mendis, a dementia research project administrator working in NIHR, and also a regular host of this podcast, Dr. Jack Rivers-Auty, a research fellow at the University of Manchester, and Dr. Kirsty McAleese, a junior research fellow at Newcastle University.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Welcome to everyone. I’m going to be upfront and say I have a Twitter account, but I do not use it. Today I am the cynical host who is here to be convinced of the value of social media. Okay? Let’s start with which social media or social networking sites you routinely engage with. Kirsty?

Dr Kirsty McAleese:

Hello. I kind of have all of them, the personal ones, the Instagram, the Facebook, although Facebook I think is definitely on the decrease, Twitter, et cetera, and ResearchGate, LinkedIn, ORCID account, so I pretty much have all of them.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Okay, Lakshini?

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

Yeah, I’m the same. I think I have all of the accounts that you mentioned, Kirsty, but obviously, Instagram and Facebook are used more for personal kind of views and I think Twitter and LinkedIn are the main sort of more professional accounts.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Okay, and Jack?

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

Yeah, I agree with all of them. I have all of them, but Twitter is more of my professional account. I really feel like Twitter is the LinkedIn for scientists.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Yeah.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

It seems like all the scientists are on there and they’re Tweeting away opinions about papers and stuff like that, so it’s a great way to reach out. Also, Google Scholar is another important one, I think they have updated, along with ORCID, ResearchGate. There is a lot of them unfortunately, which means you have to update a lot of them.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

I guess probably my main question would be, there are a lot of them, is the benefit in doing all of them, one of them, none of them? I don’t know.

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

I think picking the one that works for you because I found, like Jack was saying as well, Twitter was really great to kind of engage with a community of scientists. I did my PhD in New Zealand, and just that geographical distance, it was really nice to engage with the rest of the community based in the U.S., and UK, and Europe, who were using this technique because I was one of the only people using the technique at the University as well. Just to be able to kind of network and engage with the rest of them was really good.

Dr Kirsty McAleese:

I think with Twitter as well, you can kind of have a bit of personality on it even though it’s professional. You can kind of chuck in a personal, like today, screaming out, I needed a iPhone lead and a pen.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

And it magically appeared when you were here.

Dr Kirsty McAleese:

But it’s still relevant to the science community. I love how a single re-Tweet, that can be passed on and then it can be expanded to a very broad range. That’s how I find a lot of papers that aren’t necessarily in my field but are of relevance and other scientists. When I actually read their work it’s like, oh okay, I would never have thought to have looked at them, or it’s a way of engaging with people I wouldn’t have before.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

There’s a few social medias which are just to make you Googleable. If your Google Scholar and your ORCID and your ResearchGate are up to date, it means that if someone Googles you, they’ll see all your papers, your research topics, they’ll find your email, et cetera. Then, yeah, Twitter is more about that social side. In science right now there’s a big pre-print culture and that is, you put your paper up before it’s being peer reviewed, and then it gets peer reviewed and published. That way people can see the research the day it’s complete.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

People are Tweeting that out and then your paper’s getting 5000, 10,000 reads before it’s even gone through the gatekeepers of the journals and stuff like that. It’s a great way to find, amongst all these preprints, there’s tens of thousands of preprints, is to find those important ones because they’ll get re-Tweeted and shared. There’s amazing social aspect to it.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

To come back to sort of what you said at the beginning of that, about having your research presence online, having all your publications listed and dah, dah, dah, I saw a great presentation you did at one of the ARUK Network events last year, Don’t Be a Faceless Researcher, which I guess feeds into that about, so when people look for you, Google you, they find you, instead of, you’re just a name. You have a whole background to you.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

Yeah, it was sort of a presentation. I’ve done another presentation since and I’ve called it, Why Usain Bolt Shaves His Legs. Really what the key message was that there’s about 50,000 people in the UK doing a PhD in biology. The traditional way get into academia is you do a postdoc, then you do two fellowships and then you get to a tenure position. There’s 50,000 biology PhD students and there’s about 200 junior fellowships given out each year. It is incredibly competitive.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Depressing [crosstalk 00:06:13] is the other word for it.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

There’s talk that we’re basically in the Olympics of academia and at the highest level you’ve got to do the running and you’ve got to the weight lifting. That’s winning grants and publishing papers, but you also need to shave your legs. You need to have that every millimetre counts and part of that is just being known. Has your face been known by the review board? I talked about a study where radiologists were actually better at their job when you stapled a photograph to the front of the document. Just seeing that face meant that they looked at the X-rays in more detail.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Do you think that’s true for CVs though? Because having CVs come through, I am put off when people include a photo of themselves on their CV.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

Yes, no, I think that’s a UK thing.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Maybe that’s a personal thing.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

I think that is a UK thing.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

That is a UK thing.

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

I would never put a picture on a CV, ever.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

Yeah, don’t put your photo on there. [crosstalk 00:07:04] do that too.

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

Arial font, bold title, done.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

Arial, [crosstalk 00:07:04], I go Comic Sans obviously. No, I don’t, just kidding.

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

No!

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

But you know, that was developed so that the A is how you write an A normally, so that children can understand it when it’s written and typed.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

Yeah, it looks like a child’s writing.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Yeah, but children [crosstalk 00:07:18].

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

That’s why people don’t want it on the CV.

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

That’s why you wouldn’t want to put it, yeah.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Anyway.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

Anyway, so not a photo, but a hand shake or I’ve seen a Tweet showing a bit of personality. If they know you’re a human being, they’re more likely to review your grants better, et cetera. Just get over that edge.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Okay. Kirsty, you said you have quite a few personal ones and maybe Facebook is declining.

Dr Kirsty McAleese:

Yes, I’m a big Instagrammer. I really enjoy pictures and a lot of it is pictures of my friends and family and things like that. I did use Instagram for public engagement. I ran a marathon for Alzheimer’s Society last October so I used that platform and Facebook, although Facebook tends to be the aunties and the uncles that you never see that you keep in touch with. Then Instagram seems to be more of my peer group.

Dr Kirsty McAleese:

I broke my donation record and everything just by using that, but it’s very strange how I kind of segregate them all. For those ones I actually use a different name as well. I use my married name, whereas Twitter is still my professional name, which has stayed in my maiden name. Maybe that’s personal choice because it’s different audience and I want to appear as a certain professional scientist on Twitter. That’s how my persona is.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

I have a technical question. Your Instagram is public unless you make it private?

Dr Kirsty McAleese:

Yes.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

So you wouldn’t be searchable if you’d made it private?

Dr Kirsty McAleese:

[crosstalk 00:08:45].

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

That wouldn’t be feeding into your online presence?

Dr Kirsty McAleese:

No.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Is that what you do currently?

Dr Kirsty McAleese:

Well mine are all public, but I am of course very careful what I post. I always have in mind that I am almost a public figure. People can Google my name and I have actually Googled my name before. Both accounts do come up, which was quite scary as well because some people don’t know my personal life and vice versa. I think as well you do have to be very careful and I always keep in mind what I am seeing, especially on Twitter, because it is linked to my professional persona.

Dr Kirsty McAleese:

I think that’s why it’s taken me a long time to get used to Twitter. I had a long time out, maybe because I wasn’t encouraging our group. It was social media was never awkward, this and that. We have a website for the group, which is run by us. We put content on with the research, but I think I was almost scared in saying the wrong thing because I’ve seen some people get attacked on Twitter before by controversial views, especially in dementia as well and research.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Also, can you ever delete it and these things surface like 10, 15 years after someone posts something and the whole career goes down the toilet?

Dr Kirsty McAleese:

That’s true. Yeah. I think you have to be very careful. I don’t know if anyone’s experienced any negative sides.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

I actually find Twitter super positive. I don’t know about who it follows, but you see-

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

I personally have never experienced anything negative.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

-young academics and everyone talking about imposter syndrome and they support each other and they say, “You can get through this.” A lot of PhD students are going through tough times and they’ve reached out and say, “Does anyone have any advice?” There’ll be hundreds of comments of advice and-

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

Support, yeah.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

-support. I actually think the right community on Twitter is really good. It’s really good.

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

Yeah.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

I was reading an article in the BBC about millennial burnout, and I wonder whether you have any feelings on social media playing into that and a bit how I was talking about in the beginning, there are a long list of things that researchers are expected to do on top of their research. Do you think social media is now one of those things that you’re expected to do but you don’t have time to do?

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

I’d say it goes back to shaving legs. It really should.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Always.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

If I shaved my legs today I could not beat Usain Bolt in a sprinting race. You’ve got to just focus on your papers, on your research and on your grants. Ten minutes a day to send out a Tweet, read the latest Tweets and see what papers are up. Then if you publish a paper, obviously you should update your ORCID and your Google Scholar and your personal website if you’ve got it. It really shouldn’t take too much time. It shouldn’t occupy your life. You’ve got to be out there [pipetting 00:11:24] and all sorts of other things.

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

I guess it’s learning how to do that as well because when you start off it’s really easy to kind of fully become immersed in it and then just spend more time than you have on these social media platforms as well, especially things like Twitter and stuff. It’s just kind of learning how to manage your time. I think that just comes with experience I think. If you are starting off that can, I don’t know, Kirsty, did you find that?

Dr Kirsty McAleese:

[crosstalk 00:11:53]. I’ll go through like really time periods of like, oh yes. I was at ADPD in Lisbon, so every day I think I was sending five, six Tweets out. Then as soon as I returned home, I have nothing else to say. I’m desperately trying to find a re-Tweet just so I have some sort of Tweet [crosstalk 00:12:12].

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

[crosstalk 00:12:09], yeah. It’s sort of ebbs and flows as well. I’m definitely finding that I’m not on Twitter as much as I used to be, I guess when I was fully kind of [crosstalk 00:12:20].

Dr Kirsty McAleese:

[crosstalk 00:12:20]. Oh, sorry. There’s no radio silence for a week or so.

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

[crosstalk 00:12:24].

Dr Kirsty McAleese:

Then you’ll be fine. Sometimes I forget.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

You do think it’s important to keep up the momentum? You don’t think you could maybe use your professional Twitter as sort of a, I’ve gone to this conference, these are the interesting things I’ve done, now I’m back to my research, go quiet for six months until you have a public paper to be published? Do you see? Is that more what ORCID’s for or ResearchGate, that kind of thing?

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

Well, so every time you Tweet, if you Tweet 10 times you seem to get an additional follower. If you only Tweeted once every six months on your papers or I mean once every two years on a paper, it’s probably more realistic, you’re going to have 12 followers. You do have to keep active. The other thing is I’ve-

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

[crosstalk 00:13:05] the algorithms itself [crosstalk 00:13:06], on these things.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

I find it a good motivation though because I’ll want to read a new paper so I can Tweet about it. Then the author will often Tweet back, “Thank you.” I just had a big discussion with a Manchester researcher because the media took his research to mean you should snort sugar, [crosstalk 00:13:26] in lung.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Oh, I did see your Tweet about this.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

He was like, “The media just went crazy with my research, which was very specific about how the lung is a low glucose environment and that kind of impedes inflammatory responses.” He was never saying, “Snort sugar.” Andrew MacDonald, he’s a very good researcher. I was having a discussion with him the day his paper came out and I went to his paper because of Twitter and stuff like that. It was good motivation.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

You work at the University of Manchester. You could have gone to see him personally, I guess.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

I could have. He is two floors up.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Oh my goodness.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

I mean, it’s exhausting.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Slightly differently, Lakshini, I gather you started a website to help talk about science.

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

I did.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Sci Sites?

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

That was very niche, so it’s called Sci Sites. The idea behind it was kind of like a blog, whereas to talk about very nerdy things, science related travel sites, just because I found that when I do like my bits of travel, just being the sort of geeky person I am, I’d be like, “Oh what kind of [sciency 00:14:28] either like museums and stuff that you can check out?” I just found that there’d be kind of the random list on some website or like one article written about stuff.

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

The idea behind my blog was to sort of bring it all together. That was very much just kind of like a hobby/passion project that I started. Through that actually I learned more about social media, so in terms of like, I had a Sci Sites related Instagram and Twitter as well, and Facebook that I sort of kind of plunged into. Then since then it’s been on the back burner a little bit because I’ve moved countries and had to adjust and all of that. No, I learned heaps about what it takes to kind of build that online presence as well and get your followers and all of that. Yeah.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Are we still saying that that is a good thing? Yeah?

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

Yeah. The idea behind this was to just make science more, like normalize it and make it more accessible as well, because what you realize is, I was then talking about, okay well how is the Grand Canyon formed and talking about the science behind that or like the different minerals that you see and giving colours to like the geothermal lakes that you have around New Zealand and that kind of thing. Sometimes it’s really cool. On Instagram as well, that’s what I found, I was getting lots of engagement.

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

It wasn’t taking too long. I do post a photo, do like a paragraph of stuff. It was really nice to kind of get that engagement and then maybe people who it was reaching out to beyond the science community as well, which was nice to see and get that engagement.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Okay. Did you find the added value to help your career I guess?

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

I don’t know, because it’s so kind of far removed from like the actual research I’ve done in sort of Alzheimer’s and things like that. I have seen Instagram, I will say I follow some really great science communicators who use it as a really good platform to talk about their work and share the work that they’re doing as well. Yeah, I learned lots of how to use it I guess more effectively.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Okay, that makes sense. Something you mentioned earlier, Jack, was about pre publishing. This is focusing on online publishing before you get it peer reviewed. Could you talk a bit more about that and how that links in?

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

Yeah, so physics has been doing it for a long time, but now biology’s starting to catch up. A common one’s called Bio Archive. People submit their paper to the Journal and the review process often takes months. Then they ask the Journal, “Can I pre publish this on Bio Archive,” which makes it freely, publicly available, no paywalls. It sort of gets science out from behind that peer review curtain. Sort of the argument was that the peer review is an important pillar of science, but it’s just two or three reviewing your research.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

People say often, the more important peer review is after the paper is published, did people like the paper, did people cite the paper, did it become an important keystone paper. That sort of secondary peer review can happen in a pre-publication setting. People can start to make comments about the paper before it’s gone through the sometimes six months, sometimes one year, peer review process. It’s sort of cutting out the middle man and making science more publicly available and free.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Okay. Well, that sounds good. I like that. I’m starting to be convinced by this whole social media online presence thing, but I think we do have to talk a little bit about time. How much time does it take? I know you said 10 minutes a day, but, Lakshini, you also said there’s a time drain often.

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

Sometimes. I think it’s up to you to kind of manage that time and you have to be mindful about it as well, because it’s easy to kind of sit there and start scrolling and be like, “Ooh,” kind of go down this rabbit hole almost of really interesting things that you’ll come across. Yeah, I’d say the benefits outweigh the you know.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

I think you do have to watch your time because it is quite addictive. We’re talking about the peer review process. Often in science you submit a grant, you submit a paper and it all comes back negative reviews that you have to address since you’ve got this constant negative feedback. Whereas outreach and social media is often very positive feedback. You put up a Tweet about science and how you’re loving it and this and you do an outreach program and all your feedback from that is normally really positive.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

It’s, “Thank you for coming to our school, thank you for running a marathon.” It can become the main focus, but it doesn’t progress your career anywhere near to the magnitude that publishing papers and winning grants does. You just have to watch the addictive nature of it I think.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Do you think, because we’ve sort of talked about the publishing and your research and grants, that being the bulk of your career development and how it moves forward, is it that people search for you, your peers? Do you see what I mean? Instead of like, you wouldn’t expect to apply for a job or a fellowship and them to then look for you. Or do you think that is the case do you think, someone who’s peer reviewing your paper would then look for your online presence?

Dr Kirsty McAleese:

That’s a good question. [crosstalk 00:20:14]. I know now with job interviews, they do look at social media profiles. It’s one of the first things people do look at. I don’t know if that would maybe bias an application. I’m not too sure, but I’ve never really thought of that aspect before. I suppose if you are just outreach and via the work and science and educating people that shouldn’t be a negative as long as you’re just quite careful with what you say. Yeah.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

[crosstalk 00:20:44]. Okay. Have you got any top tips for how to build a great online presence?

Dr Kirsty McAleese:

Oh, well.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

One tip I got was, make your Tweets rich. A rich Tweet will have one or two hashtags that are available hashtags that people will click on. Don’t have hashtag, I’m a neurobiologist in Manchester, because no one will look at that hashtag, some sort of hashtag dementia or something like that. Have an @, so at someone, perhaps someone with a bigger following, someone that you’re sort of addressing saying great research at amazing scientists, and have an image if you can, because you’ve got a wall of text in Twitter. If you can have an image, an @, and a hashtag, it’ll make that Tweet richer and more likely to be shared, et cetera.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Okay. Should you set a timer on your phone to stop being on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook?

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

I mean, there are those apps that you can get to that tracks how long you’re spending on them. Maybe if you think you’re spending a little bit too long, that might be a way to go.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

I have a Google Chrome app, that means I can only spend 10 minutes a day on Twitter and on Facebook.

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

Oh, really? That’s good.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

[crosstalk 00:22:02].

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

Yeah, it shuts it down.

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

Wow, that’s good.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

I need one of [crosstalk 00:00:22:06].

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

[crosstalk 00:22:07].

Dr Kirsty McAleese:

I always try and make things educational. If I am scrolling through, because Instagram’s the one that I struggle to get off, especially on the feed because you could go down rabbit holes. A lot of them are medical and science related and then it’s 40 minutes past. I’m like, oh no, right, right, back to work, back to work.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Lakshini, do you have any top tips?

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

I think just don’t be afraid to inject your personality into your Tweets or other status updates you do, posts and stuff and even LinkedIn and things like that as well.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Okay.

Dr Kirsty McAleese:

If in doubt, use a GIF.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

That is a great one. That’s good.

Dr Kirsty McAleese:

Very funny.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Okay, so I think this is probably the time where you will get to plug your own Twitter handles, so go for it.

Dr Jack Rivers-Auty:

Well, I have a website as well. We’ve got two websites, I’ve got JackAuty.com and I’ve also got mereconjecture.com. MereConjecture is a blog whereas JackAuty is my professional CV website. Then my Twitter is @mere_conjecture.

Dr Lakshini Mendis:

Okay. Mine’s @BLHSMendis.

Dr Kirsty McAleese:

I’m @KirstyKEM.

Megan Calvert-O’Hare:

Nice. Well, thank you all for listening and I hope you will now all take to Twitter and write some interesting things, injecting your personality, GIFs, hashtags, @ and images. If you have anything else to add to this topic, please do post your comments in the forum or drop us a line on Twitter using #ECRdementia. Thank you.

Voice Over:

This was a podcast brought to you by Dementia Researcher, everything you need in one place. Register today at dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk.

END


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