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Week 6: Things 14-15

14th Thing — Twitter

What is Twitter?
You can think of Twitter as a sort of micro-blogging service. It allows you to publish short updates of up to 140 characters. You can follow other users to subscribe to their updates. All updates from users you follow appear in your own feed, so it’s easy to see them.

Why use Twitter?
It’s a common misconception that Twitter is ALL about people tweeting what they had for breakfast (or their latest date, or their sleeping habits, etc.). Although there are certainly (many!) people who only use Twitter for these things, the reality is that many professional users prefer to use it to ask questions, network or share relevant information and interesting links. It can be a powerful tool, for building professional contacts and for staying up to date in your area of work or other interests. A famously good example of twitter use was during the Haiti Earthquake crisis. People used Twitter to communicate effectively when other communication methods had broken down. Locally, @hfxtraffic is a great example. You can check this twitter feed to get a play-by-play of traffic conditions and accidents that might affect your route, whether you travel by bus or car.

Another, even more local example: SMU’s Writing Centre is active on Twitter:

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Some basic Twitter vocabulary
(see the Twitter Glossary for more)

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scott_hampton via Flickr

Tasks

Set up a Twitter account
If you already have a Twitter account, skip ahead to Post to Twitter. If not, follow these easy steps to get one set up.

  1. Go to http://twitter.com/ and use the sign up box to get started. Follow the steps to create an account (if you want more help, Twitter provides detailed step-by-step instructions). You may want to think about your online presence when you decide on a user name. Do you want to be consistent across your various accounts?
  2. Once you have created your account, you’ll be taken to your Twitter homepage. You can update your profile to include a short biography or add a profile picture. You can come back to these steps at any time using the link to Settings in the top right corner of the screen. We recommend you leave the privacy box unchecked so that others can see your tweets and communicate with you.

Post to Twitter
Now post an update! Click on the status box on the top left where it says ‘Compose new Tweet…’. Write a comment – maybe something about your participation in 23 Things. Maybe what you had for breakfast this morning. 🙂 As you type you will see the number in the top right of the box decrease; this tells you how many characters you have left. Leave enough space to add the hashtag #23PPL2015 at the end. This is the hashtag for our 23 Things programme and will allow others to search for all #23PPL2015 tweets. Once you’re done, click ‘update’. You’ll see your tweet appear in your timeline. You can see what other PPL folks have tweeted by clicking on the #23PPL2015 link.

Find people to follow
Search by name or twitter handle in the search box. (Examples: @SMUWritCentre, @hfxtraffic, @CBCNews)
There’s also a follow button on every user’s profile page.

You can also click on #Discover, and find people through “Who to follow” or check out the list of popular topics under “Trends”.

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Post to your Blog
Think about Twitter and how you think it may or may not be relevant to you. Do you feel it’s useful? Why or why not?
Did you find any interesting people to follow that others might also be interested in following? Let us know on your blog!

Further Reading (optional):
Twitter for Academia
Guardian: How Twitter will revolutionise academic research and teaching

15th Thing — Social Networking

Here’s a video clip to introduce this topic…

According to Wikipedia, social networking “focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Most [of them] provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services.”

The internet has always been a social space, but it wasn’t until around 2003 that it hit the big time. Three sites in particular became extremely popular — Bebo,Friendster and MySpace. At the peak of its popularity, MySpace was getting more hits than Google!

For this particular Thing we’re going to look at a social networking site that was developed at Harvard University and launched quite a few years ago —Facebook.

Wander around the library and it won’t be long before you spot a student using Facebook!

If you’re not currently a member of Facebook, then your task will be to join. If you are already a member, then your task will be to write a blog post about Facebook.

Tasks for non-members

Step 1: Go to the Facebook homepage and sign up for an account. You will need to use a valid email address. Keep in mind, you can choose to keep some distance between the “personal, private you” and your “facebook you”, just as you’ve been doing with the creation of new email addresses, blog and twitter accounts, and so on.
Step 2: It’s up to you how much personal information you add to your profile. You can also control how much of that information is viewable by other people.
Step 3: Find some friends! Using the search box, search for someone you know who is already using Facebook — it might be a work colleague also via 23 Things at PPL, or if you’re comfortable using Facebook freely, search for an old school friend. On the search results page, you might want to click on the “People” tab to limit the results. Once you’ve found someone you know, click on the “Add as Friend” link. You might have to wait for the person to confirm that you are indeed a friend! Once you’ve added some friends, try exploring their Facebook pages.
Step 4: Join a group or become a fan of something. Using the search box, do a search for something you like — it could be your favourite TV show, film, singer or band. This time, you’ll probably want to click on either the “Pages” or “Groups” tab on the search results page. Some pages and groups are just for fun, but you can also find some more serious ones — see if you can find a sensible group set up by either students or staff at Saint Mary’s University!
Step 5: Whilst you’re playing around with Facebook, don’t forget to occasionally update the status on your profile page. That way, your friends will know what you’re doing!

Hopefully you’ve not spent too much time messing around on Facebook! Write a short blog post about your first impressions of using Facebook.

Tasks for members

If you’re already a member of Facebook, then that doesn’t excuse you from doing some work! Write a sizeable blog post about Facebook. What do you like about it? What do you most dislike about it? Is it just for fun or do you think Facebook can be used for more serious things?

Where Facebook is explicitly geared towards personal use, LinkedIn and Academia.edu focus on professional connections. LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network, and it allows you to build an online profile that features your experience and skills as well as to network with other users in a professional environment, so it provides a great way to connect with contacts from your work world. Academia.edu is essentially a sort of LinkedIn focused on the academic world, so it provides improved features for things like listing publications. Also – going back to our discussions of online presence – LinkedIn and Academia.edu profiles tend to feature high in Google searches, so a well-constructed profile can be a great way to develop your online brand.

Optional Task
You’re not required to set up an account on either network to finish Things 14-15 but you’ll need an account to explore many of the tools’ features, and it’s a good way to improve your professional presence online. Pick one (or sign up for both!) and set up an account. You can always delete it later if you feel the need.

Getting an account on either tool is simple, and you can register from each tool’s home page. Make sure you fill in your profile fully. Remember that these are professional networks, so your photo, taglines and activities should be those you’d be happy with employers and colleagues seeing. LinkedIn allows you to upload your CV straight into your account (with a chance to edit and format, of course!), which offers an easy way to get all your job information in.

Once you’ve signed up, try adding colleagues or other contacts. Successful social media use requires that you actively connect with people and give them something to interact with, rather than just setting up an account and leaving it. If you already have a profile but haven’t used it very much, you might think about these aspects next. You can use your email accounts to find ‘connections’. Don’t be worried about sending requests to contacts; it’s considered fairly normal. Try taking this a step further; rather than just sending a request to connect, send a message with a question or a message.

Specific functionality:

LinkedIn

    • LinkedIn offers groups, which allow you to join others based around a sector, place of work or other interest. You can also search for groups.LinkedIn also allows you to see who has viewed your profile, send private messages and give and ask for recommendation and skill endorsements.

Academia

  • Academia.edu has less functionality, but it is geared towards academic activities. You can write update posts on your activities, upload papers and other documents which might include ‘grey’ literature such as conference papers as well as link to your journal articles. It can also tell you how many people have viewed your profile, what keywords they used to find you, and who is following your work. You can also follow the profiles of other scholars, which is useful to keep up to date with people’s publications.

Exploring further

  • Many people find LinkedIn useful as a tool for job searching. Employers can post jobs but, more importantly, your profile can give you the opportunity to ‘sell’ yourself to potential employers. Having endorsements and recommendations can help. Try asking for a recommendation for your current or previous position.

Task to complete Thing 15: Blog post

As we mentioned, feel free to talk about all of this week’s things in one post, as they lend themselves to comparison and discussion. Did you choose to use one tool over the other? Do you think these tools offer a good way to present your professional profile, or do you prefer something else (a website, blog, etc.)?

If you use Facebook, do you feel that LinkedIn or Academia.edu are a suitable alternative space for professional activities, or do you find Facebook works just as well if not better for what you want to do?

Note that all of these tools can be useful, but they can also take up a lot of time. Is it better to have no profile at all than an out-of-date one?