Social Media & Science, Part 1:

What to Write on Twitter

Katja Reuter, PhDAssociate Director of Communications

Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI)University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Half a billion registered Twitter users

generate175 tweets a day, 11 tweets per second.

Data May 2012

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Tweets “Worth Reading”

36% of tweets are worth reading

39% are OK

25% are not worth reading

Ref. Quality ranking of 43,738 tweets by users www.cs.cmu.edu/~pandre/pubs/whogivesatweet-cscw2012.pdf

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Make your tweets count!

Here are 10 tips: What to do and what to avoid...

Sunday, June 10, 2012

What to Share

1. Share links: Tips, novel information, interesting facts, stats, quotes.

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2. Provide context, insights, perspective.

What to Share

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3. Invite questions from followers: Users see crowdsourcing via questions as one of Twitter’s core functions. Ref. www.cs.cmu.edu/~pandre/pubs/whogivesatweet-cscw2012.pdf

Bradley Voytek, PhD, is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of California, San Francisco.

Communities Specialist for nature.com.

What to Share

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4. Ask followers to do something. (e.g., answer a question, sign a petition, see a link)

What to Share

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What to Share

5. Answer questions: Help solve problems, send supportive comments, and join the chat. Example shows inter-organizational conversation between programs.

Published via CTSI’s Early Translational Research (ETR) program.

Add-on response from CTSI Communications team.

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What to Share

6. Share random thoughts: A moment of introspection to inspire others. Tweets that are interesting, surprising, and “funny” are rated worth reading.

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What to Share

7. Dare to self-promote: Twitter users find self-promotion useful when it provides helpful information and links. (Ref. www.cs.cmu.edu/~pandre/pubs/whogivesatweet-cscw2012.pdf)

“80-20 rule”: 80 percent not self-promotional content, 20 percent self-promotion.

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What to Share

8. Promote, encourage, and support others.

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What to Share

9. Add images to your tweets: Research shows that pictures make content memorable. People have the most impact. (Ref. http://www.popphoto.com/news/2011/05/mit-study-shows-people-make-memorable-photography)

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What to Avoid

What are you doing right now? There is no need to answer this unasked question.

Puns: If readers don’t know immediately what a story is about they’re less likely to click on the link. Focus on the facts.

Opinion/complaint: Avoid it, unless the remark is especially witty and useful.

Conversation pitfalls: Avoid including personal responses in general tweets. Use direct messages for personal responses. Don’t retweet one-on-one conversations.

“Butterfly syndrome”: Focus on a topic, theme or question related to your expertise.

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CTSI is a member of the National Institutes of Health-funded Clinical and Translational Science Awards network.

Under the banner of "Accelerating Research to Improve Health," it provides a wide range of services for researchers, and promotes online collaboration and networking tools such as UCSF Profiles.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Katja Reuter, PhDAssociate Director of Communications

Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI)University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)

ctsi.ucsf.eduhttps://twitter.com/CTSIatUCSF

Sunday, June 10, 2012