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HOW? 9 most powerful blog promotion tactics 

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HOW? 9 most powerful blog promotion tactics 

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Desmond Chua

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Word-of-Mouth and Referral Marketing Blog

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So you've got your blog up and running, and you've been writing a bunch of quality posts. Yet the traffic isn't quite what you wish it were. What do you do?

Well, Brian Lang from Small Business Ideas Blog asked precisely that question to over 40+ experts from fields as diverse as SEO to (believe it or not) Real Estate. We took the information and laid it out in a coherent infographic. Enjoy!

Embed this Infographic using this tag:

<a href="https://www.referralcandy.com/blog/9-powerful-blog-promotion-tactics-top-marketing-experts-infographic/"><img src="http://cdn.referralcandy.com/images/9-most-powerful-blog-promotion-tactics-top-marketing-experts-590g.png" alt="The 9 Most Powerful Blog Promotion Tactics From Top Marketing Experts [Infographic]" title="The 9 Most Powerful Blog Promotion Tactics From Top Marketing Experts [Infographic]" width="590" /></a><br /><a href="http://referralcandy.wpengine.com">ReferralCandy - Refer-a-friend Programs for Ecommerce Stores</a>

Here's a transcript:
1: Before everything else, your blog's gotta rock 2: SEO - Make sure it's searchable
Do proper keyword research
Learn more: The Way Of The SEO Master [Infographic]
3: Use visuals

Create original images

Make images more effective with text overlay

Use images to attract traffic

Invest in your content's design

Create visual content

4: Build Relationships

Build real relationships with people first

Build a loyal audience

Share others' content

Use social media to network and engage- not spam

Be human on social media

5: Know your target audience

Really, really understand your audience

Match your content to the needs of your targeted audience

6: Use Email

Email the people you've mentioned

Collect leads

Send better email

Email people according to content topic and interest

7: Perform targeted distribution

Share with those who've already shared similar content

Send your content to specific targets

Reach out to influencers

Prioritize promoters

Tag/mention relevant people

8: Maximize the potential of social media

Take note of timing

Share in more places

Retweet for visibility

Multiple tweets/shares at intervals

Milk older content for their worth

Use Pinterest

9: Make it happen! One step at a time

_____

If you liked this post, you might also like:
47 Examples of Referral Programs To Grow Your Business

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The 9 Most Powerful Blog Promotion Techniques From Top Marketing Experts [Infographic] - Word-of-Mouth and Referral Marketing Blog

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So you've got your blog up and running, and you've been writing a bunch of quality posts. Yet the traffic isn't quite what you wish it were. What do you do? Well, Brian Lang from Small Business Ideas Blog asked precisely that question to over 40+ experts from fields as diverse as SEO to (believe it or ...

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Tania Lewis, Simon Marginson and Ilana Snyder

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HOW? Consistency the key to your social brand 

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HOW? Consistency the key to your social brand 

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Susan P Joyce

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What is the key to getting best results from your professional branding on social media?
Consistency.
Consistency - in how you present yourself across all social channels, how you use each social network to drive your personal brand, and how often you show up to share value - will help employers and recruiters see the whole picture of who you are and what you can do...

Use the Same Name Everywhere

Don't be Mary Jane Smith on LinkedIn, and M.J. Smith on Twitter, and expect employers to figure out those two profiles belong to the same person.

When those employers receive your resume and search on your name, be sure that they find good information about you. Even if you have lived a perfect, blameless life, someone else using the same name online could have a very bad online reputation that negatively impacts you. Mistaken online identity happens often!

A LinkedIn Profile is usually at the top of the first page of search results on any name. Hopefully, you are using a clean, relatively unique version of your name on your resume and Profile, so a search on your name provides useful information that is about you and not about someone else.

Use the Same Photo Everywhere

Yes, you do need to use a photo! Not really optional for use in social media today. But don't use an informal, group photo, or a picture of you with your pet, spouse, parent, best friend, child. Use a headshot photo of you with a neutral background behind you.

Using the same headshot photo for all of your business social media profiles helps people recognize which accounts belong to you when they see your Profile, particularly helpful with LinkedIn where many people may share the same name.

And, using the same headshot for all of your profiles helps people "connect the dots" among all of your social media activities.

Then, when the employer researches you, they will see all of your activities, and know they are the same person. They will also recognize you when you walk in for your first interview, and, hopefully, you will recognize them, too, because you will have researched them online as well.

Connect Your Social Network Profiles

More profiles = added social proof of who you are and what you can do.

Connect your LinkedIn Profile to your other professional social media profiles, like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and so on by editing the contact information on your Profile, which allows you to create up to 3 links.

As social media guru Stacy Zapar recommended in her blog, add your Twitter handle to your LinkedIn Profile's Professional Headline to connect those two major profiles. If you don't have a personal blog or other web platform, add your LinkedIn Profile's URL to your Twitter Bio, for your business/professional Twitter account.

Include links to your LinkedIn Profile and your other professional social media to every resume you submit to make sure that the right social media profiles are found by the employer. It shows them you are social media savvy, and it also precludes them from thinking someone else's profile is yours.

As those most successful social branding have learned, consistently delivering value - by sharing constructive thoughts on a contemporary topic, continuing an existing conversation, asking good questions and by sharing worthwhile content - is a key factor in developing a superior social brand.

This, of course, does not mean you need to be on social 24/7. However, it does mean that you must spend 10 to 20 minutes on your brand; it means showing up, every day, to participate in the online conversation.
Be consistent. And take your social brand from so-so... to superior!
For this post, YouTern thanks our friends at Job-Hunt.org!
About the Author: Online job search expert Susan P. Joyce has been observing the online job search world and teaching job search skills since 1995. Susan is a two-time layoff "graduate" who has worked in human resources at Harvard University and in a compensation consulting firm. In 2011, NETability purchased WorkCoachCafe.com, which Susan has been editor and publisher of WorkCoach since. Susan also edits and publishes Job-Hunt.org. Follow Susan on Twitter at @jobhuntorg and on Google+.
Image courtesy of geniusquotes.net. Thank you!

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Consistency: Your Key to a Superior Social Brand - The Savvy Intern by YouTern

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What is the key to getting best results from your professional branding on social media? Consistency. Consistency - in how you present yourself across all social channels, how you use each social network to drive your personal brand, and how often you show up to share value - will help employers and recruiters see the whole picture of who you are and what you can do...

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CONSIDERATIONS? Academic assholes and the circle of niceness

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CONSIDERATIONS? Academic assholes and the circle of niceness

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Thesis Whisperer: Inger Mewburn

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Two of my favourite people in the academic world are my friends Rachael Pitt (aka @thefellowette) and Nigel Palmer. Whenever we have a catch up, which is sadly rare, we have a fine old time talking shop over beer and chips (well lemonade in my case, but you get the picture).

Some time ago ago Rachael started calling us 'The B Team' because we were all appointed on a level B in the Australian university pay-scale system (academic Level B is not quite shit kicker entry level academia - that's level A just in case you were wondering - but it's pretty close). I always go home feeling a warm glow of collegiality after a B team talk, convinced that being an academic is the best job in the entire world. Rachael reckons that this positive glow is a result of the 'circle of niceness' we create just by being together and talking about ideas with honesty and openness.

Anyway, just after I announced my appointment as director of research training at ANU, the B team met to get our nerd on. As we ate chips we talked about my new job, the ageing academic workforce, research student retention rates. Then we got to gossiping - as you do.

All of us had a story or two to tell about academic colleagues who had been rude, dismissive, passive aggressive or even outright hostile to us in the workplace. We had encountered this behaviour from people at level C, D and E, further up in the academic pecking order, but agreed it was most depressing when our fellow level Bs acted like jerks.

As we talked we started to wonder: do you get further in academia if you are a jerk?

Jerks step on, belittle or otherwise sabotage their academic colleagues. The most common method is by criticising their opinions in public, at a conference or in a seminar and by trash talking them in private. Some ambitious sorts work to cut out others, whom they see as competitors, from opportunity. I'm sure it's not just academics on the payroll who have to deal with this kind of jerky academic behaviour. On the feedback page to the Whisperer I occasionally get comments from PhD students who have found themselves on the receiving end - especially during seminar presentations.

I assume people act like jerks because they think they have something to gain, and maybe they are right.

In his best selling book 'The No Asshole Rule' Robert Sutton, a professor at Stanford University, has a lot to say on the topic of, well, assholes in the workplace. The book is erudite and amusing in equal measures and well worth reading especially for the final chapter where Sutton examines the advantages of being an asshole. He cites work by Teresa Amabile, who did a series of controlled experiments using fictitious book reviews. While the reviews themselves essentially made the same observations about the books, the tone in which the reviewers expressed their observations was tweaked to be either nice or nasty. What Amabile found was:

... negative or unkind people were seen as less likeable but more intelligent, competent and expert than those who expressed the the same messages in gentler ways

Huh.

This sentence made me think about the nasty cleverness that some academics display when they comment on student work in front of their peers. Displaying cleverness during PhD seminars and during talks at conferences is a way academics show off their scholarly prowess to each other, sometimes at the expense of the student. Cleverness is a form of currency in academia; or 'cultural capital' if you like. If other academics think you are clever they will listen to you more; you will be invited to speak at other institutions, to sit on panels and join important committees and boards. Appearing clever is a route to power and promotion. If performing like an asshole in a public forum creates the perverse impression that you are more clever than others who do not, there is a clear incentive to behave this way.

Sutton claims only a small percentage of people who act like assholes are actually sociopaths (he amusingly calls them 'flaming assholes') and talks about how asshole behaviour is contagious. He argues that it's easy for asshole behaviour to become normalised in the workplace because, most of the time, the assholes are not called to account. So it's possible that many academics are acting like assholes without even being aware of it.

How does it happen? The budding asshole has learned, perhaps subconsciously, that other people interrupt them less if they use stronger language. They get attention: more air time in panel discussions and at conferences. Other budding assholes will watch strong language being used and then imitate the behaviour. No one publicly objects to the language being used, even if the student is clearly upset, and nasty behaviour gets reinforced. As time goes on the culture progressively becomes more poisonous and gets transmitted to the students. Students who are upset by the behaviour of academic assholes are often counselled, often by their peers, that "this is how things are done around here" . Those who refuse to accept the culture are made to feel abnormal because, in a literal sense, they are - if being normal is to be an asshole.

Not all academic cultures are badly afflicted by assholery, but many are. I don't know about you, but seen this way, some of the sicker academic cultures suddenly make much more sense. This theory might explain why senior academics are sometimes nicer and more generous to their colleagues than than those lower in the pecking order. If asshole behaviour is a route to power, those who already have positions of power in the hierarchy and are widely acknowledged to be clever, have less reason to use it.

To be honest with you, seen through this lens, my career trajectory makes more sense too. I am not comfortable being an asshole, although I'm not going to claim I've never been one. I have certainly acted like a jerk in public a time or two in the past, especially when I was an architecture academic where a culture of vicious critique is quite normalised. But I'd rather collaborate than compete and I don't like confrontation.

I have quality research publications and a good public profile for my scholarly work, yet I found it hard to get advancement in my previous institution. I wonder now if this is because I am too nice and, as a consequence, people tended to underestimate my intelligence. I think it's no coincidence that my career has only taken off with this blog. The blog is a safe space for me to show off display my knowledge and expertise without having to get into a pissing match.

Like Sutton I am deeply uncomfortable with the observation that being an asshole can be advantageous for your career. Sutton takes a whole book to talk through the benefits of not being an asshole and I want to believe him. He clearly shows that there are real costs to organisations for putting up with asshole behaviour. Put simply, the nice clever people leave. I suspect this happens in academia all the time. It's a vicious cycle which means people who are more comfortable being an asshole easily outnumber those who find this behaviour obnoxious.

Ultimately we are all diminished when clever people walk away from academia. So what can we do? It's tempting to point the finger at senior academics for creating a poor workplace culture, but I've experienced this behaviour from people at all levels of the academic hierarchy. We need to work together to break the circle of nastiness.

It's up to all of us to be aware that we have a potential bias in the way we judge others; to be aware that being clever comes in nice and nasty packages. I think we would all prefer, for the sake of a better workplace, that people tried to be nice rather than nasty when giving other people, especially students, criticism about their work. Criticism can be gently and firmly applied, it doesn't have to be laced with vitriol.

It's hard to do, but wherever possible we should work on creating circles of niceness. We can do this by being attentive to our own actions. Next time you have to talk in public about someone else's work really listen to yourself. Are you picking up a prevailing culture of assholery?

I must admit I am at a bit of a loss for other things we can do to make academia a kinder place. Do you have any ideas?
Related posts Academic Arrogance The stegosaurus strategy

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Academic assholes and the circle of niceness

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Two of my favourite people in the academic world are my friends Rachael Pitt (aka @thefellowette) and Nigel Palmer. Whenever we have a catch up, which is sadly rare, we have a fine old time talking shop over beer and chips (well lemonade in my case, but you get the picture).

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Thesis Whisperer: Academic assholes and other jerks

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Thesis Whisperer: Academic assholes and other jerks

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Thesis Whisperer: Inger Mewburn

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to join here, and join the campaign. The more people involved, the more successful we can be.

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CONSIDERATIONS? No, the monkey doesn’t hold the copyright on this selfie — but neither does the camera’s owner

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CONSIDERATIONS? No, the monkey doesn’t hold the copyright on this selfie — but neither does the camera’s owner

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Mathew Ingram

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Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The twists and turns of copyright law are arcane at the best of times, especially when digital images are involved, but it's not often that the debate over ownership rights turns to whether a crested black Macaque monkey from Indonesia can own the copyright to a photo she took of herself. But that's exactly what was triggered by a recent article in The Telegraph, in which the camera's owner - wildlife photographer David Slater - claims that his request to have it removed from the open-source Wikimedia Commons library was denied because Wikimedia's editors believe that the monkey holds the copyright to the photo.

That's not strictly true, however. In fact, the editors at Wikimedia (which manages the library of more than 22 million images and videos associated with the open-source encyclopedia) rejected the photographer's demands because they believe that no one holds the copyright. A monkey can't hold the rights to an image - or anything else, for that matter - because they aren't human, and therefore don't have the legal standing required to do so.

This particular story began in 2011, when Slater went to Indonesia and was taking photos in the jungle. The female Macaque monkey in the pictures got hold of one of his cameras and took hundreds of shots, and Slater subsequently sold the selfie photo to a number of different publications. The legal battle with Wikimedia began when he asked the organization to remove the picture from its library and was stonewalled - and that back-and-forth ultimately showed up in Wikimedia's report on takedown requests. Slater told the Telegraph that the organization is infringing on his right to make a living:

But even if the monkey doesn't own the rights to the photo, shouldn't the photographer own the rights, since it was his camera the monkey used to take the picture, and he did the editing and publishing of the photo? That may seem obvious, but nothing about copyright law is obvious, and legally speaking Wikimedia has a strong case that no one actually owns the rights to the picture.

We've actually been down this road relatively recently, although it didn't involve a monkey: after a "selfie" of a group of famous actors went viral on Oscar night, breaking the record for the most retweets on Twitter with 3 million or so, a debate began over who owned the rights to this suddenly iconic image. Was it Ellen DeGeneres, whose camera was used? Or was it Bradley Cooper, the actor who actually snapped the photo?

According to copyright law, the person who creates the picture is the copyright owner (unless he or she is acting as an official "agent" for the photographer, under a so-called "work for hire" arrangement). As an entertainment lawyer explained following the DeGeneres photo, when copyright law as it applies to photography was formulated, cameras were relatively complicated and the courts likely didn't imagine a day when everyone would have a camera in their pockets, so they gave the rights to whoever pushed the button. Under U.S. law, if a "natural person" is not the author of the work, then it is considered anonymous.

According to comments that Slater made to The Telegraph, the photographer may be considering a legal challenge of the Wikimedia Commons decision, so we may get more official confirmation of this point eventually (and there is still some debate about the DeGeneres photo, even among copyright experts). But until then, the editors at Wikimedia appear to be on fairly firm ground.
Post and thumbnail images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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No, the monkey doesn't hold the copyright on this selfie - but neither does the camera's owner

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Credit: Wikimedia Commons The twists and turns of copyright law are arcane at the best of times, especially when digital images are involved, but it's not often that the debate over ownership rights turns to whether a crested black Macaque monkey from Indonesia can own the copyright to a photo she took of herself.

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CONSIDERATIONS? Breaking News: BDS Intellectual is #HireFired for Social Media Crimes

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CONSIDERATIONS? Breaking News: BDS Intellectual is #HireFired for Social Media Crimes

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Claire Potter

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This just in from Inside Higher Ed: a new chapter in the ongoing saga of BDS in American higher education begins with the #HireFire of a scholar who, like thousands of other people, used Twitter as his platform during the recent, bloody and undeclared war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

A major intellectual in the BDS movement, Steven G. Salaita (who is still listed as an associate professor in the English Department at Virginia Tech) appears to have had a job in the American Indian Studies program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Chanpagne rescinded because of his tweets about Gaza. Although I hope this is not the case, it appears that Salaita may be completely unemployed. Because of tweets.

Scott Jaschik writes that confirmation of a newly hired scholar's appointment by the board of trustees is usually a formality:

The appointment was made public, and Salaita resigned from his position as associate professor of English at Virginia Tech. But he was recently informed by Chancellor Phyllis Wise that the appointment would not go to the university's board, and that he did not have a job to come to in Illinois, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.

The university declined to confirm the blocked appointment, but would not respond to questions about whether Salaita was going to be teaching there. (And as recently as two weeks ago, the university confirmed to reporters that he was coming.) The university also declined to answer questions about how rare it is for such appointments to fall through at this stage.

We at Tenured Radical know nothing that you do not know, but I have the following initial reaction about the basic elements of this news:

No one should be fired for what they say on social media. Ever. This is an outrage, and regardless of your position on BDS or our political differences with each other, we should stand strong as a community against a slippery slope that puts us all in danger. This is bigger than Steven Salaita: what UIUC did has put every university professor, administrator and graduate student who is on social media in danger. Everyone reading this blog needs to be clear about that, regardless of our other politics.

The first thing people will talk about is that it is unwise and naive to resign from one job before an appointment is completed elsewhere, but few of us who change jobs presume that we will be #hirefired. We also do not know why Salaita ended up in a temporarily vulnerable position where he was tenured nowhere.

The contents of the tweets aside, punishing Salaita by not only taking away the promise of a great new job and a new life (were houses bought and sold?), but also putting his whole career in danger, sets a brutal example about the costs of a scholar speaking out about anything remotely controversial before or after tenure.

But what about the contents of the tweets? OK, I do not endorse tweets that advocate violence, even in jest, mostly because I think Twitter can be, and should be, better than that. I think people can, and should, be better than that. I have also written before about the ways I find #hashtagactivism problematic; in my view, it is performative, rather than substantive. My feeling is that #hashtagactivism occurs at the expense of Twitter exchanges that can generate edgy ideas, and it easily veers out of control into mobbing and bullying. In my view, a certain kind of social media behavior does call a person's character and judgment into question. But I can't say anything global about that, because some people I know who have a really unattractive social media presence are bright and engaged scholars. Some are not: it depends. Furthermore, some of the biggest #asshats I have ever met don't use social media at all.

Twitter, Facebook and blogging are no longer a game. It has been clear since the Erik Loomis incident in fall, 2012 that, despite the fact that few schools count an active social media presence in a scholar's favor, it can and will be used against you. Usually your own words will be turned into ammunition by people who don't understand social media at all. Things to stay away from? Casually advocating violence seems to be a common lightning rod; personal insults and libelous allegations are not wise either, but this seems to bother universities a whole lot less.

If you are an administrator, before you hire someone recommended by a department, consider actually reading their work. Although the tweets that are being cited have to do with Gaza, anyone who had read Salaita's Israel's Dead Soul (2011) and The Uncultured Wars: Arabs, Muslims and the Poverty of Liberal Thought (2008) would have known precisely what he thought. If the Tweets are cruder and more performative, they are not fundamentally different in their ideas and political orientation than books that were presumably presented as part of the tenure dossier.

Professional associations need to pull themselves together to create recommendations about the role of social media in our hiring and evaluation processes. They are getting further and further behind a medium that is changing very quickly, in its form, uses and impact. Academics are basically making up the rules as they go along, and the people who have the most power over faculty lives (including many senior faculty, higher level administrators, and trustees) don't understand social media cultures or practices. For example, if you are going to criticize someone for their Twitter feed, read it. The whole thing, not just snippets passed along out of context. You don't just get to cherry pick one here, and one there. No one would read a book that way and be perceived as competent, would they?

I predict that this debacle at UIUC will be the beginning of one big, long ugliness unless somebody moves very fast to fix it.

Corey Robin has written about the Salaita case here and here.

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Breaking News: BDS Intellectual is #HireFired for Social Media Crimes

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This just in from Inside Higher Ed: a new chapter in the ongoing saga of BDS in American higher education begins with the #HireFire of a scholar who, like thousands of other people, used Twitter as his platform during the recent, bloody and undeclared war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

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CONSIDERATIONS? Breaking News: BDS Intellectual is #HireFired for Social Media Crimes

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CONSIDERATIONS? Breaking News: BDS Intellectual is #HireFired for Social Media Crimes

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Claire Potter

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WHY? A tongue in cheek response to Neil Hall Kardashian shaming

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WHY? A tongue in cheek response to Neil Hall Kardashian shaming

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Pinterest

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Dr. Seuss Twitter Guide via Daily Genius

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Dan Purvis, turning the written into the visual

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Comms Axis | Content, Marketing & Sales combined

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In my opening post in this series on infographics, I explained about how they had become a victim of their own success. Businesses from any sector and of any size were jumping on the hard-data-made-easy bandwagon to create huge volumes of infographics.

But it was this very success that has seen the real value of infographics become diluted. Their core essence is to turn something otherwise complex into easily digestible and understandable visual representations.

What we're seeing now are hundreds of them being created and shared across social networks every day. The intended target audiences are becoming immune to them and, quite simply, they have way too many to consume and are far less inclined now to check them out. They just don't know which ones will teach them something useful and so don't bother wasting their time.

They used to be a cost-effective and quick way to make a brand stand out in a sea of written content. And brands didn't need to conduct exhaustive research to create them. Publications and blogs also used to love receiving them and posting them on their sites as a quick and easy way to help jazz up their own content, while driving traffic and improving stickability as well as shares across social networks. The term "infographic" is viral - just look at how many times it is used every minute on Twitter alone. And a quick search on Google uncovered more than 16 million results for the query "infographic". Says it all really.

But individual infographics are no longer going viral themselves. Simply put: there are just too many "me too" infographics out there.

Before we look at how you can make your infographics stand out, we must stress the essence of what infographics are for.

At Comms Axis, we believe that they are a case of "hard datastuff made easy

You'll notice that we crossed through "data' and replaced it with "stuff" instead. This is because infographics are flexible enough to be used beyond just numbers. They should be used to visualise data OR ideas OR concepts..."stuff" as we like to call it! Although in this age of "Big Data" that we now live, they're ideal for translating these vast numbers into something meaningful.

So, let's discuss how you should approach them.

This first point is, for me, the most vital. You must make the reader, not the "stuff" itself, central to your thinking and also to your design.

If you become a slave to the numbers then you will easily make the most common of mistakes: trying to cram too many trends and too many statistics into the infographic.

Take a step back and put yourself in the shoes of your audience. What would make you want to check your infographic out? What would make it easy for you to understand?

And consider them as an output - a delivery mechanism - of your content marketing strategy. Businesses are striving to demonstrate their subject matter expertise, and infographics are an ideal way of doing this.

So remember that you are educating your audience on complex information, and that you need to do it in a way that not only catches their eye and stands out, but teaches them something new.

So don't just provide numbers or trends. Explain what they mean - providing clear insight will strengthen your reputation for being a go-to source of expertise on a particular subject.

Ultimately, it needs to cause the reader to go: "Wow, that was interesting...I learned something today...I'm going to share it with my networks."

The temptation is to cram as much as possible into your infographics. But remember that they need to be visual feasts, not confusing patterns, colours and percentages.

Aim for as little clutter on your page as possible - you don't want different elements of the same infographic to be competing with or cannibalising the impact of each other.

Try to work to the 'rule of three' - your insights will be remembered more easily than several different trends and explanations.

Highlight three prominent trends or data sets; each one should then have a maximum of three short bullet points to succinctly deliver the insight (i.e. what each one actually means); conclude in no more than three short sentences. The less text you use, the more inviting your infographic will be to convert the "glancers" into "perusers", and "perusers" into "digesters". 😀

You have your data. You've worked out your stand-out trends. You analysed them and have your insights ready. Don't now just dump them in an infographic and assume it will go viral.

Start with your big take-away - this is important to draw the reader in - and then break it down in much the same way you would write an article or blog post.

Make sure that it flows coherently from graphic to graphic, and isn't just a mish-mash of unrelated subjects. This approach will help ensure that the infographic is easily scanned and viewed. Keep in mind that this is art and science combined.

Some of these may seem a bit obvious, but they should be part of your standard checklist for every infographic you want to create:

1. Don't forget your brand! Embed your logo and URL to enhance brand awareness. You don't want the reader to like your infographic only to wonder "who created that one?!"

2. Consider some free tools so that you can do it yourself without having to rely on a time-pressured in-house designer or outsourcing it to a third party who would need briefing, managing...and paying! Lilach Bullock reviewed some ideal infographic tools in this post - check them out.

3. Don't just rely on your twitter profile or blog post to promote your creation. There are lots of infographic-hungry sites out there that you can submit yours too. Again, have a read of Lilach's post on 10 ways to promote an infographic for some inspiration.

4. Think of an appropriate hashtag for your infographic and make it prominent in your design. It will help spark conversations and debate amongst like-minded individuals across different social media networks. And be sure to include the chosen hashtag not only within the tweets and other social networks that you promote it on, but also via the auto-share buttons wherever you host the infographic on your site.

5. Provide an embed code for each of your infographics. Easy for you to do, and therefore easy for your work to be embedded on other sites and linked back to your site. This is a very simple yet effective traffic driver and brand awareness enhancer.

6. The headline is key - as with any kind of content, a lot of people will only ever see the headline in a tweet and a shortened URL. If you're lucky, they'll also see a thumbnail of the infographic. Thumbnails won't do your piece of art justice, and there is a lot of click-bait out there so be sure to grab attention but to deliver in the infographic what the headline claims. Using a popular hashtag within the title can also help.

7. Reference all sources and link to them in the footer. We all hate it when our work gets plagiarised without an acknowledgement. It seems the days when people actually asked permission or at least let the owner of some content know when, where and how they were going to be using it are long gone! Simply listing the sources of where your data or trends came from, or what resources you leaned on to help come up with your content, reflects extremely well on your brand and therefore your reputation. And you could well get a reciprocal 'wave' back from them too!

We hope you learned from this post or found it useful...you never know, we may well create our own infographic based on this series of posts to see if that helps to tell the story better! 😉

Please leave a comment on what you think about static infographics - do they still work for you? What challenges and successes have you had? We'd love to know!

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In my opening post in this series on infographics, I explained about how they had become a victim of their own success. Businesses from any sector and of any size were jumping on the hard-data-made-easy bandwagon to create huge volumes of infographics. But it was this very success that has seen the real value of infographics become diluted.

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hootsuite.com

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WHY? We the Kardashians are Democratizing Science

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WHY? We the Kardashians are Democratizing Science

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Neoruoconscience

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I had a good laugh this weekend at a paper published to Genome Biology. Neil Hall, the author of the paper and well-established Liverpool biologist, writes that in the brave new era of social media, there "is a danger that this form of communication is gaining too high a value and that we are losing sight of key metrics of scientific value, such as citation indices." Wow, what a punchline! According to Neil, we're in danger of forgetting that tweets and blogposts are, according to him, the worthless gossip of academia. After all, who reads Nature and Science these days?? I know so many colleagues getting big grants and tenure track jobs just over their tweets! Never mind that Neil himself has about 11 papers published in Nature journals - or perhaps we are left to sympathize with the poor, untweeted author? Outside of bitter sarcasm, the article is a fun bit of satire, and I'd like to think charitably that it was aimed not only at 'altmetrics', but at the metric enterprise in general. Still, I agree totally with Kathryn Clancy that the joke fails insofar as it seems to be 'punching down' at those of us with less established CVs than Neil, who take to social media in order to network and advance our own fledgling research profiles. I think it also belies a critical misapprehension of how social media fits into the research ecosystem common among established scholars. This sentiment is expressed rather precisely by Neil when discussing his Kardashian index:

"In an age dominated by the cult of celebrity we, as scientists, need to protect ourselves from mindlessly lauding shallow popularity and take an informed and critical view of the value we place on the opinion of our peers. Social media makes it very easy for people to build a seemingly impressive persona by essentially 'shouting louder' than others. Having an opinion on something does not make one an expert."

So there you have it. Twitter equals shallow popularity. Never mind the endless possibilities of having seamless networked interactions with peers from around the world. Never mind sharing the latest results, discussing them, and branching these interactions into blog posts that themselves evolve into papers. Forget entirely that without this infosphere of interaction, we'd be left totally at the whims of Impact Factor to find interesting papers among the thousands published daily. What it's really all about is building a "seemingly impressive persona" by "shouting louder than others". What then does constitute effective scientific output, Neil? The answer it seems - more high impact papers:

"I propose that all scientists calculate their own K-index on an annual basis and include it in their Twitter profile. Not only does this help others decide how much weight they should give to someone's 140 character wisdom, it can also be an incentive - if your K-index gets above 5, then it's time to get off Twitter and write those papers."

Well then, I'm glad we covered that. I'm sure there were many scientists or scholars out there who amid the endless cycle of insane job pressure, publish or perish horse-racing, and blood feuding for grants thought, 'gee I'd better just stop this publishing thing entirely and tweet instead'. And likewise, I'm sure every young scientist looks at 'Kardashians' and thinks, 'hey I'd better suspend all critical thinking, forget all my training, and believe everything this person says'. I hope you can feel me rolling my eyes. Seriously though - this represents a fundamental and common misunderstanding of the point of all this faffing about on the internet. Followers, impact, and notoriety are all poorly understood side-effects of this process; they are neither the means nor goal. And never mind those less concrete (and misleading) contributions like freely shared code, data, or thoughts - the point here is to blather and gossip!

While a (sorta) funny joke, it is this point that is done the most disservice by Neil's article. We (the Kardashians) are democratizing science. We are filtering the literally unending deluge of papers to try and find the most outrageous, the most interesting, and the most forgotten, so that they can see the light of day beyond wherever they were published and forgotten. We seek these papers to generate discussion and to garner attention where it is needed most. We are the academy's newest, first line of defense, contextualizing results when the media runs wild with them. We tweet often because there is a lot to tweet, and we gain followers because the things we tweet are interesting. And we do all of this without the comfort of a lofty CV or high impact track record, with little concrete assurance that it will even benefit us, all while still trying to produce the standard signs of success. And it may not seem like it now - but in time it will be clear that what we do is just as much a part of the scientific process as those lofty Nature papers. Are we perfect? No. Do we sometimes fall victim to sensationalism or crowd mentality? Of course - we are only fallible human beings, trying to find and create utility within a new frontier. We may not be the filter science deserves - but we are the one it needs. Wear your Kardshian index with pride.

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We the Kardashians are Democratizing Science

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I had a good laugh this weekend at a paper published to Genome Biology. Neil Hall, the author of the paper and well-established Liverpool biologist, writes that in the brave new era of social media, there "is a danger that this form of communication is gaining too high a value and that we are losing sight of...

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WHY? 
		
					
										
												The gap between academics and practitioners is a reflection of the underlying tensions of academic belonging.

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WHY? 
		
					
										
												The gap between academics and practitioners is a reflection of the underlying tensions of academic belonging.

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Jean M. Bartunek and Sara L. Rynes

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Jean M. Bartunek and Sara L. Rynes note the recent spike in journal articles across management scholarship seeking to address the divide between academics and practitioners. Whilst there remains relatively little empirical research focused on the issue of a gap, significant attention has been placed on understanding the variety of reasons for the divide. But what is being written probably reflects gaps within academia itself more than it reflects gaps between practitioners and academics. Discussion of the gap often signals underlying tensions about how much and where particular academics feel they belong or not.
The existence of a "gap" between management scholarship and management practice is taken for granted these days, so much so that what this gap actually signifies is often not attended to at all. Not only has it remained present to management scholars for more than fifty years, if the frequency with which academics have been writing about the gap is any indication, it is becoming more salient.

The graph below shows the number of empirical and non-empirical articles on the management academic- management practitioner gap appearing in management journals in ten-year time blocks from the 1960s through September 2013. As the graph makes evident, attention to this topic has been skyrocketing during the early part of the 21 st century.

Source: Bartunek & Rynes, 2014, Journal of Management online appendix, doi:10.1177/0149206314529160

Many of the articles are opinion pieces about whether or not practitioners and academics truly can and should share information and collaborate with each other. As the graph shows, there is very little empirical research addressing the issue. Proportionally, the number of journal articles that describe empirical research is not increasing as rapidly as the number of essays and opinion pieces.

What about this topic is attracting so much attention? And what is significant about the attention it is getting? Many of the articles suggest reasons for the gap. One reason is that the ways academics and practitioners think about many issues is very different. A second is that academics' time horizons are much longer than practitioners; while practitioners often need to make decisions quickly, academic research typically takes a much longer time. Yet another is that academics and practitioners use different types of communication styles; the language in academic articles often isn't very readable by practitioners. Next, while some groups of academics advocate strongly that in order to be rigorous, research cannot be relevant, other academics counter that rigor and relevance are very compatible. Finally, academia and management practice often have different incentives. Publishing a scholarly article is more of an incentive for an academic than a practitioner, while solving a particularly crucial business problem is more of an incentive to a practitioner.

These reasons for the gap may not seem so surprising. However, we also found that almost all of the writing about whether the gap should be bridged is being done by academics, more specifically by what Ranjay Gulati referred to as "tribes" of academics. In other words, what is being written probably reflects gaps within academia itself more than it reflects gaps between practitioners and academics.

Further, the gap is a quite emotionally laden topic for many academics participating in discussions about it. Their exchanges with each other about the gap are sometimes very heated. Indeed, the two of us found ourselves getting into heated exchanges with each other as we were writing the essay we summarize here, even though we largely agreed with each other. Fortunately, we were able to recognize that the disagreements we were having paralleled the conflicts and tensions that are often expressed in debates about the gap.

There is some movement regarding the gap. In particular, there are several incentives emerging that can make bridging the gap more attractive to academics. In the UK the most important is the new Research Excellence Framework (REF) that replaces the former Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) to measure the quality of research in UK universities. Unlike the RAE, the REF includes an assessment of the impact of scholarly research on practice, i.e. its reach and significance. Government attempts like this will undoubtedly increase academics' attention to the relevance of their research, regardless of whether they think that relevance is compatible with rigor.

What should happen now in academic writing? Should academics affirm or disaffirm the gap? We believe that the correct choice is "neither". The standard ways of thinking about the gap have largely outlived its usefulness, and the recent arguments for and against academic-practitioner collaboration are no longer advancing understanding. Rather, it is more productive to think about what dynamics are underneath the gap, and why they keep coming up.

We believe that the gap is actually a surface manifestation of deep tensions that are present among academics. We noted earlier that there is often conflict about the gap between particular academic tribes. These tribes are scholarly communities for academics, and one of the ways the academics signal their belonging in their tribe is in their claims about the gap and what should be done. Thus, discussion of the gap often signals underlying tensions about how much and where particular academics feel they belong or not. It also signals ongoing underlying tensions about performance, due to frequent disagreements between academic tribes regarding what the focus of scholarly work should be.
Note: This article gives the views of the authors, and not the position of the Impact of Social Science blog, nor of the London School of Economics. Please review our Comments Policy if you have any concerns on posting a comment below. About the Authors
Both the belonging and performance tensions are paradoxical. That is, they reflect tensions that are virtually always present in organizational settings in one way or another. It is not possible to resolve these tensions. Further, the gap is a convenient culprit for discussing them.

Recognition and focus on the underlying tensions themselves, on belongingness and contradictory performance pressures, can serve to move the discussion forward far better than ongoing fights about the gap can. It can lead to greater awareness of complicated challenges involved when there are competing pressures about performance, as well as to greater awareness of what it means to "belong" at work.

Ironically, these are tensions and pressures experienced by academics and practitioners alike. If we dig far enough beneath the gap it may actually enable ways to link academics and practitioners, rather than separate them.

Jean M. Bartunek is the Robert A. and Evelyn J. Ferris Chair and Professor of Management and Organization at Boston College. Her PhD in social and organizational psychology is from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a past president and fellow of the Academy of Management, and in 2009 she won the Academy of Management's Career Distinguished Service award. Her current research interests center around organizational change and academic-practitioner relationships. Jean is currently an associate editor of the Academy of Management Learning and Education and the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science.

Sara Rynes is the John E Murray Professor of Management & Organizations in the University of Iowa's Tippie College of Business. Her research interests are in academic-practitioner relations, human resource strategy, and management education. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Management, the American Psychological Association, the Management Education Research Institute, and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. She received the Academy of Management's Herbert G Heneman Career Achievement Award for Research in Human Resource Management and the 2011 Society of Human Resource Management's Michael Losey Human Resource Management Research Award. Her PhD is in industrial relations from the University of Wisconsin - Madison.

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The gap between academics and practitioners is a reflection of the underlying tensions of academic belonging.

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Jean M. Bartunek and Sara L. Rynes note the recent spike in journal articles across management scholarship seeking to address the divide between academics and practitioners. Whilst there remains relatively little empirical research focused on the issue of a gap, significant attention has been placed on understanding the variety of reasons for the divide.

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CONSIDERATIONS - Focus and credibility will help academic blogs thrive but negative perceptions must be challenged.

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CONSIDERATIONS - Focus and credibility will help academic blogs thrive but negative perceptions must be challenged.

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Achilleas Kostoulas

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CONSIDERATIONS - Academic citation processes need to be modernised

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CONSIDERATIONS - Academic citation processes need to be modernised

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@Write

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Researchers and academics spend a lot of time documenting the sources of the ideas, methods and evidence they have drawn on in their own writings. But I want to try and convince you that our existing citation and referencing practices are now woefully out of date and no longer fit for purpose in the modern world. The whole scholarly purpose of citing sources has changed around us, but our conventions have not recognized the change nor adapted yet. I first set out what's wrong with what we do now, and then sketch a radical agenda for starting afresh.

(Just a word of warning - this is a long post. There's a much shorter and punchier version here that some readers may prefer).

The current core details

There has been some past effort to standardize a certain core of things that all academic references will include. For books this includes

author last name; plus at least one first name initial (or full first name);

the same details for all other authors

full title (including sub-titles, although they are often left off)

place of publication; the name of the publisher; and the year date of publication

For reports, working papers, conference papers and 'grey literature' (not published by formal publishers) the core details are much as for books, but with the 'publisher' being whatever organization originated a report or working paper, or the name of a conference where a paper was presented. The name of any working paper series and any identification numbering should be recorded and the full date of publication or presentation (i.e. day, month and year of publication). These details are more numerous or demanding because grey literature is chronically harder to track down. Indeed a still incredibly common trait is for even serious and respectable organizations to publish reports without including even a year date on them, let alone other publication details.

For journal articles the standard core now includes

author(s) last name, and initial(s) or first name, as for books.

full title (including sub-titles)

the journal name. This should be utterly straightforward. But instead journals often abbreviate their own names and the names of other journals in various completely unpredictable and unnecessary ways (e.g writing 'Jnl' instead of 'journal' or using acronyms). Different sets of academic editors, professional associations and commercial publishers seem to take a perverse pride in recording the source details of publications in different ways. These are ultra-legacy elements, decipherable only by the cognoscenti and stemming from the days of letter press printing half a century ago, when saving characters also saved money. they have no current rationale at all.

the year of publication, sometimes supplemented by a month date or a season name (e.g. Summer)

the volume of publication. Actually this should always be just an esoteric re-coding of the year, with the number depending on when volume 1 first happened. However, some journals also have more than volume per calendar year, to make things difficult. An extra spice of incomprehensibility is added by some journals who record their volume numbers in Roman numerals (like LXIII) - a master stroke of one-upmanship.

the page numbers range - i.e. the beginning page number to end page number.

Why these core details don't work any more

Many elements of the list above are broken or have become pointless in the digital age.

1. Author names in many British and European sources (book publishers and journals alike) often still include just a single initial. Academics and professionals from these smaller nations have been remarkably slow to appreciate the globalization of knowledge, and hence the need for much more distinctive author names. They (and their journals) are still reluctant to go beyond a single initial (J.) to distinguish John Smith from Joan Smith. By contrast, American publishers and journals (more accustomed to a country with 300 million people in it) tend to give the first name in full, and sometimes a second initial as well. Clearly, in the era of global search engines the US practice needs to become universal, but there is still a long way to go.

2. In all the STEM sciences the number of author names for journal articles has tended to increase sharply in the last ten years. In some disciplines the proliferation of author names is beginning to cause some reductions to be made in which author names are included in references, although the process is proceeding in an erratic and non-standardized way. Where once journals or book publishers might have tried to list all authors, increasingly some sources will only list the first ten or even just the first five authors in their reference lists. People who want a full author list hence need to actually go to the article itself, where the first page will still show everyone involved. With many physics papers listing 50+ authors, and some several hundred, this change has become inevitable.

3. Volume and issue numbers no longer make sense for journals that have moved to continuous publication. Even for journals that retain volume and issue numbers almost all articles are now being published online before (often months or year before) they get a print volume and issue number. The gap between online publication and print issue publication can be substantial. In the social sciences and humanities other authors may be very reluctant to cite such online pieces, because online papers are often harder to find on dated publisher websites, and they know that any interim reference they make will become obsolescent. Most libraries, electronic depositories and publishers insist on rewriting the citation of an early online article, so as to use instead the print on paper volume and issue version of the reference, even when this effectively falsifies the timing of the work. For instance, one of my recent papers spent nearly two years in this limbo of 'early online' status, and at the end of it had changed from an autumn 2011 piece to a summer 2013 one. In other words the current core convention deliberately introduces inaccuracy and falsified details into academic referencing, the opposite of their supposed purpose.

4. Page numbers are also irrelevant for many sources now. In 'early online' articles the page numbers all start at 1, until the article gets incorporated into a specific volume and issue number, where suddenly the page numbers are changed completely - thereby invalidating any previous page-specific citations. Similarly many ebooks now often do not have page numbers, since they re-size automatically to fit the screen size of the device that readers are using, and to adjust to readers' preferences for font sizes. Hence pagination in the digital age makes no sense at all.

5. Place of publication for books is also a mostly pointless piece of information. Many big international publishers issue the same books in two or more places at the same time - for instance, in the USA and in the UK or Europe - yet these identical books will be referenced as if they were different. For many smaller publishers it is sometimes a bit of a job to find out where the place of publication actually is - even by searching their websites. This is often the last piece of information that I have to include in my reference lists, precisely because it actually matters very little in a digital era. Every publisher of any importance worldwide is now on the internet and the web and almost all will be accessed via Google Books or Amazon - home even to self-publishers nowadays.

'Legacy' referencing marginalizes open access texts

What is the essential purpose of academic referencing? What is its 'be all and end all' rationale, such that we devote so many hours to it? A completely out of date answer dominates current practice - namely that referencing and citing is about showing (acknowledging) your sources, in a way that can be followed up by another researcher. Your referencing should direct them to the same precise sources and pages that you yourself used in constructing an argument or a case. In this sense referencing is about replicability (ascertaining that a cited source actually exists and says what you says it says), as well as about correctly assigning credit, or (far less commonly) criticizing inadequate work.

But in the digital era this is too limited an ambition. Referencing should instead be about directly connecting readers to the full text of your sources, ideally in a one-stop way. Using URL referencing of the kind I employ in this blog, or other innovative methods, readers should be able to go directly (in a single click and in real time) to the specific part of the full text of source that is being cited. In other words, modern referencing is not about pointing to some source details for books that cost a small fortune and are buried away in some library where the reader is not present; still less about pointing to source details for an article in a pay-wall journal to which readers do not have access. That is legacy referencing, designed solely to serve the interests of commercial publishers, and 90% irrelevant now to the scholarly enterprise. If that is the best that we can do in connecting readers to our source texts, then it will have to do. But let's face it, it's not much use in today's world.

With open access spreading now we can all do better, far better, if we follow one dominant principle. Referencing should connect readers as far as possible to open access sources, and scholars should in all cases and in every possible way treat the open access versions of texts as the primary source. Versions of the text that depend upon paid for access (buying the book, or subscribing to the journal) should be relegated to the status of secondary sources, supplementary information for status conscious academics (or their promotion committees), but not forming part of the core information about a text. This may seem revolutionary but it is actually just a reflection and slight extension of the new rules that the British government's research funding body has already introduced for the next 'research excellence framework' (REF) exercise, expected in 2020. For any academic's or researcher's journal articles to be considered as part of a university case for REF funding support they will either need to be available in open access form in the journal (free to any reader), or the university must show an immediate pre-publication version of the paper on their e-depository.

So the primary version of a journal article, the version that we reference in our own work and provide links to, should be in one of four forms:

1. In a wholly open-access journal. This is probably the best option because a well-known journal is easy to find, and most readers in the field will already know that in this source they can click through to any paper, maximizing their incentives to do so.

2. An open-access article in a generally pay-walled journal. Readers will still get the full text if they click through, because the authors or university have paid to secure that. But current estimates suggest that less than 5% of articles in paywall journals are open access, so this status needs to be clearly communicated e.g. by putting [Open access] at the end of the reference. Otherwise readers may see this as just another legacy source.

3. The immediate pre-publication version available on the university e-depository. Essentially this is the author's final manuscript version, so that the text and Figures etc are completely identical to those in the formally published version - but, of course, the pagination is not the same.

4. The immediate pre-publication version available on another widely accessible and well-used access open access site, such as the brilliant Research Gate, or perhaps academia.edu. (If you don't know about these sites already, please read my post on not being an academic hermit).

From now on therefore, any version of a journal article behind a paywall should only be cited as the primary source if none of the four options above is available and nothing better than source details alone can be produced. However, if an open access version of a text is available, this must always be treated as the primary text. Here the commercial version of the text becomes the secondary version and it should always be cited second and in a manner that makes this completely clear. For instance, after the primary reference to the full text, you could write: 'Also available as: ....'

Updating legacy practices for digital

Perhaps you are sceptical about (or do not agree with) the argument for prioritizing open access versions above. Whatever your stance here, hopefully in this section I can convince you of the need to make some other fundamental changes in our concept of the core details for journal articles and books. These absolutely essential elements, the details that should be universally given, need to be expanded in the digital era so as to cover:

The shortened URL for the university e-depository version of the text. All commercial publishers and many journals still hate including URLs in reference lists because in the past academics and researchers would just copy long URL addresses off the open web, or ordinary Google, with many defects. Often the links were strictly temporary (and so often became broken links). The URLs cited also included all kinds of 'rubbish text' elements, and so they were overly long and looked ugly, out of place and disruptive in reference lists. These problems are behind us now. No one needs to include long URLs anymore - simply go to bitly.com (or another alternative site) and type in a long URL, to get a compact and neat looking version that fits easily into any reference list. All university e-depositories should now issue permanent URLs for any item that they store, links which are guaranteed not to break or change in future. The best depositiories now have their own very short but well-branded permanent URLs - for instance the LSE's Research Online service gives URLs that look like this: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/56492/ In the remote contingency that anything goes wrong with the reproduction of such a link (e.g. because of misprints), the URL includes LSE's web address and the staff will also be able to help readers to find the right source, and can issue corrections or arrange re-directs. I hope that all depositories are geared up now to work in this way?

The DOI permanent URL for the source (which covers both journal articles and also books). DOI here stands for 'digital object identifier', which is a unique code number issued by commercial publishers for each individual journal article or book that they publish. This identification number will never change. And if you add the prefix http://dx.doi.org/ to the front of it then you get a permanent URL. So take my paper on 'Analysing party competition in plurality rule elections' which has: doi: 10.1177/1354068811411026.Combining the prefix and the number gives an invariant URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1354068811411026 that takes you reliably to the commercial publisher's site for the article. In this case it is a paywall site, so it is not much good beyond a legacy source link unless a reader has access to that journal. But if the article is in an open access journal or is an open access piece in a paywall journal, then the DOI gives readers a second permanent URL. However, it should be clear that the publishers' DOI is a lot less attractive and is more easily messed up or mis-recorded (because it has so many numbers) than a shortened permanent URL from a good university online depository. This is an inevitable product of a DOI system that now includes some 85 million separate items.

We need to junk page references in favor of short source quotes that readers can search and find

Academic references should wherever possible be precise, and so a hallmark of past good practice has been that citations tell readers exactly where to look in otherwise long and baffling texts for the provenance of what is being said. But if digital and open access texts are now our primary sources, the ones that we know the vast majority of readers will use, then pagination becomes irrelevant. The page numbers on a e-depository text, on the 'early online' version of an article, and in the 'final' article included in a journal issue and volume will all be different. This way only confusion lies.

And if we want to URL-link readers directly to text passages, then incorporating pagination is simply not viable for ordinary academics and authors. We can only URL link to a whole source, taking readers to the top of the source but not to a specific point inside it. We cannot do more specific URLs at present.

But if a URL link is for a quotation the problem disappears. Readers follow the link to the top of the sources, copy a few words of the quoted passage into the Control+F search box, and go directly to the passage cited. (If the source is a book with preview, then readers could also try their luck with the facility to search inside a book on Google Books). So the solution for modern scholars must be to expand our use of very short 'source quotes' in what we write. Previously I might write in this style: "Bastow et al 2014, p. 21) argue that social scientists study mainly systems where humans are dominant". Now I need to write in a a slightly different way so as to get rid of the need for obtrusive reference, thus: "Simon Bastow and colleagues argue that the social sciences focus most on ' the study of human-dominated systems ' ". Source quotes replacing page references do not have to be memorable, nor especially salient bits of text, nor very long - they can be very short so long as they are unique. The six words that form this particular link are enough to identify without ambiguity a single sentence in a book of 300+ pages. [If in doubt, check that your source quote words are unique using Control+F].

Other citation problems

Everything to do with referencing and citations is made a hundred times worse by the completely pointless proliferation of different referencing and citation styles and systems, one that commercial publishers have facilitated in a desperate effort to prove their responsiveness to academic demands and show their 'value added'. There are now some 5,000+ different styles, and every month some bozo or other adds another one. This co-ordination fiasco is exhaustively documented in some of the most esoteric and pointless books ever produced by humankind - of which Turabian's Chicago style guide is perhaps the most over-blown example. Literally thousands of editing, proof-reading and librarian/information science jobs worldwide are now dedicated to coping with the pointless complexity of so many different academic referencing protocols.

Open access pressures to cut publishing prices and costs should help reduce the mess a bit. Leading profit-makers Wiley and Elsevier still charge $2,700 to make paywall journal articles open access, whereas the sustainable lrbl is less than 25% of this, around $600 for a top journal - should should force even legacy publishers to create a 'low cost airline' version of their current, pointlessly high cost offerings. As more people use brilliant modern text editors, like that on Medium.com which offer just a stripped down set of editing options, they will also see that the publishers' over-refinements add no value.

(Digression: When you write on Medium your text is auto-saved every few seconds, and you can only use bold, italics, underline or URL links to vary it. Every Medium article uses the same font size throughout. There are two levels of heading only, and no sub- or super-scripts (that I've found yet). You can't do formulae, tables or charts (although you can load in pictures of formulae, tables or charts). When you log on to Medium for the first time it prompts you: 'Bang out some text!' It's just the best way of writing, and makes going back to MS Word, or coping with idiotic journal style sheets, seem as antiquated as using a typewriter).

Quick recap - what authors should do now

Let me sum up the many different strands of argument above by summarizing what things a 'born digital', pro-open access scholar should be putting in their references now, wherever feasible. And definitely these are the details that you must be recording for the future in EndNote, Mendeley or any other reference-management software that you are using.
For books:

Author first name, second initial and last name. Repeat for other authors up to a limit - e.g. first five or ten authors only, and then use et al.

Full title and sub-title, all in words (don't even use '&' for instance)

Year of publication

Shortened permanent URL to the full text in open access online-depository - preferably the author's home university e-depository version, or if not there some other open access version, e.g. at Research Gate.

The DOI permanent URL to the commercial text, that is, http://dx.doi.org/ followed immediately by the DOI number. If an open access version of the source is available make clear that the commercial version is a secondary source. Put: 'Also available as ...'

The name of the commercial publisher.

For journal articles:

Author first name, second initial and last name. Repeat for other authors up to a limit - e.g. first five or ten authors only.

Full title and sub-title, all in words, exactly as printed in the journal

The date of publication - give Year alone if that is all that is available, but for continuously published and early online articles give date, month and year, for instance: 26 April 2014.

Shortened permanent URL to the online-depository open access full text (again preferably the author's home university e-depository version, or other open access version, like academia.edu)

The DOI permanent URL to the commercial text, that is, http://dx.doi.org/ followed immediately by the DOI number. If an OA version is available make clear that the commercial version is a secondary source. Put: 'Also available as ...'

The full name of the journal, without any abbreviations.

The start page and end page numbers (in full). Write in a transparent way, for instance: pp. 150-179.

Other legacy elements can be added to taste, such as the largely pointless volume and issue numbers if they are still in use. Write in a transparent way, without codes, brackets etc. For instance: vol. 67, no. 4.

For conference papers, working papers, reports, media sources and grey literature generally

Author first name, second initial and last name. Repeat for other authors up to a limit - e.g. first five or ten authors only, and then et al.

Full title and sub-title, all in words

The date of publication - give date, month and year in full wherever they are available, for instance: 26 October 2012. Give the year alone if that is all you can document.

Shortened permanent URL to any online-depository or open access full text (preferably the author's home university e-depository version, or another open access version).

A shortened, non-permanent URL linking to the publishing organization's website or other location where the item was accessed. Few business firms or government organizations have yet wised up to the need to guarantee permanent URLs. But some heavy publishers like the World Bank or the UK's National Audit Office now do so. Wherever you cite non-permanent URLs, you also need to add: 'Accessed on [give full date]'.

The place of publication and the name of the organization publishing the item.

If the item is in a series of working papers or reports, give the series title and the number of the item in the series.

Achieving modernization

Nobody can change citation systems on their own. We are just at the start of what will inevitably be a long process of driving out legacy citation systems from scholarship and science and replacing them bit by bit with a modernized approach that treats digital and open access sources as always the primary sources, and commercially published versions behind paywalls as radically inferior secondary sources. No doubt that there are also things missing from my lists above that should be there, but I am too dumb to spot, or that matter to different disciplines in ways I can't see yet. So this is just a starting proposal, something to get the process of discussion started.

And I know from discussion with publishers and librarians that there are a range of other possible ideas in the offing, some of which strike me as a bit bonkers. E.g some people want to insist on recording ORCID numbers for authors in references - but these are also hard to remember and easy to get wrong. All we need is for authors to choose a distinctive author name and stick with it (as suggested above), and for journals and publishers to record these names properly. Undoubtedly converting legacy systems, plus fighting off this and other 'distractor' ideas, will take time and have many other aspects that need to be considered.

But if you are an academic, researcher or PhDer there is a very real payoff to immediately beginning to record all of the elements that I have set out above. For a start your own access to full text sources will radically improve by starting down this route. And you will be future-proofing your accumulated references against having to meet novel demands for these new digital and open access details that otherwise you may neglect. Also librarians and information scientists and PhD supervisors across the world need to radically update the advice that they give PhD students and early career researchers on how to do referencing. If your advice does not currently cover the suggestions made here, then you need to at least alert those you advise to this menu of ideas.

Finally, let me plead directly with any readers who exercise power in the scholarly publication process - because you edit a journal or a book series, you work for a publisher or undertake editing for authors, or you are a powerful person in your professional academic association. Look hard at the rules, conventions and styles that you are currently applying. Can you honestly say that your legacy requirements meet contemporary needs and have adapted to the digital dissemination of scholarship? Are your citation rules designed in a 'born digital' way? Do they foster open access and replicability by getting the full texts of source materials in front of readers in the most direct and simple way possible? If not, why not think about changing, discuss the issues with colleague, circulate this post to the rest of your team or firm, and try to build a critical mas for change? We need to accomplish a very difficult, collective modernization, but your contribution can make a difference.

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Academic citation practices need to be modernized - Advice for authoring a PhD or academic book - Medium

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Researchers and academics spend a lot of time documenting the sources of the ideas, methods and evidence they have drawn on in their own writings. But I want to try and convince you that our existing citation and referencing practices are now woefully out of date and no longer fit for purpose in the modern world.

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DATA HOW? Four things policy-makers need to know about social media data and real time analytics.

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DATA HOW? Four things policy-makers need to know about social media data and real time analytics.

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Ella McPherson

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CONSIDERATIONS - Twitter and blogs are not add-ons to academic research, but a simple reflection of the passion that underpins it.

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CONSIDERATIONS - Twitter and blogs are not add-ons to academic research, but a simple reflection of the passion that underpins it.

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Tim Hitchcock

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The role of the academic humanist has always been a public one - however mediated through teaching and publication, argues Tim Hitchcock. As central means to participate in public conversations, Twitter and blogging just make good academic sense. Hitchcock looks at how these new platforms are facilitating academic collaboration, teaching and public engagement. What starts as a blog, ends as an academic output, and an output with a ready-made audience, eager to cite it.
Impact is an awkward thing in British Higher Education. Most of the time it feels like just one more bludgeon used to batter hapless academics into submission. It is frequently shorthand for an agenda handed down from on high, privileging near-market research and the agendas of government. And yet no one spends a lifetime researching, teaching and writing about something if they don't believe it is important - if they don't believe that what they do contributes to a better world. We all want to have 'impact'. The question is how can we do so in a way that reflects our own values, rather than those of whatever government happens to be in power this week?

This question is all the more important because our traditional assumptions about how our work affects a broader social discourse seem increasingly threadbare. When the print run of most monographs number just a few hundred copies (most of which disappear in to American research libraries, never to be read or used), and when journal articles proliferate beyond number because they serve the needs of big publishing, rather than academic dialogue - we need to think harder about how we do the job of the humanities. If we simply continue in an older vein - having small (vociferous) conversations amongst ourselves, in professional seminars and at conferences, through book reviews and in the specialist hard copy press - we will lose our place in the broader social dialog. If there is a 'crisis' in the humanities, it lies in how we have our public debates, rather than in their content.

It seems to me that the solution to this problem is all around us, and that in order to address it, we need to remember that the role of the academic humanist has always been a public one - however mediated through teaching and publication. By building blogging, Twitter, flickr, and shared libraries in Zotero, in to our research programmes - into the way we work anyway - we both get more research done, and build a community of engaged readers for the work itself. We can do what we have always done, but do it better; as a public performance, in dialogue amongst ourselves, and with a wider public.

The best (and most successful) academics are the ones who are so caught up in the importance of their work, so caught up with their simple passion for a subject, that they publicise it with every breadth. Twitter and blogs, and embarrassingly enthusiastic drunken conversations at parties, are not add-ons to academic research, but a simple reflection of the passion that underpins it.

A lot of early career scholars, in particular, worry that exposing their research too early, in too public a manner, will either open them to ridicule, or allow someone else to 'steal' their ideas. But in my experience, the most successful early career humanists have already started building a form of public dialogue in to their academic practise - building an audience for their work, in the process of doing the work itself.

Perhaps the best example of this is Ben Schmidt, and his hugely influential blog: Sapping Attention. His blog posts contributed to his doctorate, and will form part of his first book. In doing this, he has crafted one of the most successful academic careers of his generation - not to mention the television consultation business, and world-wide intellectual network. Or Helen Rogers, whose maintains two blogs: Conviction: Stories from a Nineteenth-Century Prison - on her own research; and also the collaborative blog, Writing Lives, created as an outlet for the work of her undergraduates. They bring together research and teaching, and in the process are building a substantial community of interest. Or Adam Crymble and his blog - Thoughts on Public & Digital History - where he melds practical posts addressing straightforward DH problems, with substantial interventions in policy. Crymble's recent appointment to a lectureship in digital history rested in large measure on his blog. The list could go on. The Many Headed Monster, the collective blog authored by Brodie Waddell, Mark Hailwood, Laura Sangha and Jonathan Willis, is rapidly emerging as one of the sites where 17th century British history is being re-written. While Jennifer Evans is writing her next book via her blog, Early Modern Medicine.

The most impressive thing about these blogs (and the academic careers that generate them), is that there is no waste - what starts as a blog, ends as an academic output, and an output with a ready-made audience, eager to cite it. For myself the point is that these scholars don't waste text, and neither do I. If I give a talk, I turn it into a blog. Not everything is blogged, but the vast majority of the public presentations I make as part of my job, will be. And while many of these texts will never contribute to an academic article, about half of them do. As a result blogging has become part of my own contribution to what I think of as an academic public sphere. It becomes a way of thinking in public and revising ones work, to make it better, in public. And knowing that there is an audience (whatever its size), changes how one does it - forcing you to think a little harder about the reader, and to think a little harder about the standards of record keeping and attribution that underpin your research.

One of my favourite blogging experiences involves embedding blogs in undergraduate assessment. By forcing students to write 'publicly', their writing rapidly improves. From being characterized by the worst kind of bad academic prose - all passive voice pomposity - undergraduate writing in blogs is frequently transformed in to something more engaging, simply written, and to the point. From writing for the eyes of an academic or two, students are forced to imagine (or actually confront) a real audience. Blogging has the same effect on more professional academic writers - many of whom assume that if the content is good, the writing somehow doesn't matter.

But as importantly, blogs are part of establishing a public position, and contributing to a debate. Twitter is in some ways the same - or at least, like blogging, Twitter is good for making communities, and finding collaborators; and letting other people know what you are doing. But, it also has another purpose.

Dan Cohen - the director of the Digital Public Library of America - always says about Twitter that the important thing is that at the end of the week, it makes you aware of all the publications and developments, calls for papers, and conferences, you need to know about in order to keep up with your corner of the academy. It is not about what you had for breakfast. It is about being on top of your field.

Between them, Twitter and blogging just make good academic sense. And while you need to avoid all the kittens and trolls, click bate and self-promoting gits, these forms of social media are rapidly evolving in to the places where the academic community is embodied. They are doing the job of the seminar, and the letters page. They are where our conversation is happening.
This piece originally appeared on Tim Hitchcock's personal blog titled Doing it in public: Impact, blogging, social media and the academy and is reposted under CC BY 3.0. Note: This article gives the views of the authors, and not the position of the Impact of Social Science blog, nor of the London School of Economics. Please review our Comments Policy if you have any concerns on posting a comment below. About the Author Tim Hitchcock is Professor of Digital History at the University of Sussex. In collaboration with Professor Robert Shoemaker (University of Sheffield) and others he has been responsible for creating a series of web-resources designed to underpin a 'new history from below' focused on poverty and crime in eighteenth-century London, including the Old Bailey Online, 1674 to 1913 (www.oldbaileyonline.org); London Lives, 1690-1800 (www.londonlives.org); and Locating London's Past (www.locatinglondon.org).
And on participating in this 'academic public sphere', there are only a few rules. First - be yourself. If you want credit, you have to own your material. In other words, never be anonymous. And second, remember that everything from Academia.edu, to Twitter, to Facebook and Flickr, is a form of publication, and should be taken seriously as such. If you would not say it in an academic review, or in the questions following a public lecture, don't say it on Twitter.

And finally, keep track of it. Use GoogleAnalytics, or something similar. Know who you are talking to. This involves nothing more challenging than cutting and pasting four lines of code, but provides more data, at a more granular level than you can possibly need.

All of which is simply to say, that social media are building in to what feels like an increasingly coherent environment reflecting communities of interest - allowing us, online, to be just what we claim to be the rest of the time - a community of scholars. The objections - which usually come down to the fear that someone will steal your ideas, your work, your credit - are best addressed by doing it in public. And in the process there is every hope that we can rebuild the humanities as a wider public discussion, able to more effectively reach beyond the academy - to have 'impact'.

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Twitter and blogs are not just add-ons to academic research, but a simple reflection of the passion underpinning it.

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The role of the academic humanist has always been a public one - however mediated through teaching and publication, argues Tim Hitchcock . As central means to participate in public conversations, Twitter and blogging just make good academic sense. Hitchcock looks at how these new platforms are facilitating academic collaboration, teaching and public engagement.

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hootsuite.com

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Social media lets people voice their opinion on companies, brands, people, and anything else that pops into their heads every minute of every hour of every day. This, of course, makes it a powerful research tool for companies keen to know what people think of them-both good and bad.

However, the downside of the ease of use and popularity of social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook is they can make it hard to cut through all the noise and keep track of what matters most to you.

That's why brands need social media monitoring tools. In this guide we'll take you through everything you need to know about social monitoring, plus a list of some of the best tools out there.

Bonus: Download a free guide to discover how to get more sales and conversions with social media monitoring on Hootsuite-no tricks or boring tips.

What is social media monitoring?

Social media monitoring should ideally be part of your social listening strategy. Social listening is the process of monitoring social media channels for mentions of your brand, competitors, product, and anything else you consider relevant to your business.

Basically, you use social monitoring tools to capture and gather information about what people are posting about you. The social listening part is more active and strategic. It involves analyzing the data produced by your social monitoring for actionable insights-everything from engaging a happy customer to shifting your overall brand positioning strategy.

Why use social media monitoring tools?

Businesses should use social monitoring tools for a number of reasons. First and foremost, social monitoring allows you to capture powerful insights into your customers, competitors, and industry influencers.

Instead of just eavesdropping for things of interest, it lets you laser target specific keywords and topics. You can then use these captured insights to influence your online presence and help improve brand sentiment.

To take full advantage of social media listening, you need to spread your social monitoring across several social media channels, and keep a constant watch for new opportunities. However, acquiring these insights takes time, and the use of the right social monitoring tools.

To make your life easier, we've cast an eye, and ear, over the best tools out there, and have come up with this list of social media monitoring tools to get you started.

The best social media monitoring tools

With over 250 million unique users and 8 billion monthly pageviews, listening and monitoring your brand on Reddit should be part of your social media monitoring strategy. Use the Reddit Keyword Monitor app to set keywords and phrases you'd like to monitor on Reddit, and learn who is talking about your brand, business, or competitors. The last thing you want is having some stranger host a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything-a traditional Reddit Q&A session) on behalf of your company, and only finding out after it happened.

With a community of over 700 million users it makes sense to monitor what people are posting on Instagram, especially if your audience falls in the 18 to 29 age range. With the Streamview for Instagram app you can monitor posts by location, hashtag, or username. The app within Hootsuite allows you to monitor and engage with users that are posting in your area, or an area you choose to follow. For example, you can use this tool during events to see what is being posted and to engage with attended.

Manage and monitor all your favorite blogs and websites with Hootsuite Syndicator Pro. This tool provides a quick and easy way to view RSS feeds and quickly share them to your social media channels, as well as rich filtering, monitoring, and tracking tools. You can also track which stories you've shared.

Online (and offline) reputation management is extremely important and surprisingly easy. The Reputology app lets you monitor and check major review sites, such as Yelp, Google, Facebook reviews, so that you can engage with reviewers and resolve any issues in a timely manner. You can track activity across multiple storefronts and locations, and respond quickly via quick links.

Hootsuite Insights combines social media listening, analytics, and powerful social media monitoring capabilities. It allows you to gain powerful real-time insights about your brand, track influencers, stories, and trends, and visualize the metrics-all in one place. You can filter and tailor results by sentiment, platform, location, and language, and engage directly from your stream to take action on previously hidden results.

The name says it all; the Brandwatch app in Hootsuite lets you keep watch over your brand through deep listening. You can identify key insights from more than 70 million traffic sources across the web, including major social channels, blogs, forums, news and review sites, and much more. This tool lets you make real-time, informed decisions and take action on them.

Whether it's a positive or negative online review, your response should be in the same place as that review. The ReviewInc app for Hootsuite lets you view over 200 popular review sites across over 100 countries. Organize positive reviews for sharing on social media sites, and resolve negative issues instantly.

Synthesio is a comprehensive social monitoring tool for finding the information you need to gain deeper insights and better inform business decisions. The tool lets you monitor multiple mention streams at once, so you can listen to the social media conversations most important to you. You can then analyze these conversations and join them.

If you or your customers are based in the Middle East, Crowd Analyzer is an invaluable analytics and social media monitoring tool. As the first Arabic-focused social media monitoring platform, Crowd Analyzer analyzes "Arabic content in terms of relevancy, dialect and sentiment." It not only monitors major social networks, but also blogs, forums, and news sites.

If content marketing is an important aspect of your Facebook marketing strategy, consider 76Insights. This social media monitoring tool measures the resonance of your social media content and breaks down your resonance score, which measures how much social media engagement someone receives after publishing something.

Keyhole lets you see what's being said about you on Twitter and Instagram in real-time. You can monitor keywords, hashtags, URLs, and usernames, and see historical as well as real-time data. One cool feature is the heat maps that show you activity levels around the world.

Digimind lets you track keywords in news outlets and social media platforms for mentions of your company in real-time. It also measures sentiment, so you can gauge whether what is being said about you is good, bad, or "meh." You can also compare how your company is perceived online against your competitors.

Google Alerts lets you monitor the web for mentions of your company, your competitors, or other relevant topics. Just go to the Google Alerts page, type a keyword or phrase in the search box, and provide your email address to receive a notification every time Google finds results relevant to your alert criteria. You can set alerts for specific regions and languages.

Install Talkwalker in the Hootsuite dashboard to instantly engage, tag, assign, and respond to mentions. The tool also allows you to easily monitor conversations' impact by analyzing the volume of engagement, potential reach, comments, sentiment tone, emotions and more.

On top of all the social media monitoring tools mentioned above, Hootsuite Pro provides social listening capabilities right in the dashboard. Monitor specific keywords, hashtags, regions, and more. Stay on top of what people are saying about your brand and listen to your customers and competitors to gain competitive advantage.
Sign up for Hootsuite

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15 of the Best Social Media Monitoring Tools

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Social media lets people voice their opinion on companies, brands, people, and anything else that pops into their heads every minute of every hour of every day. This, of course, makes it a powerful research tool for companies keen to know what people think of them-both good and bad.

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HOW -What you should be monitoring besides your brand name

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HOW -What you should be monitoring besides your brand name

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hootsuite.com

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Imagine the powerful business insights you could gain from an organic form of market research where the focus group was made up entirely of people already engaging with your brand or your industry. Sounds pretty great, right?

That's exactly the kind of business intelligence you can access when you implement a social listening strategy to track, analyze, and respond to online conversations about your brand and your industry.

Think you've already got this covered because you're tracking online mentions, engagement, and other social media metrics? Well, you've made a good start, and you're collecting some key data that will be useful for social listening, but you're not quite there yet.

Let's get you started with a clear social listening definition and a look at how this important technique differs from your other social monitoring efforts.

Table of Contents

Bonus: Download a free guide to discover how to get more sales and conversions with social media monitoring on Hootsuite-no tricks or boring tips.

What is social listening?

Social listening is the process of monitoring social media channels for mentions of your brand, competitors, product, and any other ideas or themes that are relevant to your business. The next step is analyzing that information for actionable insights. Those actions can range from engaging a happy customer to shifting your overall brand positioning strategy.

The actionable element of social media listening is what differentiates it from social media monitoring, which also, like the name implies, involves monitoring social media. Social media monitoring, though, is more about compiling data-it's gathering information about what's already happened rather than looking forward to determine future actions.

Data from social monitoring can be used to test one campaign against another, monitor return on investment (ROI), or prove the value of social marketing when it comes time to ask for your share of the annual budget. If you analyze the data gathered during social monitoring and use that analysis to inform company actions and strategy, then you've transitioned into social listening.

An additional difference is that social monitoring is focused more on metrics, like engagement rate, number of mentions, and so on, whereas social listening looks beyond the numbers at the overall mood behind the social media posts-how people actually feel about you, your competitors, and your industry.

That mood is also known as social media sentiment, and social media sentiment analysis is a key part of social listening. Effective sentiment analysis can help you amplify messaging that's receiving positive interaction, respond appropriately to anything that's triggered a negative response, and see trends over time that can keep your future marketing and product development efforts on track.

After all, your most "popular" post according to engagement metrics is not necessarily your best. A spike in engagement can be great-but not if those engagements are people complaining about what you've done or said.

Why your business should care about social listening

Quite simply, if you're not engaged in social media listening, you're creating your business strategy with blinders on. You're missing out on mountains of actionable insights from real people who are actively talking about you or your industry online-why wouldn't you want to listen to them? In short, if you don't care about social listening, you don't really care about your customers, and that's just bad business. Here are just some of the ways social listening can benefit your brand.

1. Customer engagement and research

Think you already know everything you need to know about your customers? You might want to think again. A survey by Pegasystems found that while 66 percent of telco/broadband and retail banking companies said they "deeply know" their customers, less than a quarter of telco/broadband customers and only 41 percent of banking customers agreed.

In the same survey, customers reported that companies failing to listen to their needs was one of their top three customer service complaints. Social listening can give you important insight into what your customers expect from you, and how well you're delivering on those expectations.

It also highlights moments when outreach is required to engage in conversations (positive or negative) that are already happening about your brand, whether that's a customer singing your praises, a customer service request, or someone asking for recommendations for a product in your industry.

2. Identify strategic wins or missteps in real time

Which of your posts are getting the highest engagement combined with the best social sentiment? If social sentiment about your brand abruptly changes one way or the other, you can dig into individual posts to get a sense of what you've done so very right-or wrong.

If you've hit a homerun, take notes about elements of the campaign or strategy that you could carry forward and apply to future efforts. If things have gone sideways, review the social feedback for lessons that could prevent a similar misstep. And, most importantly, if you're in the middle of a drop in social sentiment caused by an inappropriate ad or post or press release (think Pepsi in the wake of the Kendall Jenner ad), staunch the bleeding by pulling the material and telling your customers that you've got the message, and you're sorry.
Bonus: Register for our upcoming webinar, "Build and Protect Your Brand on Social Media," to learn everything you need to know about online reputation management-from potential risks to mitigation tactics and tools. Register Now
3. Discover how people perceive you in comparison to your competitors

Since you'll be listening not only to what people are saying about you on social media, but also what they're saying about your competitors, you'll get important insights about where you fit in the customer perceptions of your industry.

You'll also get important real-time intelligence about what your competitors are up to, so you can determine how to respond to new threats and opportunities, what Hootsuite CEO Ryan Holmes has called a "streaming, real-time digest of what your competition is working on and pushing out." At the same time, Holmes notes, "Setting up a stream to monitor references to your own company can be extraordinarily informative (and humbling)."

4. Uncover pain points in your industry that you can be the first to address

By monitoring important keywords related to your industry, you can start to uncover conversations people are having about products, services, and features that aren't working for them-which you can funnel straight through to your product development team. Can you tweak an existing product or add a feature to resolve the problems people are expressing? Maybe what you learn will become the seed for an entirely new product idea.

You'll also find people expressing frustrations that your existing products can already address. That may provide ideas for marketing campaigns to highlight features that people may not know about.

5. Find leads that you can develop into relationships for social selling

Those same people might also be leads that you can nurture into relationships for social selling. It's not often a great idea to leap into someone else's conversation with a hard sell, but you can certainly reach out to make a connection, share information that's helpful, and establish your brand as the best resource when it comes time to make a purchasing decision.

6. Identify influencers and advocates

Having a general picture of the social sphere for your industry will give you a sense of who the important influencers are in the industry. These are important people to connect with, as they can have, not surprisingly, a significant amount of influence over how their followers and fans feel about you-or your competitors.

You'll also start to identify key brand advocates-people who already love your brand and are singing your praises on social media. This is another group you should reach out to, looking for opportunities to collaborate. Nielsen found that 83 percent of people trust online recommendations from friends and family, making recommendations from people we know and trust the most credible form of advertising in their study.

How to set up for social listening

With so many potential data sources to monitor, you'll need tools to help you with your social listening strategy (more on that below). But before you choose a tool and dig into the nitty gritty work of social media listening, you'll need to determine what you should actually listen for.

The exact keywords and topics you monitor will likely evolve over time as you learn (from social listening) what language people use when they talk about your business and what sorts of insights are most useful for your business, but here's a list of important keywords and topics to monitor right from the start:

Your brand name and handles

Your product names

Your competitors' brand names, product names, and handles

Industry buzzwords

Your slogan and those of your competitors

Names of key people in your company and your competitors' companies (your CEO, spokesperson, etc.)

Campaign names or keywords

Your branded hashtags and those of your competitors

Unbranded hashtags related to your industry

You should also monitor common misspellings and abbreviations for all of these. The two videos below explain how to set up monitoring streams in Hootsuite:

Learn how to get even more out of Hootsuite with free social media training from Hootsuite Academy.

Social listening best practices

Here are some key points to keep in mind to get the most from your social listening efforts.

1. Identify where people talk about you, not just what they say

Rather than focusing on a few big social networks like Twitter and Facebook, cast a wide net with your social listening program. You may be surprised to learn, for instance, that the conversation about your brand, or your industry, is very different on LinkedIn or industry blogs than it is on Facebook. Maybe there's lots of conversation happening on Twitter, but none whatsoever on Instagram.

Understanding where people are talking about you and your industry-and how those conversations vary across different networks-will allow you to create an appropriate strategy to join the conversation through both organic engagement and paid advertising.

2. Learn from the competition

While you never want to follow someone else's strategy too closely, you can gain plenty of insight into what works and what doesn't in your industry by listening closely to what audiences think of your competitors' actions.

Let's face it: it's a lot less painful to learn a hard lesson by watching your competitors make a mistake than by making it yourself. Glean what you can from your competition's wins, but keep an even closer eye on their missteps to incorporate their lessons learned into your own body of knowledge.

3. Collaborate with customer service, content marketing, and product development

As described above, your social listening efforts will provide a wide range of information, from customer posts that need to be responded to right away, to ideas about what kind of content marketing might be most effective, to potential ideas for new products or new features for existing products.

Share your social listening insights throughout the company with all of the relevant teams. Seek input from those teams, too, to learn if they have specific questions that you might be able to answer by tweaking your social listening setup.

4. Benchmark your 'normal,' then watch for changes

As you start to collect social data, you'll develop a sense of what's normal for your brand in terms of the amount of conversation and the overall sentiment. Once you establish your benchmark, you can actively work to improve those numbers. You can also keep an eye out for changes. Significant changes in engagement or sentiment are flags that overall perception has changed, and you need to understand why, so you can adapt your strategy to ride the wave of positivity, or correct for a misstep and get back on course.

You can also benchmark your own engagement and sentiment against those of your competitors to get a sense of your overall place within customer perceptions of your industry.

5. Examine what your data is telling you-and take action

Remember, if you're not taking action, you're just engaged in social monitoring, not social listening. Social listening is not just about tracking metrics, but about gleaning real insights into what your customers and potential customers want from you, and how you can better address those needs.

Allow time and budget to analyze the data you gather for patterns and trends over time, rather than just individual comments, as it is these overall insights that can have the most powerful effects in guiding your future strategy.

Social listening tools

Now that you understand what social listening is, why you should implement it, and some of the key strategic points to consider, let's look at some tools that can help.

As shown in the videos above, you can use Hootsuite to set up social media streams that monitor conversations and keywords across several social networks. When you see an opportunity to reach out to potential customers, influencers, or advocates, you can respond directly or assign the response to someone else on your team.

Take things a step further with graphical reports that allow you to monitor more than 25 social networks as well as news sites, blogs, forums, and other online spaces where people interact-and get real-time updates on unusual spikes or drops in activity. You can also track sentiment broken down by location, language, and gender.

Talkwalker offers advanced listening and analytics capabilities covering 150 million sources including blogs, forums, videos, news, review sites, and social networks. Combining Talkwalker with Hootsuite allows enterprises to effectively define and categorize the conversations that matter using over 50 filters so they can make informed decisions on how to engage with their audience.

Track conversations on highly specific topics within carefully segmented audiences. Synthesio can tag mentions by language, location, demographics, sentiment, and influence, and the reports produced include a social reputation score.

Social networks aren't the only place online where your customers and prospects are talking about your brand. So ReviewTrackers makes it easy to find and respond to posts from over 85 dedicated review websites including TripAdvisor, Foursquare, Healthgrades, Facebook reviews, Google Maps, and others. Their integration with Hootsuite shows you online reviews alongside social streams in your dashboard, letting you spot emerging issues across channels. You can even uncover positive reviews and then share them across your social accounts to spread the good news-all from your Hootsuite dashboard.

Identify key audiences, then monitor and evaluate social conversations by segment. Reports provide information about what each audience is talking about online, as well as how they think and behave.

Track conversations on blogs, forums, social networks, and more, including sentiment and impact of all mentions.

Track mentions, keywords, and sentiment in multiple languages and find potential influencers across social networks and other online sources.

Reddit is the fourth-most-popular site in the United States, behind Google, Youtube, and Facebook. Conversations on this discussion site are a key source of social intelligence, and this app will help you find and track them.
Hootsuite makes it easy to monitor keywords and conversations on social media, so you can focus on taking action on the insights available. Try it free today.

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Social Listening: What it is, Why You Should Care, and How to Do it Well

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Imagine the powerful business insights you could gain from an organic form of market research where the focus group was made up entirely of people already engaging with your brand or your industry. Sounds pretty great, right?

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Jo-Ann Fox

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As I moderated #caedchat on June 8, I tipped over the 10K mark for tweets.

What?! 10K?

Ten years ago I never thought to myself that one day I would have sent out over 10,000 tweets. In fact, 10 years ago I wasn't even a part of social media. So here I am today, having created over 10,000 tweets and connected with thousands educators on Twitter and I have to ask myself:

Does a tweet make a difference?

Becoming active on Twitter has impacted me in two very important ways:

1. I have learned more in the past two years (since I started tweeting) than I have in the past 10 years of teaching. It wasn't WHAT I was tweeting that impacted me the most, it was reading what others were sharing about their classrooms and schools.

2. Flip that. As I began to learn more and more, the direct effect of that was me beginning to share more and more about what I believe in and what was happening in my classroom. It is a two-way street. Being a connected educator does not only impact you, but you begin to impact others.

Perfect example:

The next day after that #caedchat and after reaching that unthinkable number of tweets I really began to ponder my question. Does what I do on Twitter really make a difference? Does anyone really read what I tweet about, follow the links I share, or even care about what I have to say?

As I was thinking over all of this, I received a tweet from Jason Seliskar. He let me know one of his graduate students happened to be participating in #caedchat for the very first time on the same night I hit the 10K tweets. This teacher blogged about how apprehensive they were to participate in the edchat and perfectly described that nervous feeling of hovering over the "tweet" button to jump into an edchat for the first time. But when this teacher finally hit "tweet," I responded to the tweet... unknowingly replying with words that helped that teacher to feel just a little bit more connected.

In some school cultures where teachers plan on their own and have little opportunities to collaborate with others, teaching can feel like a lonely place. But it doesn't have to feel that way. Get yourself connected, start lurking on Twitter, and even better... begin to share what you do in your classroom and at your school. Because a tweet does make a difference!

This was originally posted on AppEducation.com.

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As I moderated #caedchat on June 8, I tipped over the 10K mark for tweets. What?! 10K? Ten years ago I never thought to myself that one day I would have sent out over 10,000 tweets. In fact, 10 years ago I wasn't even a part of social media.

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CONSIDERATIONS -  Professional digital practice in academia: From online networking to building apps

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CONSIDERATIONS -  Professional digital practice in academia: From online networking to building apps

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An understanding of how to present knowledge and promote learning in digital formats will soon be integral to academic practice. Deborah Lupton gives a tour of the not-to-be-missed academic digital tools available online.
In my previous post, I explained the concept of digital sociology and presented four aspects I considered integral to this sub-discipline: professional digital practice, sociological analyses of digital use, digital data analysis and critical digital sociology. In this post I focus on professional digital practice, or using digital media tools for professional purposes: to build networks, facilitate public engagement, receive feedback, establish an e-profile, curate and share content and instruct students.

It is clear that a revolution in how tertiary education is offered is on its way, as demonstrated by the recent decision of elite universities such as Princeton and Stanford to invest significant sums of money in massive open online courses which at the moment are provided free of charge to anyone who wishes to enrol (including, I note, an 'Introduction to Sociology' subject). The move towards open access and e-publishing of scholarly work also seems inevitable. Furthermore, creating en 'e-profile' is becoming an important part of academic work. Judicious use of social media allows you to exercise better control and manage the content of your online persona in a context in which search engines are constantly collating information about you.

For all these reasons, an understanding of how to present knowledge and promote learning in digital formats will soon become a vital part of academic practice. Here's some specific ways in which academics can use some of the digital tools now available:

Building networks
Using platforms such as Twitter and Facebook can be a highly efficient way of connecting with other academics working in a similar area as well as interested people from outside academia. These platforms allow participants to join networks arranged around topic or discipline areas and to contribute in discussions and sharing information within these networks.

Facilitating public engagement
Blogging sites such as WordPress and micro-blogging platforms such as Twitter can be used as easily accessible forums in which academics can communicate their ideas in short form. Unlike traditional journal articles that are locked behind paywalls, these platforms are free to access and material can be instantly published, allowing academics to share some of their research findings quickly. They therefore allow academics to promote their research and share it with a far greater audience than they would usually find in the traditional forums for publication. Links can be provided to journal articles so that longer academic pieces can be followed up by readers.

Receiving feedback
Blogs and microblogging platforms also allow interested readers to comment and engage with authors, thus facilitating public engagement. You can ask a question in a blog or Twitter post and receive responses, or readers may simply chose to use the comments box to make remarks on something you have published. Quora is a social media platform designed specifically to ask questions of anyone who uses it. Once you have set up an account you can publish a question or answer other people's questions, as well as follow others' questions to see what the responses are. You can also follow topics or people.

Establishing an e-profile
Sites such as Academia.edu and LinkedIn, as well as your university profile webpage are ways of providing information about yourself. In Academia.edu, designed specifically for academics, you can list and upload your articles, conference papers and books and you can follow other individuals and topic areas and be followed in turn.

Curation and sharing of content
Curation and sharing platforms such as Delicious, SlideShare, Pinterest, Scoop.it, Pearltrees, Bundlr, Paper.li and Storify, as well as referencing tools such as Mendeley, Citeulike and Zotero, allow academics to easily gather and present information and, importantly, to then make the information public and share it with others online. On SlideShare you can share your Powerpoint presentations and the referencing tools allow you to gather lists of references on specific topics and then share these with others. Several of these tools, including Pinterest, Bundlr and Storify, allow you to insert your own comments or analysis on the material you have gathered.

Teaching
The platforms listed above can also be used as teaching tools, providing new ways of engaging students both through classroom teaching and in student assignments, where students can use the tools themselves to collect, curate and present information. Students in any area of study need to be trained in using social media and other digital technologies as part of preparing them for their future careers, as these technologies are increasingly becoming part of the working world.

Some examples of using digital and social media in sociology
This blog post itself is an example of professional digital practice in action. It is an edited version of a longer Storify presentation, and I was first inspired to write on this topic by an exchange I had on Twitter (for the Storify presentation, which contains additional information on digital sociology including weblinks to relevant courses, books, articles and blog posts, click here).

Digital media are being increasingly used as part of academic conferences. For example, academics often tweet about the content of the presentations they attend, providing a 'back-channel' of communication that can be shared with both those participating and those who cannot attend. These tweets can then be presented and preserved in Storify as a record of the conference to which anyone can have access.

I have previously written in detail about how Pinterest can be used for sociological research (see my previous post on 'How sociologists and other social scientists can use Pinterest'). As I commented in this post, this curation platform is a wonderful way of collecting images related to one's research interests. It also offers various possibilities for teaching, allowing students to curate and comment on their own image collections.

Paper.li provides a platform to create online newsletters by collating material downloaded from other sites. It can be used by academics to collect recent blog posts, the abstracts from newly published journal articles or online news articles relevant to a specific topic which they then share with their social networks on a daily or weekly basis.

Sociologists may also like to think about making their own apps for teaching purposes. It is possible to access app maker wizards online that are easy to use and inexpensive. See here for my account of how I made my own app explaining key concepts in medical sociology.
Note: This article gives the views of theauthor(s), and not the position of the Impact of Social Sciences blog, nor of the London School of Economics. This post was originally published on Deborah Lupton's own blog, 'This Sociological Life'.

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Professional digital practice in academia: From online networking to building apps

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An understanding of how to present knowledge and promote learning in digital formats will soon be integral to academic practice. Deborah Lupton gives a tour of the not-to-be-missed academic digital tools available online.

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Look for people like you and participate in ongoing conversations via PULSE

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750 million+ members | Manage your professional identity. Build and engage with your professional network. Access knowledge, insights and opportunities.

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Find others in your field, build networks and most of all share and participate. Showing that you are a critical thinker builds your brand.

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					BRANDING HOW? 5 No-Brainer Tips for Branding Yourself on Facebook

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					BRANDING HOW? 5 No-Brainer Tips for Branding Yourself on Facebook

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Aaron Lee - you are the brand

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More than a billion people use Facebook every single day.

So the social media website is not only a great place to stay in touch with friends -- it's awesome for branding, too!

For a small business, Facebook is much more than a message board for posting status updates.

It's a lead generating, web-traffic driving, customer engagement machine!

In this post, I'll show you 5 things you can do when branding yourself on Facebook.

5 No-Brainer Tips for Branding Yourself on Facebook

1. Listen

Before you pound away & start sharing stuff on Facebook, first practice listening & interacting with others. This should be your top priority in the first few months of building your brand.

The relationships you create during this time will serve as a strong foundation for years to come. Skip this step & you probably won't be able to build a dynamic brand on Facebook.

Fans ALWAYS come first!

>> Click to Tweet <<

2. Use Powerful Visuals

First impressions count.

Customize every image on your page to reflect your brand. And remember, the devil's in the details.

Pay attention & brand every aspect of your page: profile photo, cover photo, etc.

>> Click to Tweet <<

The colors & fonts should match. Here's Marie Forleo doing it right:

She does an amazing job branding her Facebook page -- every image is consistent with her vision.

And you can now use Post Planner's Canva button to create images like this on the fly.

Make sure to keep your visuals fresh -- and update them often.

3. Have a Strategy

Your posting strategy is next. Most importantly: HAVE A STRATEGY.

Create posts that reinforce your brand & will appeal to your fans.

>> Click to Tweet <<

Don't post inspiring quotes or funny memes just because they may get more Likes, comments & shares. Instead, stick to updates that bolster your image & what you want your company to represent.

Establishing a strong posting strategy takes time -- but it's so worth it. Use the 3 P's of posting (personal, purpose & promotional) as a guide.

And keep the messaging in your posts consistent.

4. Showcase Your Work & Expertise

Don't be afraid to brag a little bit on Facebook. Everybody does! Heck, that's part of the reason you even have a business page. And your fans expect it -- just don't be too boastful.

>> Click to Tweet <<

Too often people hold back & don't show off their best work.

In the beginning, don't worry about sounding too promotional. Practice makes perfect! The right mix of content will fix that every time.

5. Reinforce Your Brand

Remind people of your brand almost every chance you get. Powerful visuals are some of the best ways to do this.

And it shouldn't be hard to maintain your authentic personality -- just be YOU!

>> Click to Tweet <<

Key Takeaway

The best parts of Facebook are fueled by conversation.

Listening & responding should be top priorities before you start aggressively branding yourself on Facebook.

What's your best tip for a newbie who is struggling to build a brand on Facebook?

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5 No-Brainer Tips for Branding Yourself on Facebook

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More than a billion people use Facebook every single day. So the social media website is not only a great place to stay in touch with friends -- it's awesome for branding, too! For a small business, Facebook is much more than a message board for posting status updates.

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Get your work out there and network with the right people. Actively participate - don't just expect people to find you.

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"I go through all the articles in the bulk download, save the ones that are clearly going to be useful and discard the remainder. This saves loads of time but also points me in directions I might not otherwise have thought of looking."

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Academia.edu is a place to share and follow research.

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												CONSIDERATIONS - Four things policy-makers need

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												CONSIDERATIONS - Four things policy-makers need

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Ella McPherson - think of yourself as a policy-maker for your own brand - YOU!

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hootsuite.com & TweetDeck

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BRANDING HOW? The Social Nonprofit: How the David Suzuki Foundation Meets Their Mission with Social Media

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BRANDING HOW? The Social Nonprofit: How the David Suzuki Foundation Meets Their Mission with Social Media

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hootsuite.com - influencing new audiences

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One of the biggest challenges for nonprofits is reaching beyond immediate supporters to connect with and influence new audiences around the globe. Social media plays an integral role in the solution with its ability to reach individuals in expansive and diverse communities.

The David Suzuki Foundation embraces social media to help meet their mission of finding solutions for living within the limits of nature. The founder, David Suzuki, is both a scientist and journalist. Following by example, the foundation relies on science to find viable solutions to today's complex challenges on nature, and journalism through communication, education, and engagement, to make these solutions a reality.

In this video case study, discover how the David Suzuki Foundation translates success on social media into organizational results that help make their mission more attainable.

Introducing 'The Social Nonprofit: The David Suzuki Foundation Social Media Success Story':

"There's no doubt that social is an instrumental tool in terms of growth-both in raw numbers of the amount of people that a nonprofit can reach, and in diversity as it allows an organization to reach out to new, global networks."- Michiah Prull, Director, Communications & Public Engagement, David Suzuki Foundation
Want to join our community of nonprofit organizations? Learn more today.

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The Social Nonprofit: How the David Suzuki Foundation Meets Their Mission with Social Media

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One of the biggest challenges for nonprofits is reaching beyond immediate supporters to connect with and influence new audiences around the globe. Social media plays an integral role in the solution with its ability to reach individuals in expansive and diverse communities.

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BRANDING HOW? Using Social Media to Coordinate a Newsroom: The Dallas Morning News Case Study

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BRANDING HOW? Using Social Media to Coordinate a Newsroom: The Dallas Morning News Case Study

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hootsuite.com

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hootsuite.com - how charities and organisations use social media to broadcast achievements

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"We live in an amazing time, when the opportunity to make a difference is greater than ever before. Gathering people behind a cause used to be difficult, requiring lots of time, money, and a complex infrastructure. But technology has made us more connected than ever. It's now possible for anyone to start a campaign and immediately mobilize hundreds of others locally or hundreds of thousands around the world, making governments and companies more responsive and accountable" - Change.org mandate.

Change.org is the world's largest petition platform, and with 50 million users across 196 countries, they provide the tools for their users to transform their communities locally, nationally and globally. Since starting in 2007, Change.org has facilitated over 6,000 victories across a wide range of issues - from prompting Twitter to reveal a "report abuse button" to prevent online bullying, to mobilizing the Boy Scouts of America organization to end the ban on accepting gay youth.

Social Media as a Campaigning Tool

Over 16 million people have either started or signed a winning petition and for Change.org, social media is an essential campaigning resource. Sarah Ryan, Campaigns Strategist and Coordinator at Change.org says, "Social media is the loud speaker for our users. Thanks to social media, people can share articles, inspiring videos and images along with their stories to reach people around the world like never before."

Change.org helps amplify user stories through their own social channels and use it to announce trending petitions' progress and victories - big or small. A recent petition launched by Hank Hunt, whose daughter was murdered inside her hotel room, is asking lawmakers to require all hotel and motel chains to have phone systems updated to allow 911 calls to be made without having to dial "9" first. Inspired by Hank's petition, Change.org introduced the story to the public via email campaigns and social media. Not only did this help Hank secure over 400,000 signatures in just one month, but the story was picked up by mainstream news, US Congressman Louie Gohmert publicly announced his support of the petition and the FCC commissioner sent a letter to the top ten hotel chains across the U.S. to implement change.

Social media is also used to put pressure on organizations that are the target of a petition. The public push from a social audience is often enough to support major change; Hank's story is just one example of this.

"HootSuite has been invaluable on many levels," says Sarah who manages all of Change.org's U.S. social profiles. "With over 10,000 petitions being created every month, HootSuite's scheduling and monitoring abilities are essential to elevate as many of those campaigns as possible. We want to support as many issues as possible, but without an organized dashboard, it would be impossible to track which social messages went out where. Analytics are equally as important to us. We used to track simple analytics like follower growth, but now we're able to monitor engagement and break it down to what content resonates best with which audiences."

"When you marry petitions with social media, and make them really personal and local, they have incredible capacity to make a difference" - Ben Rattray, Founder and CEO of Change.org.
Thank you Change.org and Sarah Ryan for sharing your story!

Click to view Change.org's Victory Map

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"We live in an amazing time, when the opportunity to make a difference is greater than ever before. Gathering people behind a cause used to be difficult, requiring lots of time, money, and a complex infrastructure. But technology has made us more connected than ever.

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HOW? TWITTER Tips on how to choose who you follow on Twitter

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HOW? TWITTER Tips on how to choose who you follow on Twitter

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@TeachUniverse

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Who to follow to use Twitter as an inspiration for critical literacy

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As a follow up to my last post I would like to share some of my learning around developing a Twitter profile that inspires me to be critically literate while also encouraging my students to do the same in their own classrooms and personal development as the work towards a more equitable and sustainable future....

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When we shared " The 7 Most Underrated Career Skills... Ever " this past winter, several readers asked two questions:

1. "How much will this change in the next few months, or years?"

2. "What impact will social media have on this list?"

And at that time, we promised to answer those questions with a follow-up. After all, we were curious, too; we wanted to know what skills employers would come to value most as we moved away from Industrial Age thinking, and dove even deeper into the Social Age.

As anticipated, skills from the original list - being influential and connecting others, to name just a couple - apply even more now. But there are soft skills no one even talked about five years ago that we simply must pay attention to as we strive to compete well in today's job market.

Without further delay, here are seven must-have soft skills for the Social Age:

Relentless Giving

In the Social Age, the idea of "give before you take" has become a truism. Nearly everyone (well, except for the spammers and trolls) has learned that putting the needs of others before ourselves - at least until we've built a cache of social karma - is a major key to personal success.

Taking this theory to a whole different level: the "Relentless Giver." This person rarely even discusses their personal or professional goals, their immediate needs or their requirements of others. Nor do they keep tabs on who they've done favors for; a karma scorecard is never necessary. They simply know that to give, give and give some more means that when they finally do approach their networks with an ask... the answer from those they have relentlessly helped will be an enthusiastic "Yes!"

Social Leadership

The leadership model, as we speak, is getting turned on its ear. Gone are the days of blustery autocrats who command respect based on a title and who spew little gems like "You're just lucky to have a job!"

In the Social Age, leaders will be judged on how well they motivate others toward completion of a common goal, rather than how efficiently they manage others. They will be measured on their ability to mentor, teach and inspire... rather than how well they play sheriff. And they will be expected to communicate through digital means as they collaborate, perhaps globally, with diverse team members.

Due to the rarity of the social leader, in our new book, A World Gone Social, Ted Coine and I refer to them as "Blue Unicorns." As rare as they may be now, however, these Social Age leaders will be in high demand, very soon.

Leading Without Permission

One level above the social leader: those - regardless of experience level, the title on their business card or their pay grade - who are willing to lead when the situation demands.

As we leave Industrial Age best practices behind, the norm is becoming small, nimble teams capable of quickly solving a problem, developing a new product or exceeding customer expectations. In these flat teams ("flat" meaning little or no formal management), every member is expected to not only contribute, but - when their expertise or innovation demands - to lead their team.
In the Social Age, everyone is a leader.
Ambassadorship

In our current workforce, simply putting in your time and going through the motions isn't enough. Today, those with extraordinarily successful careers find themselves serving as unabashed ambassadors for their company, brand or team.

These ambassadors are easy to spot: whether online or face-to-face, they wear their passion on their sleeves; they are never too cool to go "all in" when solving a crisis; and they exude humble confidence when challenged by a momentarily unhappy customer or a pack of trolls. You can also spot these brand ambassadors one other way: they are almost always the go-to person on the team; they are the ones others respect - and count on - the most.

Enthusiasm for Technology

Since the Great Recession, there isn't a company on the planet that isn't trying to do more with less. For many, that means knowing your way around an internal network, graphics programs - and perhaps even some basic coding skills - will be in high demand.

Even more important: grasp of mobile and open source technologies, analytics, crowdsourcing, CRM and the theory behind - and practical use of - big data. Those with these skills will thrive; those without are dinosaurs, doomed to extinction.

Collaboration

Nearly every resume we see still offers some version of "I'm a team player" - yet few seem to understand what that means in the Social Age.

Those who get that working together in an open, collaborative environment means we can achieve so much more than we can working in "lone wolf" mode - and those willing to set ego aside while ensuring an organizational culture free of divas and drama queens - are going to develop amazing careers.

Insatiable Curiosity

Those small, nimble teams that work in a collaborative manner without formal leadership... are occasionally going to run into a knowledge barrier. They - despite all their collective genius - are going to discover what they don't yet know.

When that happens, the insatiably curious - rather than saying "Not my job" or "Sorry, not my thing" - will reach out on Google, Khan Academy, MOOCs, mentors, their personal networks, Coursera and myriad other resources to learn, grow and contribute.
Those who never stop being curious... who never stop learning... will find themselves perpetually employable.
As a young careerist, how ready are you for the Social Age workplace? How many of these skills can you claim on your resume now? More important, how will you master these skills between now and the time you really need them?
About the Author: CEO and Founder of YouTern, Mark Babbitt is a serial mentor who has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Mashable and Forbes regarding job search, career development, internships and higher education's role in preparing emerging talent for the workforce. A keynote speaker and blogger, Mark's contributions include Huffington Post, Bloomberg News, Switch and Shift, and Under30CEO. Mark's new book, A World Gone Social: How Companies Must Adapt to Survive (AMACOM), with Ted Coine comes out September 17, 2014. The Ultimate Guide to Internships: Everything You Need to Know to Get Hired Before (and AFTER) College will be available through Allworth New York in January 2015. Questions? Contact Mark on Twitter.
Image courtesy of pinpoint.jobs. Thank you!

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7 Must-have Career Skills for the Social Age - The Savvy Intern by YouTern

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What skills employers will come to value most as we move away from Industrial Age thinking, and dive even deeper into the Social Age? What soft skills no one even talked about five years ago must we must we pay attention to as we strive to compete well in the job market of today, and the future?

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BRANDING HOW? Lesson's from Barbie's LinkedIn Profile

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BRANDING HOW? Lesson's from Barbie's LinkedIn Profile

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hoots.com

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She may have already worked up on the International Space Station, walked the Hollywood red carpet and danced en pointe in front of a packed house, but it's Barbie's newest career that prompted her to join LinkedIn.

Entrepreneur Barbie, whose official job title is Dream Incubator, only joined the professional social network a few weeks ago. But she already has more than 5,000 humans following her profile, which is actually a Mattel showcase page.

#Barbie got her big break in 1959 + now this doll has a @LinkedIn profile! http://t.co/jGlSW5a6Ks#Unapologetic pic.twitter.com/Pl7xjEJztP

- Barbie (@Barbie) June 27, 2014

Clearly, the pink-shift clad Barbie is doing something right. So, what can we learn from her bustling LinkedIn profile?

A sense of purpose

You know that pesky summary section that asks you to succinctly outline your career goals? Barbie has distilled her extensive experience (after all, this is the woman who has bounced around through more than 150 jobs since 1959) down to one point: "my true calling remains-encourage generations of girls to place no limitations on their ambitions." Once you know what you're doing and why, it's much easier to present yourself accordingly.

Community participation

Barbie's summary makes it crystal clear what LinkedIn community she most belongs to: women entrepreneurs. She's ingratiating herself with the group by sharing success stories of others from her community-remember, in building online relationships, sharing is caring. In her premiere post, Barbie highlights the ladies behind One Kings Lane, a successful home decor blog. She follows that up with a shout-out to Girls Who Code.

Barbie also offers career advice, like finding a mentor, and is thankful to other female entrepreneurs who-quite literally-made her into the doll she is today, such as the original Barbie designer, Ruth Handler.

Her rapid acceptance into the niche women entrepreneurs clique on LinkedIn even led the social network to promote Barbie's profile.

Work spotlight

Despite focusing much of her page on the success of others, Barbie doesn't shy away from promoting her work. Her resume is front and centre on the page-with all 150 careers outlined, from teen model to dream incubator. She showcases her media coverage (who doesn't want to show off a New York Times Square billboard about them?). Barbie also highlights her company updates, like a recent hiring spree of ten female Chief Inspiration Officers, who are all meant to serve as positive role models for young entrepreneur wannabes.

Multi-platform strategy

But Barbie doesn't just stick to LinkedIn. She uses the platform to connect followers to her larger social media game, like her website. She's also a frequent tweeter, and even has a bespoke hashtag. Barbie's #unapologetic about her success.

Granted, the doll also has name power, and perhaps that has led to her massive LinkedIn following. Some critics point out that Barbie is joining a community that few of the girls she says she wants to inspire don't frequent. How many preteen girls do you know with a LinkedIn profile?

But, no matter what critics say, Barbie's already breaking new ground. She's one of few fictional characters to have an active LinkedIn page-most others just stick to Twitter and Facebook. Sure, she's no Sheryl Sandberg, but Barbie's breaking that glass ceiling for fictional characters everywhere.
Are you following Hootsuite on LinkedIn? Check out our profile for more information, tricks, tips and social media tactics.

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She may have already worked up on the International Space Station, walked the Hollywood red carpet and danced en pointe in front of a packed house, but it's Barbie's newest career that prompted her to join LinkedIn. Entrepreneur Barbie, whose official job title is Dream Incubator, only joined the professional social network a few weeks ago.

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												WHY? Social media is a ticking time bomb for universities with an outdated web presence.

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												WHY? Social media is a ticking time bomb for universities with an outdated web presence.

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Andy Tattersal

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There are pressing questions academic institutions will need to address over the next couple of years regarding their expanding participation in social media streams. Andy Tattersall argues that with such blurred boundaries of ownership, access and support, what is needed is wide-scale demystification to help academics dovetail a few choice tools to bring how they work into a modern setting. Social Media, Altmetrics and Web 2.0 all afford academia a wealth of possibilities if they take it, but there is a risk that the important messages will get lost as we produce even more social data than we can imagine.
A substantial issue at hand in the higher education community is the tricky balancing act academics and their institutions face in managing their traditional websites and the growing number of individual and group Social Media presences. Compared to other large scale organisations, universities have been slow on the uptake of Social Media and are only now realising (partially thanks to their students and a growing requirement to be more open and accountable to fundholders and society) that they need to get out there and be 'Liked'.

Back in the 1990s universities not only understood the importance of having a Web identity but many had the in-house know-how to build them. By the dawn of Web 2.0 in 2005 many had grown to large organisational monsters, unwieldy and hard to navigate. My own institution in Sheffield moved to a content management system that allowed each and every member of staff to create and alter content on their own part of the website. In theory it seemed a good idea, that you could democratise your website, yet in reality it was very uneven. Many of those trained in the technology to update their pages soon forgot how to do the trickier updates whilst others picked up the slack. In time the website grew to tens thousands of pages, every little project, resource and list being compiled online. The ever-decreasing cost of bandwidth and web space afforded institutions that democracy. Yet with it came a price, most pages needed updating and managing and that was all before Social Media started to take off about five years ago.

The problem academic institutions now face in this second wave of outward facing content is determining who is behind its creation, what does it say and is it consistent? I'm all in favour of the things that Tim Berner's Lee gave us from his lab in CERN 25 years ago. Net Neutrality, democracy and the Web 2.0 way of everyone having ownership. It allowed us all to be artists, writers, librarians, journalists, learners and teachers. Nevertheless there is an underlying concern of mine as an information specialist that somewhere down the line we might be heading for a fall.

Of course Social Media is very different from traditional Web presences, anyone can set up a profile on Twitter, Facebook, ResearchGate, Google Scholar, Mendeley, LinkedIn, Google+, start a blog, make a YouTube video. Add to that the great possibilities of sharing research thanks to ImpactStory, Figshare and Altmetric.com to name but a few. So with that comes the rub, there is a high number of resources to chose from, not just for the individual, but the academy, and this list will grow and grow. My role is to engage with my colleagues, peers and students to encourage them how to best make use of technology, whether it is to learn, teach or collaborate. It can be very fragmented and being fractious is not something best suited to academics, after all the majority of the really good ones got to where they are by being focused on two or three things and doing it well. Dunbar's Number informs us people can only maintain 150 stable social relationships, whilst Statistic Brain released data earlier this year saying the average Facebook user has 130 friends.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Impact of Social Science blog, nor of the London School of Economics. Please review our Comments Policy if you have any concerns on posting a comment below. About the Author
Can the same be applied to technologies that an organisation or academic can successfully manage? I have countless professional Social Media accounts amongst dozens if not hundreds of other, invariably free Web accounts. Yet that is part and parcel of my role, to look and assess these technologies. I saw the promise in Mendeley, Google Apps and Prezi to name but a few, by using them. For academics and their support teams the situation is different, they are focused on either researching, teaching or support first and foremost, often the tools to facilitate this come later on. As we know many academics now acknowledge that Twitter will benefit their networks and knowledge gathering and sharing. Facebook can help engage with students and videos can translate and disseminate research much better than words can in our ever-diminishing attention spans facilitated by the likes of the Journal of Visualised Experiments. Whilst most of the tools I mentioned previously have benefits, it can be a case of horses for courses. For example, if you are a social scientist it is unlikely you would use Mendeley APIs like Plasmid or openSNP.

There are several questions academics and organisations will need to address over the next couple of years, that of legacy: who is behind your institutional and project Social Media streams? Are they personal accounts and do you risk having your own HMV Twitter incident. Have they been set up by individuals with good intentions to promote your research output or because they use Facebook a bit? Or are they secretaries and administrators who have been told to set up a Twitter account or Blog and post items as and when? I once heard the previous President of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, Phil Bradley announce that; "Web 2.0 is a state of mind". He wasn't far wrong, and so is Social Media, in that you have to some extent immerse yourself in it, understand it, understand why you are using it, the pitfalls and benefits and most of all, the opportunities. Social Media, Altmetrics and the now much less mentioned Web 2.0 all afford academia a wealth of possibilities if they take it. What is needed is wide-scale demystification of it all, and systems to help academics dovetail a few choice tools to help bring how they work into a modern setting in the same way MOOCs have made us think about out-dated teaching models. There needs to be greater digital literacy and frameworks to help orchestrate online content in the future. Science Daily reported last year that 90% of the world's data was generated over the previous two years. The amount of academics engaging with Social Media and Web technologies still remain in the minority, you only have to attend a conference or look for academic discussion on Twitter and Google+ to see this. Tools like Mendeley and ResearchGate are changing that balance as more and more PhD students and early career researchers look to the tools for building networks, but we are still some way from critical mass.

Social Media and Altmetrics by their very nature are the more relaxed and informal forms of communication, some of these tools are transient, short-lived or just too niche, so trying to formulate processes for some of them are impractical. There is no silver bullet fix as we are not too sure what is broken yet, but as with the ever growing academic websites of the 1990s and their content there is a risk that the important messages will get lost as we produce even more social data than we can imagine.

Andy Tattersall is an Information Specialist at the School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) at the University of Sheffield. His role is to scan the horizon for Web and technologies opportunities relating to research, teaching and collaboration and maintain networks that support this. Andy has a keen interest in new ways of working by employing Altmetrics, Web 2.0 and Social Media but also paying close attention to the implications and pitfalls for using such advances. @andy_tattersall

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Social media is a ticking time bomb for universities with an outdated web presence.

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There are pressing questions academic institutions will need to address over the next couple of years regarding their expanding participation in social media streams. Andy Tattersall argues that with such blurred boundaries of ownership, access and support, what is needed is wide-scale demystification to help academics dovetail a few choice tools to bring how they work into a modern setting.

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Here's how to easily change, if you want to

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In a recent study of The Impact of the Social Sciences a team of researchers that I lead tried to establish what made some academics well cited and well-regarded academically, and what also made them influential in spheres of life outside academia. To do this we created a stratified random sample of just under 380 researchers at UK universities, assembled everything we could find on their citations and other influence indicators, and searched comprehensively on Google and press databases for mentions by external bodies, surfaced any funding links and looked for wider indications of external recognition on their department or center websites. We then undertook a regression analysis, trying to include variables like how old people were, what their highest qualification was, where they got their PhD, and so on.

Our biggest single problem in doing all this was that a high proportion of our sample were clearly academic hermits, sitting alone on top of a pillar somewhere in academia and doing their level best to not communicate in any way with the outside world, or let any information about their work leak out. Try as we might, we could not assemble even the most basic demographic information on fully 35 per cent of our target British academics. Their university or department websites contained no details of their PhD or career track, nor did even Library of Congress data for their books or any other clue that we could devise tell us their birth year. And these researchers had no personal website, no online CV, and were absent from every known digital listing of scholarly activity - such as the five key systems that I review below.

I hope that this is evidence enough that a significant fraction of academics and researchers still need to reassess their stance and to try systematically to reverse years of quiet solitude by going out into the digital world and making their name and works as well known as they can possibly be. There is no point at all in undertaking research, and authoring papers and books about it at great pains and over many months or years, but then not doing your level best to communicate your corpus of work to professional and wider audiences.

Yet if you are not online in the kind of places I review below, then you are for all intents and purposes in the modern, digital world not an active academic. In my view it is not just advisable to do this kind of thing, it should effectively be mandatory, part and parcel of the obligations that go with holding any academic or research job. Scholarship and science must be public, and researchers need to seek to maximize the reach and accessibility of their work to relevant audiences in any way they can.

Five essential digital locales

In the digital world there are some key locations where everyone in academic or working in research outside academia should be listing their work (and making it as available as it possibly can be, although that is a subject for another post). That means, making details of all your work available, in a comprehensive and permanently up-to-date online way, so that it can be quickly accessed by anyone from a PC, tablet or mobile phone in the world. Your target audiences should include students, potential students, colleagues in your university or academic profession, people who are going to a meeting with you, people thinking of contacting you about your expertise, journalists and science journalists, or just readers who have encountered one piece of your work and are curious what else have you done. If you do this in the right way, using the five essential systems listed below then this is not a lot of work. In particular, you don't have to constantly keep checking in to things always up to date yourself - the wonders of modern digital systems below will do (almost all) the work for you.

is the number one place where you must be seen. Of course, everyone in academia knows and uses Google Scholar, but the Citations part adds a huge amount of extra functionality at minimal cost in time. Yet it has so far been taken up by only a large fraction of academics. If you follow the link above and log in to Google (for which you need to choose a user name and password), then you simple give Google Scholar your standard author name [You've only got one name haven't you, that you always keep the same across all your publications? And do you also have a unique researcher ID number via the ORCID scheme?]. Scholar's database then goes away and instantly hunts down all the groups of publications that could be you. Their suggestions are usually right on the button, and once you've said which author groups are you, and which are not, it will create a display for you that shows all the books, journal articles, chapters, working papers and all other stuff that you've ever published and Google has found. All this takes you just 5-10 minutes to do. And once it is done you never really need to do anything more - Google Scholar will update your publications every time it registers a new one for you, and send you twice-weekly updates of who's cited you.

Themain display in Google Scholar Citations (from now on, GSC) shows the title of each of your works and basic publication details and if you click that item it show you far more). It shows date of publication and most useful of all how many people have cited that book or paper. You can rearrange the list in terms of reverse date order (so you can see how cites are going for your newest work), in terms of number of cites (so you can see what is popular and what not), and alphabetically (useful in merging any duplicate entries together). If you click on the cites number it will show details of all those citing you.

Yet there is far more to Google Scholar Citations than just this. The system will also:

Let you list and link to all your co-authors who are also on GSC. This is great for academic networking and for people who don't know you to understand your various interests and academic affiliations.

GSC Updates analyses your publications and who cites you and then provides weekly notifications to you of other work similar to your own and in the same area (including other work that cites your research). The strike rate here is very good if you have already published a lot of stuff that's well cited, because GSC's auto-algorithm has more data to work from. I would not now be without the Update facility - GSC scans a far wider range of literature and finds items that I never could, and then pushes a great list to my email that's very quick and easy to review. However, I'm not sure how it works when you have just a few publications and few cites - it may not be as worthwhile then.

The GSC 'My Library' facility archives all the citations and references that you have included in any of your previous publishing work, doing the job that you always meant to do with a dedicated referencing system like Endnote or Mendeley. You can't control the format that you get references in, but this is a fabulous aide memoire as your publications grow. I can now find in seconds things I referenced years ago, things that previously would take me hours or days to re-find by looking unavailingly in the cites lits of one poorly remembered paper after paper.

You can also of course use GSC to search for all the other (non-hermit) scholars that you need to find out about. Once you find people relevant to you (friends, rivals and academic opponents) in one keystroke you can define an Alert to follow all their new publications, or even who else is citing them if you wish. GSC again alerts you automatically, and if you get tired of someone or feel swamped by the volume of information you're getting it is very simple to edit your Alerts down.

You can easily save and export the complete GSC listing of your works as a BibTeX file, which is just a great format for importing into the other tracking systems that I describe next. Hence it is a good idea to put your Google Scholar Citations account into good shape first before logging onto these other systems.

is the second key locale, but one that is much less well known outside Europe. The company is a fast-growing start-up based in Berlin. You need to log on and register user name, password and email, and then you can easily upload details of all your publications in one operation from the BibTeX file you exported from Google Scholar Citations. In a couple of minutes Research Gate (hereafter RG) will define separate items for each of your works and list them in an accessible looking format. Next the system will look around a large range of databases for open access or 'open Web' versions of each piece. If it finds such versions it will alert you and ask you to confirm that they are indeed your article or working paper, and that you are content to have them uploaded as free full text versions. If you have new material that is embargoed by the the publisher from being free (including books) you need to be a bit careful here, because RG will also find bootleg versions of your work on the Web that you won't want uploaded. If material is embargoed RG will auto remind you when they think the embargo period is up and they believe you are eligible to upload a free version.

Research Gate also computes various scores for your publications and has a wide range of other features. The most useful for me is that people can request copies of your work or suggest that you upload a free version. RG also records who has viewed your work and who has downloaded copies of papers. And it provides really useful updates weekly (if you have lots of publications and downloads) that tell you which of your works are being used. The RG format also allows you to upload datasets and other supplementary materials (such as extra evidence or working papers) to accompany each main publication. This is a really neat facility and it's excellent for getting the full story of your work out to the people who are really interested in it.

RSG lets you follow other researchers, getting updates about their work, and it will identify other people who are citing you and other people in your own department, faculty and university who are on the network. It also allows academics and researchers to recommend other authors for specific skills, competences and areas of expertise. This is a very helpful way of finding about and assessing the status of other scholars; it looks and works a bit like the same capabilities on Linked-In (see below).

There are additional interactivity features on RG that you may wish to explore - but where I remain a bit un-sighted. People can pose research questions and seek answers from other researchers in the network. This may work well in specialized science areas, but in my field (political science) the questions that I've seen so far were generally too low level to be useful, or to be worth answering. RG gives you points for asking and answering questions though, so I'm afraid that I have a nice low interactivity score so far.

is an older listing system that is well used in the USA, and also seems to be used by researchers in Asia a lot. Academia (henceforth AE) will search the open web for versions of your publications and will upload all those titles that have kosher open access versions. They will also find bootleg versions of embargoed papers or books though, so you need to check what they have got and remove things that should not be there

AE is not automated like Google Scholar Citations and it will not update automatically. So it is a lot more work to keep it up to date - you probably need to revisit your page every six months or so and manually input new items. AE works best if your university has a good electronic repository, especially one that regularly puts up the full versions of your publications when they go out of publishers' embargo periods. When they notify you that full text is viable for them you can upload the same full text version to AE. If you have things like books that maybe cannot be open access, you can still provide a link to the publisher's URL.

However, a nice feature of AE is that you can easily put up social network links to your Twitter, Facebook, Google Scholar Citations, and Linked In URLs, and to your university or personal web page, or your page in your university's electronic repository. This is a sharing capability that other systems don't offer. You can also upload a CV if you wish.

There are two or three smallish problems with AE. It is a bit clunky to use if you have lots of publications to add. So it's more maybe more suitable for younger folk with fewer and newer publications - it will not take an early career researcher so long to create and upkeep a decent Academia entry, and you can also reorder entries to put your most popular stuff first. But if you have dozens of publications the AE ordering system is clunky and takes ages to use. AE also sends update emails when people download your works, but they seem to be few and far between and you have to click through from your email to access them, so I almost never bother (whereas Google Scholar and Research Gate both display in the email itself). Finally AE seems to be almost not used in Europe or the UK.

is a free referencing system and PDF organizer and it again requires registration to use. The system is much easier to upload a whole set of papers from your files into Mendeley - just highlight a whole set of papers in your PDF archive and move the cursor into the middle of your main Mendeley screen to upload all the PDFs to its servers. The system then auto-extracts the publication details from all the files you have uploaded and creates entries for each that sit alongside the full text copy - although you may need to edit some entries. Mendeley is a good way of storing all the literature that you use in easily indexable and findable forms, and then being able to access this information from any PC or (after a wait maybe) tablet.

There is a My Publications tab on Mendeley where again you can easily upload the BibTeX file of your publications from Google Scholar Citations. This is another useful 'front window' for people to find out about you and your publications.

Until recently Mendeley was a London start-up company but last year the founders (three German geeks from Berlin) sold out to Elsevier, widely seen as the arch-opponents of open access and a kind of Darth Vader figure on the academic publishing scene. It remains to be seen how far this 'going to the darkside' move will on the one hand reduce Mendeley's popularity, or lead to its expanding its functionality.

is the last of the systems that all academics should seriously consider having an entry on. This is a great place to put your CV details and materials out in a way that will be a hundred times more visible than just posting it on a personal website. You can also use Linked In to create links to all your academic and practitioner contacts that they themselves will update from their end, without your having to constantly go and adjust your own email entries. Finally some academics a lot more skilled or dedicated than me have found Linked In a good way to store and update their publication details, link to their teaching videos and podcasts, and much else besides - I haven't myself figured out how to do all that yet.

Because business and government folk already use Linked In a lot, getting yourself an account is also a great way for researchers to reach external audiences beyond the university world. It is a key first step in beginning to build your external visibility and research impacts with these audiences - an important aspect now in the UK where a fifth of all government support for university research is now linked to 'impact'.

Other things to do

These five resources above are 'generic' ones, almost equally relevant whatever your discipline. I focus on them because in the digital era it is the most inclusive resources that tend to win out and to increase their salience year after year. But there will also potentially be other discipline-specific or subject-specific resources where your work can productively be listed for smaller, more specialist audiences. Again you should find that key capabilities above - for instance, exporting your whole Google Scholar Citations record as a BibTeX file, or exporting just the most recent publications in the same format - will stand you in good stead. In a couple of mouse clicks you can quickly update these extra resource listings periodically .

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Are you an academic hermit? - Advice for authoring a PhD or academic book - Medium

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In a recent study of The Impact of the Social Sciences a team of researchers that I lead tried to establish what made some academics well cited and well-regarded academically, and what also made them influential in spheres of life outside academia.

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WHY? Hammond,
C. & Churchman, D. (2008). Sustaining academic life: A case for applying
principles of social sustainability to the academic profession. International Journal of Sustainability in
Higher Education, 9(3), 235-245.

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WHY? Hammond,
C. & Churchman, D. (2008). Sustaining academic life: A case for applying
principles of social sustainability to the academic profession. International Journal of Sustainability in
Higher Education, 9(3), 235-245.

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Critiquing social sustainability of academic employment, workload and development practices

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95% of companies are using digital technologies in some way to connect and track their customers, with social media and mobile apps as the most common methods.