A series of steps to walk through when planning an engagement strategy which uses social media.

1. Who?
• Who are they? What do you know about them? Be as
specific as possible
• How can you learn more about them? Direct
engagement and ambient engagement
• What can you learn from them? What sort of
relationship would this necessitate?
• What do you want them to do after
reading/listening/discussing your material?
• Who are key stakeholders or gatekeepers? How can
you connect with them?
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2. How?
• What platforms do they use on social media? How do they
communicate with them? Are these platforms suitable for
connecting in a research capacity?
• Avoiding the myths of social media: it isn’t the general
public, not everyone sees everything & the simple fact of
something being visible doesn’t mean it’s impactful.
Consider platform demographics, geographical and
occupational factors shaping time of use.
• How can ‘online’ connections and ‘offline’ connections
supplement each other? Ambient intimacy can play a role
here in building connections but specific dynamic likely to
be extremely project dependent.
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3. Why?
• We often overestimate the intrinsic interest of our research:
even if it obviously relates to them, it does not necessarily
mean they will be interested.
• People are busy, social media users are distracted. How will
you catch their attention? How will you hold their attention?
How will you build a connection?
• Can you help them better understand something of concern
through the application of expert knowledge?
• Can you work with them to collectively solve a shared
problem?
• Would participating in your project be something that matters
to them?
• Would participating in your project be useful to them?
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4. What?
• How much time a week do you have to spend on social media?
Solutions e.g. using scheduling software (Buffer, Hoot suite) to
cope with time constraints.
• What material do you have that can be repurposed as online
content? What activities can easily be used to create content?
• How much familiarity do you have with social media? How
much ability to identify relevant platforms for specific
purposes? Watch, learn, explore, experiment
• What access do you have to established online platforms that
can help you achieve impact? E.g. institutional social media
presence, established blogs, online magazines.
• How much of an existing digital footprint do you have? How are
you seen and who can you reach? Being careful with academic
authority.
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