The A to Z of social media for academics
H IS FOR…
Haiku Deck: A whizzy online presentation app that cleverly embeds imagery from around the web, making it super speedy to make things pretty.
Hootsuite: A very nice app to bring together all of your social media accounts in one place.
HubZero: Open source software platform for creating dynamic websites that support scientific research and educational activities.
I IS FOR…
Instagram: Widely used picture-sharing and storytelling tool.
Infogr.am: Who needs a bar chart, when you can present stats in a creative, social format?
Instapaper: Keep track of articles, websites and anything you don’t have time to read immediately but want to save for later.
Issuu: To upload your pre-prints in a beautiful format for online viewing.
J IS FOR…
Jiscmail: Old school social media using email lists. Loads (and loads) of higher education groups.
JournalMap: A scientific literature search engine that empowers you to find relevant research based on location and biophysical attributes combined with traditional keyword searches.
K IS FOR…
Kahoot: Create, play and share games, make your own quiz or poll
Kickstarter: Who needs the research councils? Get your project started with this fundraising tool.
Klout: For a more intricate understanding of your Twitter activity and influence.
Kred: A visual history of your social media influence.
Kudos: Designed to help you increase the impact of your published research articles by tracking the most effective networks for getting your work discussed and cited.
L IS FOR…
Lanyrd: Allows you to add events, discover new and exciting conferences and track your friends to see what events they are attending.
LinkedIn: If you don’t have a website, and want an online CV, then your LinkedIn profile can substitute. Also home to lots of great discussion groups.
Livestream: Create and watch live broadcasts.
M IS FOR…
Medium: Popular blogging site.
Mendeley: Reference manager and academic social network that can help you organize your research, collaborate with others online, and discover the latest research.
Moodle: Open source course management system.
N IS FOR…
NewsNow: Brings together news stories on a topic, ready for sharing.
O IS FOR…
Overleaf: A real-time collaborative writing and publishing tool.
P IS FOR…
Padlet: Blank wall on to which you can write, embed and link images/video, useful for brainstorming, mind mapping, and live collaborative collage.
Paper.li: Create digital daily newspapers around specific keywords.
Plickers: “Track students progression using QR codes as answer sheets” they hold up their response card and your phone app camera captures it.
PlumAnalytics: A tool for measuring research impact.
PollDaddy: Create free polls on your websites.
Popplet: Collaborative mapping tool.
Prezi: Spice up your presentations with the zooming software, now with 3D.
Prisma: Make your images look like artworks.
Q IS FOR…
Quora: Ask a question, find an answer. Subject and topic guides. One tool to initiate research development.
R IS FOR…
RateMyPI: As it sounds, you can rate principal investigators to help figure out who’s great (or not) to work with.
ReadCube: Fed up with going through multiple interfaces to discover and archive new articles? This powerful platform gives you a portal to everything, for article discovery, storage, and annotation.
Reddit: A place to share articles/blog posts and a huge traffic driver.
ResearchGate: Social networking site for academics.
S IS FOR…
Scribd: Share your documents in a large social community.
SiteSucker: Lets you download whole websites for later analysis/processing.
Slack: Powerful project management and collaboration tool – cut down on email and get closer to inbox zero.
Skype: For videoconferencing on the fly.
SlashDot: Self-described “news for nerds” platform. Science and tech related.
SlideRocket: Design and share your presentations online.
Slideshare: As it says, upload your documents/slides for public viewing.
SoundCloud: For anyone wanting to share or find audio material, this is a neat solution.
Squarespace: Website building platform. A current favourite!
Storyful: Helps newsrooms discover and verify the best content on the social web. Good for media studies.
StumbleUpon: Let the web come to you with this discovery engine.
Survey Monkey: As it sounds, create surveys and share them.
T IS FOR…
Tailwind: Social/impact scores for Pinterest and Instagram. Formerly Pinreach.
Tout: Capture 15-second video updates and publish them in real time to your social networks.
Tumblr: Popular blogging platform.
Tweetbot: Twitter client for MacOS and iOS devices, lets you have multiple Twitter feeds (e.g. different hashtags) open at the same time. Useful for conferences.
TweetDeck: The Twitter-owned space to monitor and tweet.
Twitter: A microblogging platform to end all others.
Twitterfall: Visualise tweets during a conference to create another layer of activity.
TWUBS: Register a hashtag and help people find your event/project, etc.
U IS FOR…
Udemy: I guess “Academy for U”? Join, upload a course, slides, video lectures, and even charge for it. It may be a new marketplace for university short courses and the like.
Ustream: If you don’t have technical assistance to film your event, Ustream does it for you with a few clicks.
V IS FOR…
Vimeo: If the short upload limit on YouTube doesn’t suit your needs, then upload to here.
Vine: The six-second video app from Twitter.
W IS FOR…
Wakelet: This platform may mean that you don't need a website anymore. Pinterest on steroids.
Wallwisher: Tool for mind mapping, brainstorming, lists and more. Creates a blank page for you to populate with content.
Wikipedia: Follow and edit terms in your area of expertise.
Wordle: Create word clouds from data to understand influence and importance within text.
WordPress: Popular website creation platform.
X IS FOR…
TEDx: “Ideas worth spreading” start off local. Visit these events for great insights into the next thought leaders. Many are run by academics.
Y IS FOR…
Yammer: Private social network for use within an organization. Many universities now using this to collaborate securely across departments, geographies, content and business applications.
YouTube: Still the most popular video upload and share destination.
Z IS FOR…
Zotero: A bibliographic tool that also helps you share resources.