This such a good question, and the answer should be - a strong one. Social media, whether it be via a lab Facebook page, or twitter account, or blog is such a great way to communicate with the public at large. Of course the caveat is that you need to be able to accurately communicate your message in an interesting manner. Science needs to (further) embrace social media as a way for scientists to directly

communicate with the public. I try to share interesting research related news and events via twitter ( https://twitter.com/jgryall ) and I follow a number of great scientists (see Dr. Darren Saunders @whereisdaz, Dave Hughes @HughesDC_MCMP, and Dr Krystal @dr_krystal) who regularly contribute random thoughts, an interesting result, an interesting paper recently published etc. For those who dislike the 140 character limit, a lab blog (or website) is a great way to engage the public as well as other scientists. On my blog ( http://www.jgryall.wordpress.com ) I discuss my research on the metabolic reprogramming of stem cells, but I also provide detailed methods for techniques that I use. Blogging has allowed me to interact with people from Peru to India, to Saudi Arabia.

I think that we are really building towards a dramatic shift in the way we publish and disseminate our research results, and social media are likely to play a big role. I think that sites like ResearchGate are also likely to play an important role in Science2.0

A colleague from my lab made a suggestion about reaching out with our research that made all the difference. He suggested including our lab websites, Linkedin and ResearchID as part of your signature on your email.

It is not mandatory to be in the Social Media, but it might be interesting as long as you have specific goals in mind. Your goals will determine the more suitable social network, the kind of followers you will be looking for and the kind of messages you will send. Are you looking for private investors? New fellows? A more informed society? Contents and strategies might be very different depending on your targets.

I would like to congratulate you for giving a chance to this communication channels. Internet is full of opportunities if you are able to shape them properly.

I think that you need to think about creating more than one channel of communication at different social media, at the same time it is helpful to integrate the tools to minimize the time needed to moderate them.

Create LinkedIn group, Facebook Page/group, twitter account, etc.

What I mean by integration is to link your website to Facebook where each post on the website will be posted automatically to social networks (http://twitterfeed.com/), and Facebook to twitter, and linkedIn.. there's an option in twitter and linkedIn makes every post on facebook posted automatically to twitter and linkedIn.

I, and a colleague of mine, have been using Facebook as a tool to increase interest in science and we found this is helpful (https://www.facebook.com/CreativeMinds00)

However, I think the first challenge it to have an acceptable number of fans, then things will develop in a viral way.

Keep in mind, to use the channels "wisely". Twitter is good to inform in short phrases, which you could "explain" in Facebook. Be careful with cross-postings. Not every Facebook-Post is suitable for Twitter. And, more important, use the various channels for various informations. You will eventually loose some of your followers, if they read the same on every social media you use. We have a similar challenge here with my group. Like Alex said: its important what kind of goal you want to reach with your social media activities.

This such a good question, and the answer should be - a strong one. Social media, whether it be via a lab Facebook page, or twitter account, or blog is such a great way to communicate with the public at large. Of course the caveat is that you need to be able to accurately communicate your message in an interesting manner. Science needs to (further) embrace social media as a way for scientists to directly

communicate with the public. I try to share interesting research related news and events via twitter ( https://twitter.com/jgryall ) and I follow a number of great scientists (see Dr. Darren Saunders @whereisdaz, Dave Hughes @HughesDC_MCMP, and Dr Krystal @dr_krystal) who regularly contribute random thoughts, an interesting result, an interesting paper recently published etc. For those who dislike the 140 character limit, a lab blog (or website) is a great way to engage the public as well as other scientists. On my blog ( http://www.jgryall.wordpress.com ) I discuss my research on the metabolic reprogramming of stem cells, but I also provide detailed methods for techniques that I use. Blogging has allowed me to interact with people from Peru to India, to Saudi Arabia.

I think that we are really building towards a dramatic shift in the way we publish and disseminate our research results, and social media are likely to play a big role. I think that sites like ResearchGate are also likely to play an important role in Science2.0

As a general comment, when you have created those accounts, it is a good idea to establish connections with other accounts and groups in that sphere and grop a link here and there, just like James Ryall has done above.

The proper social media format is a powerful tool as well. Put the message in a concise and engaging manner, add a picture and a link to full paper/presentation, and it will work.

(Facebook and Slideshare seem to work quite well together, given that the former is a "time line" and the latter is relatively "time independent".)

I think there is no universal and easy answer to that question. Social media should be just a mirror to our behaviour, social off line relationships and, networking habits. We should expect from social media to make this things a little bit easier. Anything else is a plus.

One way to try to answer this question is trying to put together scientis and media (journalist or communicators) and share their experiencies in social media. We have just done this in Spain last week for the second time in two years in a Congress called "Science in the net / Ciencia en redes". Here you have the main conclussions, hope they may help.

http://www.aecomunicacioncientifica.org/es/la-asociacion/132795-decalogo-de-la-comunicacion-de-ciencia-en-redes.html

Sorry they are in spanish.

Regards.

I believe that going the social media route is a good idea to share your research, and reach out to others who might want to collaborate with you.

I am not sure how your or your institution works so this second part might be useless for you. I think that before working with an open-to-the-public social media account for your lab, it might be interesting to create an account/mailing list with other labs within your institution that could potentially have overlapping research interests. This group mail list could be used to organized monthly or more frequent journal clubs and gain exposure within your own University to start with. Then, you could open the group to labs in different institutions.

Best.

I'll begin my answer here by signaling that I am not a fan of Facebook (I tried and then closed my account, it is not my thing) and I am not on Twitter (although Warren Buffett's engagement with Twitter does make me think more often about it).

With those caveats, social media is a good thing for your research lab and your research group provided it is properly managed. Used correctly it can promote your finding, your skills and expertise, and your profile. In particular, ResearchGate and other professional networking sites are most useful. The signal-to-noise ratio on other interfaces (Facebook, Twitter) makes them more questionable.

Think about this, for a group of smart people researchers and academics have for a long time been foolish in their management of their IP: We get paid by institutions to do research, and those same institutions have been paying publishing houses for access to publications. Publications are our currency. When we have something to say, traditionally, we would spend our time writing a paper to send to a publishing house who would then send it to our colleagues to review it (at which point another set of researchers is working on our stuff and another institution, and not the publishing house, is paying for the work done). Our colleagues dutifully give the publishing house feedback which then gets sent to us to use to improve the product (now we are working for the publication again and our institution again is paying for that to occur). Once the revision is done we traditionally have sent the work back to the publishing house who then charge us and our institutions and our colleagues (those who reviewed it and others) for access to our own work, work that was paid for by our institution and by others. Its all win for the publishers and lots of work for the customer!

New social media has the potential to circumvent that process so that we can control dissemination of our own work.

It is not a valid criticism of social media to suggest that the review process is not transparent: It becomes, potentially, easier to make review transparent using social media. Reviewers can have their names and comments published along side the publication itself and that may and should become a measure of esteem itself. Science and research can proceed as before, but with information more freely and more quickly available.

There are considerations, as a lab leader, that must be made when deciding on social media contributions: Who is going to control uploading and who is going to service the sites? One reason I avoid Twitter is that I know I will infrequently Tweet and to be honest I don't want my teams wasting a lot of time pumping our empty messages just to keep our group active in the Twittersphere. If the engagement is going to be infrequent, where is the value? My team suggest that we could announce publications and so on using Twitter and that is likely a good use of the medium. But the same thing can be achieved here, for example.

So, think about the goal, what you want to achieve, and tailor your own solution. Not engaging is likely the very worst decision. How to engage is difficult but will be worth the mental effort.

Thank you everyone for your excellent answers! This whole discussion is proof of the power of social media.

I think Rick nicely summarized the consensus above: a research lab should be active in social media, but the optimal strategy depends on the specific goals.

Other key messages: link your social media accounts to each other and with pre-existing influential groups, minimize the effort needed to keep them running, use each service in their own way and present your posts properly in a concise yet engaging manner. I agree with all of these important ideas.

We have to do some thinking to find our own way. Thank you again!

I really like to use Joseph DeSimone's Chemistry website at UNC as an example: http://desimone-group.chem.unc.edu/. He uses Twitter under his own name, but the content is relevant to the work that is conducted by the lab.

I'm in the Social Media users group for my university, and there are several opinions. My professional development group for PROMISE: Maryland's AGEP has Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and a blog. However, many of my colleagues seem to adopt the convention of having a Twitter handle under their own name, connecting with students through Twitter or Linked In, and posting research on a lab blog that is connected to the lab's official departmental website.

It seems that many prefer to keep the Facebook connections unofficial, where the students make their own connections to one another, rather than through a lab affiliation. Some groups have started Facebook sites, but find that the usage ebbs and flows depending on the "social media personalities" of the current lab members.

The social media can thus play a very significant role in R&D. It can provide platform to 1.Creating awareness, 2. Popularising/sharing of services/ products/land mark achievements/papers/articles/presentations etc. 3. Attracting desired HR 4. Networking among participating scientist resulting in better circumstances for productive and collaborative research & development - institutional as well as individual levels. There a number of ways to do it.

Personally, I feel that such sites are the best place for writing collaborative review articles/books.

But I have seen in some institutions that in general as a policy matter social media sites are filtered/banned/stopped by the Computer network people on the pretext of securing the data/network as well as preventing the chocking of the band-width/internet connectivity.

We have to have a culture of using social media sites e.g. Facebook, for purely intellectual purpose. It can be very economical for the organisations/institutions.

I agree with Prof. Sharma about instituting a culture of social media to maximize the benefits. I am a heavy user of social media, and lately engaged in research dealing with marketing using social media and studying the users' psychology to maximize interaction.

One worth while note here, is that if you are teaching, the students are experts in social media and one as an instructor has the obligation to master the same skills, otherwise one looses grounds with the students.

I am also using chatting as a learning tool to encourage students to seek experts rather than just waste time.

Finally, I thank all the contributors to the main question, you are indeed a source for more thinking.

Regards

Though my profile does not give me the academic acumen like many here my industry experience and recent research in the area of strategic alignment and adding business value in IT in emerging media allows me to make a few valid points to help

the important issue in my study found that the key to using social media was the value it created . We concentrated in Virtual teams . key proponents in using these mediums were trust , HR , Leadership and capabilities .

We found that the key in using such were how the technology tools were able to add real value to the organisation . As Prof Sharma mentions benefits is the key word .

Happy to discuss this interesting and emerging area . there are numerous case studies on these .

Regards

Gary Darbyshire

MMgmt MStratMktng

profile for further info

What if there is a professional platform for research labs, labs can easily build their lab websites on the platform, and can post recent news/papers/HR demands on the platforms, individual researchers can follow those labs and receive the news of those labs, would you like to register and build lab website on such kind of platform?

I'm also interested in this topic, and currently I'm doing the market survey about lab social network condition. We have made a questionnaire, hope you can fill it and speard the questionnaire link to other faculty and phd. Great thanks! The questionnaire link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/12itGg3g2wyx_SfPBz-iOEbhAyYyeBBclfwvGi5dZ34A/alreadyresponded