Social media for scientists

Course details

Social media can be both a friend and a foe. Social media allows people from across the globe to engage, to keep up with new findings, tools, and cutting-edge trends and to receive almost immediate feedback on their work. Even if you rarely post yourself, following your favorite scientists, labs, societies, journals, and journalists creates a curated list of fresh discoveries, events, and discussions. Furthermore, scientists can reach a broad audience, including media and members of the general public — people who are unlikely to go through an academic journal.But there is also a dark side. Social media makes it easy to fire off a hot take on the latest issue of the day, but it often lacks the careful editing. Many people post things they wish they hadn’t. A key challenge of social media use is keeping a long view of the kind of identity you want to present, not just today but down the road.In this workshop we would like to talk with you about the positive and negative effects of social media and science communication.

Therein we would like to discuss questions such as- Why is it worth to engage on social media? What pitfalls are there? What are your experiences?- Which options are there already at the institute?- What is the appropriate style to reach a broader audience?- And: How to post a trending tweet?

The workshop will be held by the MPI CBS press officers Verena Müller and Bettina Hennebach and is part of the IMPRS Neurocom curriculum.

The number of participants is limited to 12 persons.

To obtain 0.5 ECTS CPs for Outreach Activity the following requirements must be met: 

1.  Active participation in the workshop on 12th February
2.  Submitting two social media contributions (supervised by Bettina Hennebach & Verena Mueller) via one of the official Twitter channels of the institute (i.e. channels of deps, RGs, IMPRS with cross-links to your private Twitter account, if available).