{"id":23091,"date":"2016-08-16T11:23:30","date_gmt":"2016-08-16T10:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/itrc3.wpengine.com\/?page_id=23091"},"modified":"2016-08-16T11:23:30","modified_gmt":"2016-08-16T10:23:30","slug":"communication-tips","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.arcc-network.org.uk\/arcc-bag-of-tricks\/communication-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"Communication tips"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Our work across institutions and our links to policy and practice communities has highlighted the importance of communication and engagement.<\/p>\n<p>If you are an early career researcher, beginning a project or just looking for help with communications methods, our short guides will point you in the right direction.<\/p>\n<p>If there are any other areas you would like more information on, do\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:arcc@ukcip.org.uk?subject=Enquiry%20on%20communications%20guidance\">please get in touch<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>Project name<\/h3>\n<p>Before committing yourself to a name for your project, don\u2019t forget to do an internet search in case your title has already been used for a similar project or is a well-known product in another country\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Copyright of names and branding, particularly online, is a difficult legal area, so avoiding potential issues at the outset is advisable.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re buying your own web domain name rather than using a subdomain of your institution, it\u2019s worth buying those with similar suffixes. It helps to prevent copycat sites using them. For example, if you purchase www.abc.org.uk, you might wish to buy www.abc.org too and redirect it to your main site.<\/p>\n<h2>Social media<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Use what you feel comfortable with \u2013 try a number of networks to see what works best for you.<\/li>\n<li>Using a network for your own research purposes may require a different format to that needed to manage a network for a group or project.<\/li>\n<li>Twitter is probably the easiest and most widely used media \u2013 scroll down for more specific guidance.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\">LinkedIn<\/a> is commonly used for business and is useful for setting up discussion groups on specific subjects.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\">YouTube<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\">Vimeo<\/a> accounts are handy for uploading videos of presentations, work in progress etc. but make sure you edit before you do so \u2013 the average online attention span for video is 2.7 minutes.<\/li>\n<li>Make sure you write your posts in an engaging style, and use images and video \u2013 the most shared content.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Reference<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>The Guardian: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/voluntary-sector-network-mydonate-partner-zone\/how-to-boost-social-media\">Top tips \u2013 how to boost your social media profile\u00a0<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.bufferapp.com\">Buffer blog<\/a> \u2013 very useful blog with tips for social media. Well worth signing up for their newsletter if you\u2019re doing a lot of communications work.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Twitter<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Only tweet if you have something useful or interesting to share.<\/li>\n<li>Tweets should ideally include a link to something, unless you have a specific point to make.<\/li>\n<li>Adding a visual helps your tweet to stand out \u2013 the ideal image size is a 1024 x 512px jpg. Some scheduling apps pick up images from the link you&#8217;re tweeting and allow you to include them.<\/li>\n<li>You only have 140 characters and a lot of competition \u2013 make your tweets snappy and interesting (it\u2019s headline writing really).<\/li>\n<li>Don\u2019t send lots of tweets close together \u2013 quite irritating for anyone using a feed.<\/li>\n<li>Make use of tracking and scheduling services (<a href=\"https:\/\/bufferapp.com\/\">Buffer<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/bitly.com\">bit.ly<\/a> etc.)<\/li>\n<li>Apps such as <a href=\"https:\/\/tweetdeck.twitter.com\">Tweetdeck<\/a> are great if you have multiple accounts, or to keep track of activity.<\/li>\n<li>Use hash tags \u2013 they are invaluable in keeping an eye on what\u2019s trending.<\/li>\n<li>Use the list function to separate your contacts into groups \u2013 this is particularly helpful if you\u2019re using a single account for personal and work.<\/li>\n<li>Try to keep personal and work accounts separate if you can \u2013 funding bodies probably don\u2019t need to know your sandwich is mouldy etc.<\/li>\n<li>Make sure you include where you picked up information by using \u2018via\u2019 and the source Twitter handle (it\u2019s only polite!).<\/li>\n<li>Keep a note of when and what you tweet, what gets retweeted etc. if you like \u2013 they may be useful metrics.<\/li>\n<li>Twitter Analytics quantifies the number of retweets \/ likes etc. but also a number &#8216;impressions&#8217; \u2013 how many people have read your tweet.<\/li>\n<li>Apps such as<a href=\"http:\/\/mentionmapp.com\"> Mentionmapp<\/a> can provide visualisations of the spread of a tweet or hashtag.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our work across institutions and our links to policy and practice communities has highlighted the importance of communication and engagement. If you are an early career researcher, beginning a project or just looking for help with communications methods, our short guides will point you in the right direction. If there are any other areas you &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arcc-network.org.uk\/arcc-bag-of-tricks\/communication-tips\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Communication tips<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":23087,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"arcc-2col-page.php","meta":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arcc-network.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/23091"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arcc-network.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arcc-network.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arcc-network.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arcc-network.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.arcc-network.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/23091\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arcc-network.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/23087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arcc-network.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arcc-network.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}