Social media guidelines for account managers: building Node presence

Getting started

Each member nation joined a large network of institutes and universities when it became an ELIXIR Node. Mirroring this network’s presence on social media increases user traffic to the data resources vital to research.

Since ELIXIR provides life-science services primarily for those in academia and industry, Twitter and LinkedIn are the most appropriate social media channels.

      Twitter LinkedIn
    Message length Up to 280 characters, including links Undefined, but can be multiple long-form paragraphs
    Message frequency High frequency: daily or multiple times a day Lower frequency: monthly, weekly
    Message purpose (common examples)

    Quick updates and promotions of Node activity (i.e. news releases, events)

    Campaigns to draw attention to the Node or ELIXIR (i.e. “Open Access Week”)

    Advertise vacancies

    Invitations to events

    Milestone updates (i.e. decision to collaborate with another organisation)

    Activity highlights (i.e. link to a feature story on a database, tool, research group, etc.)

    Advertise vacancies
    Audience Larger emphasis on bioinformaticians, staff of research institutes and universities Larger emphasis on industry leaders, research infrastructure stakeholders and funders
    Ways to draw attention to frequently-used words and involve contacts (See the ELIXIR Hashtag and Mentions Dictionary)

    Words: Hashtags (concepts preceded by #, i.e. #bigdata)



    Contacts: Mentions of other Twitter users (Twitter account names preceded by @, i.e. @ELIXIREurope)

    Words: Hashtags work as they do on Twitter, but tend to be less frequently followed


    Contacts: Type the name of a connection and LinkedIn will automatically link to that person/organisation’s profile
    • Make most content linkable. Even if an image is attached, adding a link maximises a follower’s interaction with the tweet or post and drives traffic over to a website.
    • Always shorten links using free sites or browser plug-ins such as https://goo.gl/ and https://bitly.com/. Twitter in particular will cut off a link with an ellipsis (...) if too long. Shortening a link looks better and allows you to you use more of the tweet character limit for text.
    • Tell Node staff when you have posted or tweeted content so that they can share or like it. While only the Node account officially represents ELIXIR, staff engagements can help quickly boost views of Node content from the target audience.
    • Make your posts match the views of the ELIXIR Node. For official accounts, engagements with other posts can be seen as endorsements. Don’t engage with posts that ELIXIR would not endorse. If someone has mentioned a Node account in a questionable post, ignore it.

    Distinguish Node activities from Hub activities

    • Clarify the Node’s role in its profile bio.

    Twitter:

    “[Name of the ELIXIR Node] unites [country]’s leading life sciences organisations focused on [bioinformatics, particular area of bioinformatics, etc.] as part of @ELIXIREurope. Develops services such as [mention services, particularly those that have Twitter accounts]. Based at [i.e. mention lead institute, particularly if it has a Twitter account].

    • For example: “ELIXIR Portugal unites the country’s leading life sciences organisations focused on #bioinformatics as part of @ELIXIREurope. Develops services such as @enasequence and @MINT_database. Based at @LeadInstitute.”

    LinkedIn:

    The LinkedIn “about us” section should be 1-2 paragraphs — basically a condensed version of what is written on the Node page of elixir-europe.org (see section on “Online Content Guidelines”). The “about us” section should include the following:

    • A brief explanation of what ELIXIR is as a whole: i.e. “ELIXIR’s broad aim is to facilitate access to biological data for the life-science community by connecting resources in member nations across Europe.”
    • A few sentences on how the Node fits into ELIXIR, highlighting the types of services that the Node offers within the context of its nation and internationally.
    • Follow (Twitter) or connect (LinkedIn) with all ELIXIR-related employees, particularly those within the organisations that make up the Node. They will likely follow/connect with you in return, reflecting your network on social media. Look through ELIXIR Twitter contacts, organised into lists here: https://twitter.com/ELIXIREurope/lists
    List Members
    Deposition Databases: https://twitter.com/ELIXIREurope/lists/deposition-databases Data resources that have been defined by ELIXIR at https://www.elixir-europe.org/platforms/data/elixir-deposition-databases)
    Core Data Resources: https://twitter.com/ELIXIREurope/lists/core-data-resources Main list of data resources defined by ELIXIR as fundamental to research in the life sciences — read more at https://www.elixir-europe.org/core-data-resources
    Industry and SMEs: https://twitter.com/ELIXIREurope/lists/industry-and-smes ELIXIR contacts in industry and Small & Medium-sized Enterprises.
    ELIXIR institutes: https://twitter.com/ELIXIREurope/lists/elixir-institutes The individual institutes that make up ELIXIR and the data services they connect or develop
    ELIXIR people: https://twitter.com/ELIXIREurope/lists/elixir-people People affiliated with ELIXIR
    ELIXIR Nodes: https://twitter.com/ELIXIREurope/lists/elixir-nodes The main accounts of ELIXIR Nodes
    • Seek out your target audience, such as research group leads, industry leaders and other people who could benefit from the Node’s services.
    • Tweet and post Node content as well as retweeting, liking or sharing Hub content so that followers/connections are more aware of what the Node is doing specifically.
    • Use the social media lingo of ELIXIR and other life-science organisations. Refer to the ELIXIR Hashtag and Mentions Dictionary, particularly for Twitter. To check if a hashtag you want to use has a following on Twitter, search for the word on http://ritetag.com.

    Managing the Twitter account

    • Use Tweetdeck. Tweetdeck is a free dashboard tool that enables you to manage multiple Twitter accounts within tweetdeck.twitter.com. Several features make it easier to keep track of activities within a Node’s network — all of which can be added as “columns” to the dashboard.

    Activity column: Whenever those whom you follow engage with a tweet (i.e. like or comment), the engagement will appear in this section. This way, you can retweet their activities faster.

    User column: If you would like to stay updated on the tweets of a particular organisation or individual, add them as a “user column”.

    List column: This section shows the tweets of the list(s) of Twitter accounts to which you are subscribed to or a member. All ELIXIR Nodes that have Twitter accounts, for example, are members of the @ELIXIREurope “ELIXIR Nodes” list.

    Filtering: Each column you add has the option to filter content. Filtering tweets by a particular hashtag, for example, helps you to see how many people in the Node network are also tweeting about that topic.

    Scheduling: If you plan to launch a campaign that would involve tweeting daily or multiple times a day, you can drop those pre-written tweets into Tweetdeck and state when they should be posted. Tweetdeck then runs the campaign automatically.


    Alternatives to Tweetdeck are Hootsuite (https://hootsuite.com) or Social Booster (https://www.social-booster.com). They both offer free plans and can do all the tasks that Tweetdeck does. An interesting add-on to those is Buffer, especially in combination with its browser extensions (www.buffer.com).

    • Create event hashtags. Whenever your Node hosts an event, create a thematic hashtag so that attendees can better associate their tweets with the event. To be sure you haven’t created a pre-existing hashtag, double-check it with http://ritetag.com or search for the hashtag on Twitter.
    • Live tweeting at events
      • Tweet as soon as you hear something you appreciate. Live tweets are meant to be immediate. A tweet is more relevant to followers if posted during a presentation rather than after it.
      • Use the event hashtag and mention speakers. Most events will have a hashtag for attendees to include in their tweets as they share insights or promote certain messages amongst their network. Mentioning speakers in the tweets that you post during their presentations will increase the likelihood that followers and new followers see your tweets.
      • Take pictures of slides with meaningful content. Don’t just take a picture of a well-known person giving a presentation; zoom in on a slide with information or a graphic that would have meaning to your social media network (i.e. explaining how a tool works, showing the value of a research infrastructure, statistics on big data challenges, etc.).
      • Take advantage of Tweetdeck. Filter the tweets of users at the same event or presentation as you by an event hashtag. Just create a separate column with the user whose filtered tweets you want to follow. Doing so will help you to shape your own tweets, as well as engage with their content.

    Evaluating Twitter activity

    • Twitter Analytics (http://analytics.twitter.com). Each Twitter account has its own Twitter Analytics, which shows audience insights and tweet data to be viewed daily or over a maximum of a 15-month period.
      • Tweets > Engagement rate. The engagement rate is the number of engagements (clicks, retweets, replies, follows and likes) divided by the total number of impressions (the number of times users saw a tweet on Twitter). Watching this rate gives a good idea of how much Node tweets are valued by followers over time.
      • Audiences > Your followers > Interests. This feature helps gauge whether your Twitter presence is reaching the Node’s target audience (i.e. bioinformaticians, bioindustries, etc.) or not. Are the majority of your followers interested in categories such as science news, biology, biotech or biomedical sectors, for example?
      • Audiences > Your followers > Follower audience size. Twitter Analytics shows an account’s change in follower size over the past 30 days. This is helpful for measuring a Node’s social media influence.
    • Mondovo (https://www.mondovo.com/). While Twitter Analytics provides good data for a single account, this data is put into greater context when compared to the Twitter activity of other organisations.
    • The Mondovo “Twitter Competition” tool enables a user to analyse tweet frequency and engagement for the latest 200 tweets of up to five Twitter handles at a time — without knowing the login information of other Twitter accounts. Mondovo charges only $0.30 per handle and provides downloadable data and PDF reports for free.

    Managing the LinkedIn account

    • Create a Node company page (not a personal profile). Company pages make an organisation more searchable than a profile page. They also link together employees — when someone lists a Node on their profile, the Node’s logo and company page will automatically hyperlink.
    • Check for updates from other organisations in the “home” feed at least once a week. Engage with their content as well as posting your own.
    • Plan out which content from the Node Twitter account would also be relevant to LinkedIn, where funders, bioindustries, and other research infrastructures might be more active. Some tweets could also be summarised into a single LinkedIn post. Unlike Twitter, LinkedIn posts can be less regular and longer.
    • Advertise job vacancies. LinkedIn provides a paid service that would make Node job vacancies searchable, but simply posting the link to a job application and disseminating it across other communication channels (Twitter, Node or lead institute website, newsletters, etc.) could also get the word out.

    Evaluating LinkedIn activity

    LinkedIn analytics. A company profile comes equipped with analytics for visitors, updates (posts) and followers. The following metrics would most quickly give an idea of a Node page success:

    • Visitors > Visitor demographics. Pay close attention to the job functions and affiliated industries of visitors. Are you reaching the bioinformatics/research sector?
    • Updates > Social engagement over time. Examine the reach of your posts.
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