Tweeting the IR

Abstract

Social media has become an important means of keeping up to date for busy IR managers. Limited to short, pithy messages, but permitting linking and re-tweeting, the Twitter medium is both handy and powerful … when used appropriately. Alternatively, it can become a portal to fascinating, entertaining, horrifying, and time-consuming off-topic content and even an avenue for online harrassment. The presentation for DC-HUG will involve audience participation, and will include discussions of appropriate forms of identity, good and bad avatars, who to follow for scholarly communications subjects, whom to avoid for greater peace of mind, what are appropriate subjects, how to separate professional and personal topics. Tweets are now included in the Plum Analytics—so we want to explore ways of boosting those results while also keeping our IR community involved and informed. Some IR's can tweet in an official capacity, while other libraries (including mine) forbid that. Audience comments and participation will be an essential part of the contribution. The session will present a roster of scholarly communications personalities, with commentary on their standing and attitudes towards IRs specifically. Discussions of tweeting frequency, what is worth tweeting about, and how to respond to annoying tweets (hint: don't) should provide a lively and informative session.