Social Media Etiquette

[Sarochan]

I don't usually use Twitter but I decided to update my profile just in case I decided I want to use it in the future, and while browsing around the website, I found the professor whose lab I'll be joining in the fall.

 

Do you follow your PI? Is there some sort of etiquette about following PIs/other lab members/etc.?

 

Curious about other people's experiences with the whole social media side of things.

[hyronomus4]

I think it depends on of it's a personal account or a professional one.  If it's professional and they're tweeting about research related stuff and they're primarily just following other researchers then It's fine and I would.  If it's a private account or they're posting stuff related to they're personal life then I wouldn't... at least not until you know them better and have a closer relationship with them. 

[TakeruK]

I think it does depend on the type of social media. With Twitter, the way I see it is that if you have an account, that means you want people to follow you. Unlike Facebook, following is a one-way thing, not a mutual agreement, so I think the "etiquette" is that if you use Twitter, that means you are okay with any random person following you. If you are not okay with this, you can lock your account, or do not use Twitter. So, I don't find it a problem to Twitter follow my professors. Sometimes they post personal things but these are personal things that they chose to post knowing that the public sees them.

 

On the other hand, Facebook friending is a mutual agreement so I would not FB friend my professors. Not unless there is a good relationship. 

 

Personally, while I keep both my Twitter and my Facebook "professional", I definitely see my Twitter as the "professional" side of me (I tend to post about research or share stories related to work) while my FB is used primarily to socially connect with my family and friends that don't live near me.

[Cheshire_Cat]

Yeah. With facebook the only professors I have as friends are the ones I consider actual friends (Generally the ones I knew before college, who talked to me as an adult at the professors social events I got dragged to as a teenager.)  

But Twitter is different.  It is used for interactions with "fans" mostly.  So following a PI wouldn't be weird, imo.

[Sarochan]

Thank you all for your input! I am really out of the loop when it comes to social media stuff, so your comments are really helpful.

[Biostat_Assistant_Prof]

It interesting to me - having to think about these types of things that grad students just 10 years ago didn't have to think about. 

 

In my department, the "unwritten policy" is that grad students aren't friends with faculty while they remain a student (although it's not technically against any rules or anything). I know once students graduate, they usually become FB friends though. I'm friends on social media with one faculty member in my department, and that's only because when I stared - this person was a student (before being hired as faculty).

 

I have good relationship with my advisor and faculty, and personally would have no issue with being "friends" on social media. I don't post about anything I wouldn't openly admit to anyone, but I get that some people wouldn't want to give their "boss" the ability to peek into their lives outside of academia/work. It's funny, because I'm actually in a small FB group with a number of faculty in my department, and communicate on posts within this group, although we're not technically "friends"

[mb712]

Some faculty at my undergrad institution interact with even undergrads on Twitter, same with a couple POIs (that I found while lurking during the application process). IMO it's fairly easy to tell if they're okay with social media interacting just by how they use their accounts. If they follow 10 people and sporadically post random rants, probably should avoid. If they follow 500 people and post a variety of things daily, probably okay. As someone said above, relationship should probably factor into it though.

[happy little pill]

The course that I'm TAing in the fall has a Twitter component to it, so it's going to be mandatory for all TAs to have an account and for my students to follow me and @reply me as they live-tweet the art fair that they're attending in order to get points. It's kind of annoying that a platform I use for my own personal enjoyment/as a way of communicating quickly with my friends who are on other continents when we can't skype is going to get co-opted for grading purposes.

 

I think that following professors on Twitter is okay though - most of them seem to use it for academic purposes anyways. FB is where I cross the line. I waited for my supervisor and department chair to add me, which is how I knew it was professionally okay to be FB friends with them. I still, however, have them in their own separate group and they can only see about 30% of everything I post on Facebook.

[TakeruK]

It's kind of annoying that a platform I use for my own personal enjoyment/as a way of communicating quickly with my friends who are on other continents when we can't skype is going to get co-opted for grading purposes.

 

Can you just create a separate Twitter account just for the class? Things like Tweetdeck (https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/) are great for managing multiple Twitter accounts and even tweeting from separate accounts. Unlike Facebook, multiple accounts for Twitter is generally well supported and embraced by the community and the company.

[fuzzylogician]

This is interesting. In my field, Facebook is used much more often for networking. Almost everyone, from students to emeritus professors has an account. Some people also have Twitter accounts, but definitely not everyone, and they trend towards the younger students/postdocs, fewer faculty. I try to friend students and faculty at my school and also people in my field who I have at least met at a conference. I draw the line at friending (or accepting friend requests from) people I have never met, even if we have 30 friends in common and they are clearly in my field. I do occasionally meet people at conferences who I follow on Twitter -- that seems different somehow, and once we meet we add each other on Facebook. People in my field use Facebook to ask each other research questions, ask for articles they may not have access to, advertise student/postdoc/faculty positions, post pictures from conferences, organize carpools or hotel room sharing at conferences -- basically anything you can do online. Facebook is somehow pretty good at not showing me too much personal information about these people, I think I mostly just see professional stuff.

[TakeruK]

In my field, there are several "closed" groups for professionals. Notably, there is an "Astronomers" one and a "Young Planetary Scientists" group. I am a member of these groups (you have to ask to join and then someone, apparently, does a cursory attempt to "vet" you by confirming that you are actually a PhD student / PhD holder by checking out your website) but I rarely contribute. So while I do still mostly use my FB for personal stuff, I do use it to "lurk" and see official posts from leaders of our national societies and other distinguished professors. 

[seeingeyeduck]

I think it depends on what kind of content you're posting. If it's not something you want them to see, then I wouldn't "poke the bear" by following them. But if it's a professional acct, the advice already given is good.

 

As for FB, I think it depends on dept culture. Some of our faculty are friends with us and we are all friends with each other. But I look at the accts of other faculty and they are more locked down and have few friends, so I don't try to friend those people. I let the rest of the cohort lead. If I see that they become friends with the faculty, then I friend those faculty that I've had meaningful interaction with. Otherwise, I leave it.

[bhr]

My department (for some pretty obvious reasons) is very social-media friendly. I'm FB friends with most of the faculty, including ones I've had little engagement with, the program director, the department head, and my committee. I use my Twitter account DMs to message some faculty (who have expressed a preference for that over email), and have used FB messenger to talk to others.  FB is also where most social gatherings and departmental events get planned, so it makes sense to be friends with everyone. I'm also, for what it's worth, FB friends with some of the program directors and profs I've met at other schools at conferences (and one major luminary that I friended on a whim who accepted).

 

I should be better about filtering my account, but FB me is pretty much PG13 me. I have a private and a public twitter, however, and public twitter is very tame, if not always 100% professional. That's also the only account where I will interact with my own students, since it's public. I have a significant enough age gap with my FY students that I teach that I'm not comfortable with them on FB, even after finishing the course, but I encourage them to tweet me questions, interesting readings/stories/videos, comments, or music requests (I play music during some in-class activities and if they don't pick something it's going to be all 90s alt-rock (which is lost on the average 18 year old).

 

 

TL:DR
It really depends on the culture of your department and your own comfort level. Look to see what the folks there before you are doing.