Doing Economics

6.7.2 Other Social Media
The popularity of various social media platforms ebbs and flows too much
for me to discuss any specific such platform. But beyond blogging, should
you use social media? Again, it all depends on how you think of your
career, and just as there does not seem to be any penalty associated with
(smart) professional social media use, there is also no penalty associated
with not using social media. So if you do not feel you have time for social
media, that is fine.
Why use social media? Besides the obvious, you can use social media to
keep informed in two ways. First and foremost, it can keep you informed
about what other scholars, policy makers, and the media are saying about
the issues you are currently doing research on. In that sense, social media
can make you a better researcher.
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Second, it can keep you informed about developments relevant to policy
or industry developments surrounding your research topics. This is a good

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way, for instance, to hear about new trends which are not necessarily
relevant to your research, but which make for great examples of the
concepts related to it. In that sense, social media can make you a better
teacher or presenter.
Generally speaking, social media is also a helpful self-promotion tool for
academics who want their research to be read outside of academia. This is
especially relevant for those whose primary appointments are in business
schools, at policy schools, or at think tanks.
Finally, using social media seems to be increasingly perceived in some
quarters as a fourth responsibility besides research, teaching, and service.
From an editorial titled “Online Image” in Nature (2011):
Through responsible use of blogs and social media, researchers have
the power to chip away at misperceptions. This . . . involves getting the
right facts out there, and citing and linking to the best, most
trustworthy sources of information.
Such diligence can also benefit scientists as members of a professional
community. Researchers who make sure that personal and institutional
websites, blogs, and social-media pages are accurate and honest will
enhance the usefulness of web searches by pushing the most relevant
and trusted information to the top. This can make it easier for scientists
to find one another for collaboration and reviewing papers, and to
locate and fill jobs.
Enhancing visibility and promoting a digital image may strike some as
unsavoury, but it is not. Researchers are right to promote themselves
and their work in a reasonable capacity.
There are a number of available guides for academics who wish to get
involved in social media, and I encourage you to consult some of them if
you are interested in using social media to promote your career, such as the
lexicon by Miah (2019) or the book by Carrigan (2019). The principles
promoted by most of those guides are roughly similar from one guide to the
next, however. First and foremost, do not be a jerk. Remember that you are

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interacting with human beings, each endowed with agency and dignity, and
whose interior life is as rich as your own. In that sense, it is always a good
idea to check your ego at the door, and to try to interpret things as
charitably as you possibly can. This is even more important on social
media, where we lack the social cues and body language that can often help
us infer meaning beyond the literal. Whatever you would not say to
someone in person, do not say on social media. Likewise, whatever you do
not wish to have on public record (i.e., search engines) as you saying, do
not say on social media. And because people are seemingly becoming
increasingly literal and unable to read between the lines or appreciate
sarcasm, avoid sarcasm. There will certainly be times where people will
seek to deliberately bait you into having a public argument with them, and
your first inclination may be to come out swinging. Avoid doing so. Like
political strategist Rick Wilson once said, on social media, the power to
ignore is the power to destroy. If you realize that someone is not really
interested in having an actual conversation, move on. A fine strategy for
social media—one that works well for many academics—is to not engage in
online discussions, but only share interesting things. In other words, to talk
at—and not speak with—social media.
Second, make sure that your profile on whatever social media platform
you choose to use is filled out and clearly identifies you as a researcher,
ideally in your field of research. This will help others determine whether
they should follow you or not, and an empty profile, without a picture or an
accurate description, can easily be dismissed as a fake profile.
As a corollary to these first two points: avoid anonymous social media,
meaning both “avoid remaining anonymous,” as being on social media
under your real name will force you to be on your best behavior, but also
“avoid social media platforms where users are anonymous,” as those tend to
bring out the worst in people as well as the worst people. See Wu (2020) for
quantitative evidence on how anonymous social media fosters misogyny in
economics, among other kinds of prejudice.
Third, follow like-minded people. By this, I mean not just economists
working in your field, but economists who work on topics adjacent to yours
as well as people in other disciplines who work on (and people outside of
academia with an interest in) your research topics. And avoid following
only famous economists, as this is a recipe for frustration: by virtue of

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being famous, they are unlikely to have time to interact with or even take
much notice of you.
Fourth, use your social media account regularly. Most people already
have too many things to keep track of in their lives, and so they will be
reticent to follow a social media account that never shares or posts anything
new, or only rarely does so.
Finally, never lose sight of the fact that social media is a nice form of
professional service, no more. I can think of a few examples of academics
who are Very Online People, but whose CVs are woefully short on
publications. Social media use will not be penalized by those who will
judge your professional accomplishments if it is clear that you prioritize
your research. But if it becomes clear that you should have spent your time
more productively away from social media and your research has suffered
for it, you are likely to be penalized. Social media is a complement to good
research—not a substitute for it.