To Tweet or Not to Tweet…

by Shari Graydon

Should she or shouldn’t she?

I was chatting on the phone a few weeks ago with a woman who is listed in our Experts Database. She had written an excellent piece of commentary about First Nations and non-aboriginal Canadians that appeared in the Toronto Star, and was wondering why, since the article appeared at the height of the Attawapiskat media fray, she hadn’t received any feedback, comments or debate. When I asked her if she’d shared her article with her network, she confessed that she doesn’t use any social media.

Adding Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and other social media to your to-do list might seem like a slog. But if you’ve taken the time to write, and successfully publish media commentary or a blog, and would like to increase its impact and readership (and your influence!), these tools can be invaluable. Here’s why:

  • They help you build a network and connect with others working in your field or area of research that you may not meet otherwise.
  • By retweeting, using hashtags and linking to external sites you can start a conversation or debate on Twitter with a “Twitterverse” of over 100 million people from across the globe.
  • Sharing the link to an article you wrote, your personal blog or your research will increase the accessibility of your work and the likelihood that it will be seen and appreciated by a wider audience.

At Informed Opinions, we use Twitter regularly to spread the word about our events, share the commentary that it published by our grads, and pass along other information that we find interesting. By adding hashtags to our posts, we expand our reach well beyond our own followers to millions of Twitter users. We share details, stories and photos of our successes, events and latest news on Facebook, and build professional relationships with people and organizations on LinkedIn.

Our goal is to encourage and train expert women to participate in public discourse. While our workshops focus writing newspaper commentary and saying “yes” to media interviews, we hope that women will take advantage of all the available platforms and tools to broaden the reach of their ideas and knowledge.