{"id":1713,"date":"2012-10-05T10:13:07","date_gmt":"2012-10-05T10:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk\/?p=1713"},"modified":"2012-10-19T08:10:43","modified_gmt":"2012-10-19T08:10:43","slug":"draft-social-media-masterclass-using-mitc-as-an-example","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/2012\/10\/05\/draft-social-media-masterclass-using-mitc-as-an-example\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter Sprezzatura"},"content":{"rendered":"

Deconstructing\u00a0approaches to Social Media is similar in character to explaining why a joke is funny. It’s a form of analysis that sucks the life out of an activity which is more ‘art’ than ‘science’, something which is performative not administrative. Personally I don’t know why any Social\u00a0Media\u00a0policy should say more than ‘Be a person not an institution’ and ‘Don’t Tweet\/post after you have been to the pub’. However,\u00a0whether\u00a0formalised or not, it would be dishonest to pretend we don’t have Social Media strategies. Not unlike stand-up comedy a guiding principle where the\u00a0professional\u00a0and Social Media converge is to appear to be speaking as if the thoughts had just\u00a0occurred\u00a0to you. The Not-Quite-Real-Time<\/a>\u00a0nature\u00a0of most Social Media gives us all the chance to look clever\/witty. Thanks to\u00a0@nosnilwar<\/a> my new favourite word is\u00a0Sprezzatura<\/a>,\u00a0an approach\/characteristic which all of the people I know who are a great ‘success’ in\u00a0Social\u00a0Media share. If you look like you are trying you are doing it wrong…<\/p>\n

\"Mic\"<\/a>

CC- Darkroom Productions http:\/\/goo.gl\/umLgT<\/p><\/div>\n

Sara Tindall ran our Social Media activities during the Maths in the City<\/a>\u00a0project, this included running the @mathsinthecity<\/a> Twitter feed. As part of reflecting on the project I asked Sara to muse on her Tweeting and give a few examples. We hope this mini-qualitative review of our Social Media activity will be of interest to those of you\u00a0embarking\u00a0on project-based or representing-an-institution style Tweeting and that we haven’t spoilt the childlike magic of Social Media too much. \ud83d\ude42 \u00a0 David White (Creative Director for Maths in The City)<\/em><\/p>\n

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My most popular tweet <\/strong><\/p>\n

My most popular tweet<\/a> hit the bullseye as far as pure mathematicians were concerned. It got retweeted 205 times. The tweet was about a cartoon, which was originally tweeted by Tim Harford<\/a>. I repurposed his tweet to make it about maths. Whereas Tim was retweeted 22 times, my tweet was retweeted 205 times. Despite having fewer followers (2k+ to his 50k+), my tweet had the further reach because I am funnier than Tim.<\/span> I have a bunch of followers who could really relate to the cartoon.<\/p>\n

An example of banter<\/strong><\/p>\n

A tweet starts as a maths challenge<\/a> and ends up making an\u00a0appalling\u00a0play on (French) words<\/a>.\u00a0 Christian Perfect<\/a> regularly communicates with me on Twitter, so I am able to be more direct in my humour with him. When Colin Beveridge<\/a> joined the conversation, the ever-versatile emoticon helped to show I\u00a0wasn’t\u00a0trying to be confrontational.<\/p>\n

An example of interaction\/conversation<\/strong><\/p>\n

I started following The Quadratic Girl<\/a> simply because her self-description is a clever pun using maths. She occasionally tweets about maths. When she tweeted \u201cI will take a photo of all my maths books <3\u201d, this is how I responded<\/a>. This resulted in a nice geek out over books<\/a>. Making these sorts of connections is the point of social media \u2013 people just want to have fun.<\/p>\n

Interactions with project participants<\/strong><\/p>\n

The core activity of Maths in the City is mathematical walking tours of London and Oxford. People who have been on\/are about to go on these tours get in touch via Twitter from time to time. Usually it\u2019s to say thank you<\/a>, although sometimes they want to make sure that the weather\u00a0won’t\u00a0stop the tour<\/a>. There was one time where a tour participant got lost<\/a>. In the end he\u00a0couldn’t\u00a0find the group but he was able to follow the tour<\/a> using materials downloaded from our website.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a great feeling when I see people connecting with the project both online and face to face because it tells me we must be communicating something that people want to hear.<\/p>\n

Examples of how Twitter supported the face to face part of our project<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our mathematical walking tours got fully booked within around 48 hours of announcing them on Twitter. Here are some of the ways tour dates were announced:<\/p>\n