While, as academics, many of us use social media platforms to build a professional profile or seek job opportunities, we often overlook their potential to support deeper connections and new ways of doing research. Social media has helped me shape my work and meet new collaborators, paving the way for my research career. Drawing from my journey as an autoethnographer, I share how social media has helped make my academic work more collaborative and meaningful.
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Build meaningful research partnerships beyond traditional conferences
Traditional academic collaborations often depend on serendipitous conference meetings. Social media, however, allows us to be more intentional about forming connections and provides space to grow them over time. During a virtual conference at the height of the pandemic, I connected with a researcher from India through LinkedIn. Rather than stopping at a polite exchange, I initiated a deeper conversation by commenting on her reflective posts and sharing some of my own writing. Over time, we bonded over common ground, and what began as a casual exchange culminated in a co-authored research paper.
The takeaway lesson from this experience is that social media platforms can serve us in ways we don’t expect if we move beyond the “like” button and start responding meaningfully to posts or sharing relevant resources that speak to us. Building trust through authentic dialogue lays the groundwork for future collaboration.
Facilitate asynchronous, cross-time-zone collaborations
Social media allows research partnerships to grow despite geographic distances. One of my collaborations started through ResearchGate, where a professor working in Israel contacted me after reading one of my papers about teachers in Nepal. Our collaboration flourished without a single real-time meeting; instead, through shared Google Docs, recorded voice notes and scheduled reflection exchanges. Our collaboration hasn’t been published yet but this experience showed me that my work can reach places without the need for me to be physically present. This kind of asynchronous collaboration can allow for deeper critical engagement than rushed in-person exchanges.
Treat social media as a legitimate data source
Social media can also serve as a research site. When used ethically, curated online self-expression acts as powerful material for qualitative research. Drawing on Living Theory Methodology, I used my Instagram posts, in which I shared curated reflections during the pandemic, as a form of public digital visual data evidence in my self-study research.
These posts allowed me to capture lived experiences and emotions in a natural way. They supported my research by adding depth and helping me check the consistency of my insights against multiple sources. If you are a researcher using your social media content in a study, it helps to keep your posts organised; create folders based on themes, note the time and context of each post and record the purpose for sharing. Note that we always need to consider consent when turning public content into research data, even if it’s your own.
Recruiting diverse research participants through networked communities
Finding participants for research can often be a challenge, particularly for niche or sensitive research topics. I found social media a powerful tool in these moments. When I shared my call for participants on platforms such as LinkedIn, it reached not just my network but also their extended circles. People who found the research meaningful often recommended others who might be interested. This kind of word-of-mouth sharing, where one connection leads to another, is a helpful way to include more diverse voices in research, especially when traditional recruitment methods fall short.
Social media has turned out to be not just a tool for promotion but rather a dynamic space for co-creating research, cultivating reflective practice and reaching broader, more diverse audiences. By approaching digital spaces with intentionality, empathy and methodological creativity, researchers can not only adapt to an evolving scholarly ecosystem but help shape it toward more inclusive, collaborative and progressive thinking.
Bhawana Shrestha is research fellow at Learning Institute for Future Excellence, Academy of Future Education, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University.
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