Putting Social Media on Your CV
Awards and Honors, Publications, Leadership… Social Media?
As more of us find ourselves spending significant amounts of time creating digital content, we will need to show potential employers and promotion & tenure committees how we are using social media in an innovative, meaningful and impactful way. So let’s talk about the many ways to put your work on your CV.
· Where does it go? Some people make a section called “Media,” “Alternative Media” or “Digital Scholarship.” If you have to fit your achievements into an academic CV template, you might have to decide whether your work fits under Scholarship or Service.
Personally, I have a section titled “Humanities, Narrative Medicine, Education and Social Media” – because in my personal work history, they fit together. You can be creative!
· What goes in there?
o Your professional Twitter/Instagram/TikTok/Mastodon/Reddit handle
o The professional Facebook Group you moderate
o Podcasts – as a guest expert, as a creator
o Blogs, online newsletters, electronic publications
o My CV section is more broadly Humanities/Education, so I include articles written for the online Child Neurology Foundation Disorder Directory, Game Development, Art Projects, Fiction – and the Neurology Digital Education Collaborative.
o I include Wikipedia articles on women in medicine I’ve edited and updated, because I think that’s important scholarship.
Include metrics – number of downloads, views, members of your group - especially if impressive!
· Did you go viral? You can list selected tweets/tweetorials, YouTube videos or and include number of downloads, number of views/impressions.
· What doesn’t go on your CV? Your personal Facebook/Instagram/Twitter handle or moderated Facebook group if you are not using them for professional development in any way.
CV example
For more, see Cabrera D, Vartabedian BS, Spinner RJ, Jordan BL, Aase LA, Timimi FK. More Than Likes and Tweets: Creating Social Media Portfolios for Academic Promotion and Tenure. J Grad Med Educ. 2017;9(4):421-425. article link
How do you put digital scholarship on your CV?