Social Media Chair Report

2019-2020 Social Media Report

Deborah Anderson, Social Media Chair

The OMT Division’s 2019-2020 social media goals included: (1) the broad dissemination of information regarding key events, deadlines, and topics of interest to current and potential members; (2) support and enhancement of Division goals and strategies, such as the expansion of global reach and facilitating and celebrating diversity and inclusivity within the OMT Community; and (3) community building and engagement with members year-round and beyond the scope of the AOM Conference. Below are a few highlights and metrics from the past year.

As of early September 2020, our Twitter account had 4,180 followers, an increase of 1,017 from the prior year (3,163 in 2019; 2,236 in 2018; 1,470 in 2017; 880 in 2016; and 500 in 2015). During the first three quarters of 2020, our Twitter posts garnered approximately 424,100 impressions, nearly double the annual impressions for the 2019 calendar year (Calendar Year Twitter Impression Growth: 3,982 in 2014; 32,669 in 2015; 66,034 in 2016; 46,416 in 2017; 105,166 in 2018; 216,546 in 2019; and 452,700 in Jan- early Sept of 2020). Since joining as Social Media Chair in 2018, impressions have more than doubled year on year. The OMT Division has the largest Twitter following of any Academy division by approximately two-fold.

Over the last year, several new initiatives were spearheaded in an effort to increase engagement with members year-round, build community, and increase reach to potential members around the globe. For example, the OMT Blog was created and launched this past summer. Seven blog posts have been published in the past few months on a range of topics, such as tips for navigating virtual conferences and lessons learned from the first virtual Academy (> 900 reads).

Additionally, the OMT Instagram account was launched this year with a focus on creating an “OMT Family Album.” This platform will be used to celebrate the milestones of members, highlight OMT artifacts over the years, and document OMT history, for example by posting snippets of old newsletters.

Season one of the OMT Podcast was released during Spring of 2020. This collaboration with Dmitrijs Kravcenko (SSE and Talking About Organizations Podcast), initially focused on introducing current and former members of the OMT Executive Committee. As of last count, the inaugural season garnered more than 700 listens over the Spreaker podcast platform alone. The second and third seasons of the OMT podcast will highlight OMT scholars and scholarship based in Latin America, Asia, and Africa with an expected release date in late 2020. Mariam Siddiqui (Cass) joins Tanja Ohlson (Oxford) as co-host of the series from Season 2 onward.

Lastly, in response to Covid-19, the Thursdays with OMT events led by EC member Lisa Cohen were Livestreamed on Facebook. This three-part series collectively had 1,542 views on Facebook at the time of this writing, in addition to the hundreds of members who joined the sessions live.

One ongoing goal of the division has been to increase diversity and inclusivity. In line with this goal, social media has been used to provide additional channels of communication to connect with our members and reach potential members in addition to the content created and disseminated through social media. As one metric, you can see the current geographic dispersion of our Twitter following here.

As a final note, please welcome our incoming OMT Social Media Co-Chairs, Kevin Lee (NYU) and Christine Moser (VU Amsterdam).

Deborah Anderson

University of Oxford

Outgoing Chair of Social Media