Do I Need an Academic Brand to be Competitive for a PhD?
Congratulations to you and your friends on finishing up your Bachelors’ degrees - an exciting time! I also want to cheer you all on for applying to PhDs. An exciting time in a different way than finishing up a degree. It’s interesting, how both beginnings and endings can bring up the same feeling but in such different ways. But that’s not what you came here to hear about!
Academic brands / websites / pages is what we’re here for.
From my own personal experience, I did not have a website nor an academic based social media profile before I started my PhD.
When I was applying for my PhD, the only social media I really thought about was ‘academic Twitter’ because there was a huge culture of sharing new research, calls for research participants, conferences, studentships, etc.. Which I knew about during my master’s program but didn’t really need it at that time (training to be a therapist is a very different grad school experience than most). So that was all that was on my radar when it comes to platforms. It was there that I had seen people talk about making academic websites, but I didn’t think I needed one at that time (we’ll get back to websites below).
When it comes to social media now, I would suggest building up and out your LinkedIn at the start of your PhD. There’s lots of opportunities to connect with other PhD students, professors, researchers, and more through that platform. It’s often how I find out about the most up to date publications of those in my field now that Twitter is not what it used to be. For conferences, LinkedIn also one of the best ways to quickly stay connected with people, as it’s easier most of the time to shoot off a quick DM on LinkedIn rather than draft up a whole email.
Posting on LinkedIn can feel intimidating to people so don’t feel the need to clean up your profile and start being a creator on the same day.
It can be beneficial even to start leaving comments and getting involved in conversations as baby steps to engaging on the platform. If you do want to post, commentary on new papers or relevant topics in your field can be a jumping off point. Especially if there happens to be something in the news related to your field. The more time you spend on the platform, the more comfortable you’ll likely become in knowing if you want to post / what to post. But regardless, it’s a powerful platform for connecting with folks and keeping up to date on publications and conferences!
Secondly, I have found Instagram to be a wonderful and connective place over the course of my PhD journey. Again, I didn’t start my PhD with social media presence in mind. I wanted a place to write and make friends with people who would be able to understand this really wild thing that is doing a PhD and I wanted a place to put all the pictures I was already going to be taking (because I can’t help myself). I feel really lucky that it accumulated into a community of people following along and cheering me on. But I want to make sure to say that not everyone has that experience and people find posting to be incredibly draining and comment sections can be cruel. Something to be thoughtful about.
My advice regarding social media like Instagram or TikTok, is to create if you feel a pull to. If you have unused creativity in your bones, create in a low stakes, playful, experimental, kind of way.
Because a PhD is doing A LOT of things you’ve never done before and adding on learning SEO & editing & the type of content you want to make & the amount of time you have to give, etc. is at the very least doubling the amount of new skills and experiences you’re already going to be having to develop.
There are benefits to sharing your research & conferences & your experiences in general, of course! But it is worth an opportunity cost analysis for yourself. Especially at the beginning where there can be more free time and energy, don’t lock yourself into expectations around creating online for the entire PhD.
As for a personal website, I would encourage to make one once you’re accepted and enrolled! It’s a time commitment but I think it’s nice to have a place to upload anything related you do to your PhD along the way. Sort of a more interactive CV!
I’d recommend starting a page for your research interests, a page on you (why you got into the subject you’re interested in studying), and any work up until this point that you want to highlight (any research work you did in undergrad, relevant work experience or volunteer experience, or any relevant clubs or societies you have been a part of). Then update as things come up! It’s okay if it starts out as just a landing page with this information on it - you don’t need to make an elaborate website if you don’t want to. Its benefit is in having a place to direct people to learn more about you and know where to find your work.
The larger picture of this all is yes, I think it is important and meaningful to have yourself represented in some way online. Whether you consider that an academic brand or a personal brand or a professional social media account!
There’s much more accessibility to people in academia and their work these days, I think it does a disservice to you and your career to not take advantage of carving out a little space for yourself on the internet. (But there is no absolute or golden rule for how much or when or in what way - those are decisions you can make for yourself along the way!)
I believe in you!
Til next Sunday,
Dr. Sydney Conroy
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