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Several studies have explored the uses and benefits of social media hashtag communities in higher education; yet, more research is needed to examine communication structures and strategies for personal branding in educational social media hashtag communities. In other words, we should aim to better understand the dynamics, characteristics, and strategies that faculty, university staff, and graduate students need to brand themselves professionally in social media hashtag communities. This research aims to explore social network structures, dynamics, influencer characteristics, and personal branding strategies of the #AcademicTwitter online community. X (formerly known as Twitter) data on #AcademicTwitter from 2021 were retrieved and analysed using social network and quantitative content analysis. Our study found that most of the recurrent users in the community were scholars (faculty and researchers) predominantly from the STEM field. However, the most influential users were media/fan pages (a profile account created for different purposes such as sharing tips in academia, publishers, etc.) and other professionals (freelancers or university staff). Our research sheds light on the current practice of disclosing specific teaching and research interests or expertise in social media bio profiles for personal branding, especially among scholars. Unique communication contexts such as social media hashtag communities still bring challenges to the dissemination of information, relationship building, and personal branding strategies. Our results also provide recommendations for scholars (faculty and researchers), graduate students, university staff, and practitioners to improve communication practices and personal branding strategies on social media hashtag communities.

Scholars’ engagement with digital social networks is complex, warranting a comprehensive understanding of their use and participation. Current research has not yet grasped the motivators, gratification, and challenges that academics encounter across multiple digital social networks. With this in mind, this study surveyed scholars who purposely participate in digital social networks for professional endeavors. The theoretical frameworks guiding this research are the Uses and Gratification framework and the networked participatory scholarship conceptualization. A total of 307 higher education scholars completed an electronic survey with closed and open-ended questions. Data analysis included descriptive statistics and a team-coding approach for qualitative data. The results of this investigation highlight specific motivators for using digital social networks to support the scholar’s teaching, research, and professional development. The results of this investigation suggest that scholars are constantly navigating challenges and trading them off against the benefits. The results of this investigation also helped determine the imagined audiences that scholars perceive as potential spectators when using digital social networks for their scholarly efforts. The results illustrate the many reasons provided by scholars, which aligned with the self-presentation and impression management theory.

The aim of this investigation was to gain a broad sense of the implementation of digital social networks for teaching and learning by instructors in higher education. We were particularly interested in examples of instructors' use of digital social networks in their courses, the benefits and challenges of specific platforms for teaching and learning purposes, and the perceived role of digital social networks in teaching and learning during the first years of the COVID-19 pandemic. The participants in this investigation (n=336) were faculty and graduate students. Data was collected via an electronic questionnaire with closed and open-ended questions using Qualtrics. The quantitative analysis included descriptive statistics. The data analysis also included qualitative data analysis of textual responses provided to various questionnaire items. The results illustrate the ways in which instructors successfully apply or integrate digital social networks into teaching and learning, broadly and with specific digital social networks. Yet, the findings also highlight several complexities that instructors have experienced when considering digital social networks in their teaching practices such as data privacy issues, misinformation, user interface issues, and the willingness of students to use less trendy digital networks, among other challenges.