I promised a thread about my twitter experience when I reached 4000 followers. Here it is! Read if you want to know more about this econ professor’s twitter experience (and reasons to be here).

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Why did I join Twitter? @APeichl told me (on facebook, I think) that Twitter is a great place to discuss research. I briefly lurked and then started tweeting actively. But why? Partially for the research discussion, but also because I wanted my research to have a bigger impact.

I always wanted to have some “impact”, however you define it. By being a teacher my students remember. By discussing tax policy with journalists and politicians. By sharing my experience to inspire junior researchers. Twitter is great for that (I think).

My experience on here has been great. The few times someone wrote something mean, others (often with more followers) defended me. I’ve also learned to ignore stupid comments (and there aren't many!). The #econtwitter and #taxtwitter bubbles are friendly places.

4000 followers feels special. When I joined twitter, that was about follower # of several German economists who I knew well & respected ( @APeichl, @jsuedekum, @YohannesBecker ...) They're about one “academic generation” older than me, so it now feels a bit like I’ve arrived.

I joined twitter almost 3y ago. How did I get 4000 followers? Active tweeting (on tax policy, tax research, being a mom in academia) is key, as is engaging and following others. And I was lucky to have been recommended by those with many more followers (thanks, @dinapomeranz!)

What I find challenging is tweeting to different audiences. I have about three separate audiences – classic #econtwitter (with many econ profs and PhD students all around the world, many from the US), international #taxtwitter...

(with many lawyers and accountants, more-than-proportionally from UK), and the German economic policy bubble, with many journalists and people working in ministries engaging with academic economists. I love all three groups.

They are sometimes quite different (eg German policy discussion is mostly in German–doesn’t it annoy my non-German speaking followers to see tweets in German?), but also surprisingly similar (combining family & job seems to raise similar challenges for academics and journalists).

I’ve profited a lot from all. I have many touchpoints with established public finance economists on #econtwitter – particularly valuable given that I’m at a very small, unknown university, and cannot regularly travel to US conferences (family-compatibility issues...).

#taxtwitter makes it very easy to stay up to date on international tax policy developments, and there is always a lawyer or accountant around to explain the institutional details.

In the last year, I also had increasingly contact with journalists. It took a while (~3000 followers), but by now social media is spilling over to traditional media (& I learned that no top publication could make parents as proud as seeing their daughter’s name in the newspaper).

All in all, I’m having a great time on twitter, and I definitely want to encourage everyone, especially junior researchers, to join the fun! Ask away if you have questions!

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