With a PhD in statistical astrophysics, David Corliss leads a data science team at Fiat Chrysler. He serves on the steering committee for the Conference on Statistical Practice and is the founder of Peace-Work, a volunteer cooperative of statisticians and data scientists providing analytic support for charitable groups and applying statistical methods in issue-driven advocacy.

In this, the first of a two-part series, we are going to look at how social media channels can play an important supporting role in Data for Good projects. While Data for Good is always technology driven, not all the tech is mathematical.

One area that can play an important supporting role in D4G projects is the effective use of social media. Social media channels can support our work by allowing us to promote projects, connect with volunteers, sign people up for hackathons, and learn and share analytic methods with the wider community.

This month’s Stats4Good focuses on social media resources available now, and the March column will have more hands-on information and practical advice for developing your own resources.

The distinctive characteristics of different social media channels greatly influence which resources can be found there. Channels that don’t require an invitation to see posts are used to disseminate information and make resources available to the general public, while invitation-only channels support resource sharing between groups of collaborators. Increasingly, invitation-based platforms like LinkedIn are becoming semi-public through large groups with hundreds of thousands of followers—Data Science Central is a good example, with a wealth of resources for researchers.

General purpose internet search engines will find web pages, journal articles, and YouTube videos, but not individual posts on a particular subject. This can create a gap in searches for ephemeral materials such as tweets, Instagram posts, and so on. Of course, almost nothing in social media is really temporary (“What happens in Vegas stays … on YouTube!”), so gaining experience with the search engines of these sites can be helpful.

Onsite searches on fast-moving channels will help you find event announcements and job postings. Searches using hashtags are especially helpful at finding resources through channel-specific search engines.

With more resources becoming available on video every day, YouTube has become an indispensable resource for Data for Good. One part of the picture are tutorials on analytic methods. The quality of instruction on social media channels can vary, so learning to quickly recognize the signs of a good tutorial is a useful skill.

When learning new analytic methods—whether for D4G or in general—it’s important to remember that math classes are as much about the language as anything else. When tutoring a person, I usually start by asking if they know the words being used, because if they don’t have the language down, there is no way they will be able to do the math. The critical role mastering the language plays in learning mathematical subjects is often overlooked by instructors (something to remember when helping kids with their homework). The instructor will clearly explain their terms from the beginning in a quality video tutorial. If they don’t, head back to the search engine!

Another common failing of instructors on social media is incomplete directions. Look carefully at the first example in the video. If steps are omitted or items are “left out of the recipe,” there is no need to sit through a whole video that won’t provide much help. (This is also why people who produce videos need to try them out on a person who doesn’t know the material before posting on social media. I’ll have more on how to create good content next month.)

Beyond the purely analytic, YouTube is becoming a channel of choice for Data for Good projects as people share successful case studies, interviews, best practices, ideas, and directions for ongoing work and provide information about organizations, their activities, and how to get connected.

An important development has been the advent of channels, used by video producers to deliver related content to a wide user base. Normally, as far as D4G is concerned, channels are free to subscribe to. All it really means is getting an email when new material is posted. Several leading Data for Good organizations, including Statistics Without Borders and DataKind, have created their own YouTube channel. It’s definitely something to check out!

Subscribing to an organization’s channel means always having easy access to the latest information. And while social media video channels are increasingly important for sharing Data for Good, it’s important to keep up to date using the search engine, as well. Some great videos are posted by individuals and collaborating organizations that might not appear through the official channel.

Social media today offers many resources to support Data for Good activities. The effort spent learning to make effective use of social media to find and acquire information about methods, projects, and organizations pays dividends in learning, solving problems, and inspiring new ideas to serve the greater good through statistics.