Disclaimer: I know several of the people who wrote this editorial for PLOSOne, but trust me, even if Ionica Smeets wasn’t my boss, even if I wasn’t writing a paper together with Feline, I still would share this!

I’ve met Paul and Casper through Twitter, and look where it got us? I’ve worked on several projects together with other scientists I first met online and had a lot of interesting conversations. And more important: I’ve shared a lot of relevant scientific insights through social media. But still, a lot of scientists think Twitter is just a waste of time. This new editorial published in PLOSOne gives ten simple rules to get started on Twitter as a scientist and trust me: despite the trolls, it can be very handy and insightful.

The ten rules are:

Rule 1: Start somewhere, but show up
Rule 2: Discover opportunities in academia
Rule 3: Tweet stuff
Rule 4: Learn the rules
Rule 5: Take care of yourself
Rule 6: Build your own community
Rule 7: Interface with real life
Rule 8: Spread your message
Rule 9: Be a real person
Rule 10: Great power & great responsibility

But that doesn’t explain enough, of course. So do check the full editorial here.