Blogs, discussion forums, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are examples of social media. Citing social media posts follows the same principles as when citing other web documents.

If the post has an author, the author is the main entry. An organization or a company can be author as well. If there is no author, the posts title is the main entry. Square brackets with the type of media clarifies which media is in question.

A blog post can be compared to a signed newspaper article, where the bloggers name is the author, the blog posts headline is the title and the name of the blog compares to the newspapers name and is italicized.

Certain types of information in social media can be categorized as personal communication, e.g. posts in closed Facebook-groups. In this case you need the persons permission to cite this information.

If social media is the subject of your study, these sources can be listed in a separate list presenting your research data. In that list information d enabling finding the source, such as title, URL and date of access should be included.

Reference list

Author (date). Post title. [type of media]. Available from: URL. Accessed date.

Author, Initials. (date). Full text of tweet. [Twitter] Day/month tweet written. Available from: URL. Accessed date.

Idun’s Apple (10.3.2010). Idun’s Apple now delivers to all of EU. [Facebook] Available from: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Iduns-Apple/197497928293?ref=ts. Accessed 19 March 2010.

Flying solo Micro business community (2021). Why does every website look the same? [forum] Available from: https://www.flyingsolo.com.au/forums/topic/why-does-every-website-look-the-same/ Accessed 12 May 2021.

Godin, S. (10.5.2021). Why the blockchain matters. Seth’s blog [blog]. Available from https://seths.blog/2021/05/why-the-blockchain-matters/ Accessed 12 May 2021.

In-text citation

Idun’s Apple’s business model … (Idun’s Apple 2010).

According to Godin … (2021).