Matt Phillpott (SAS) Social Scholar seminar (see http://talkinghumanities.blogs.sas.ac.uk/) Setting up an account with Twitter for work purposes is fairly easy, but what do you do then? This session introduces some of the tools and features that Twitter offers and looks at how you might wish to organise tweets over a day and week. We will look at and discuss best practise for writing and composing tweets and how you can improve your following.

1. www.sas.ac.uk
Matt Phillpott (School of Advanced Study)
Matt.phillpott@sas.ac.uk
May 2015
An Introduction
to using
Twitter

2. www.sas.ac.uk
What is Twitter?
• A micro-blogging site
• Well used by academics in the humanities (although varies by discipline)
• Very useful for learning what’s happening and for networking with colleagues
• Interaction with others can form important relationships
• Restriction to 140 characters.

3. Creating an online profile
www.sas.ac.uk
Images
Videos
Audio
Text (articles/books)
• Blog Posts
• CV
• Resources pages
Twitter
Facebook
Linked In
IMPACT Check stats on Dashboard (hootsuite/Buffer etc) Network
Slide Show

4. Getting Started
www.sas.ac.uk
3. Find people to follow
• start with colleagues or interests/similar organisations
• See who they follow and who follows them and add them
1. Create an account
• go to http://twitter.com and follow the instructions
2. Update your profile
• brief description/biography
• Location
• time zone
• website links
• profile picture [do you have a brand?]

5. Images
www.sas.ac.uk
Effectively using Images on your profile
• Profile Image (logo/personalisation)
• Header Image (tells a story about you/your organisation)

6. www.sas.ac.uk
4. Start posting tweets
• 140 characters max!
• Type your message
• Click update
In addition you can:
• Add an image/file/web link
• Retweet
• Mention
• Add hashtags
And more…
Add an image

7. http://youtu.be/tLkasGHN9-g
What makes a good tweet?
www.sas.ac.uk
@brooksgibbs Have you seen this? Bit.ly/i9i3gf #50Cent #Bullying
Person researching a subject – Link to interesting web page – Hashtags to tell others on Twitter

8. www.sas.ac.uk
@brooksgibbs Have you seen this? Bit.ly/i9i3gf #50Cent #Bullying
Hashtag
Twitter address for main
Organisation under discussion
Secondary
Organisation
Twitter
address
Web Address
Carbon Copy/ Courtesy Copy

9. URL shortening
www.sas.ac.uk
• With only 140 characters to work with shortening url’s is essential
• Twitter does this for you, but other services make the url look nicer and gives
you statistics back on how many people have clicked on the link.
Shortened link by Twitter Shortened link by Bit.ly

10. Hashtags (#)
www.sas.ac.uk
• Lists all tweets sharing the same hashtag i.e. #research #humanities #twitterstorians
• Just add the # symbol before a word in your tweet

11. Types of Tweeting
www.sas.ac.uk
There are Five Main Types of Tweets
Messages
Replies
Mentions
Direct/private message
Retweet

12. Messages & Mentions
www.sas.ac.uk
A message is a straightforward Tweet
A message that mentions another Twitter username.

13. Replying @
www.sas.ac.uk
• Include a Twitter username if the tweet is a reply to another tweet. It also directs
your tweet at a specific person.
• You can reply to a tweet by clicking the ‘reply’ button or by manually typing the
username.
• Click @username on your homepage to see if someone has directed any tweets
at you.

14. Retweets (RT)
www.sas.ac.uk
• A tweet that has been shared by another twitter user to share with their followers.
• Use for tweets that you think will interest your followers or particularly share
your interests/organisational interests.
• Retweets spread the word and help you discover other people to follow with
similar interests/doing interesting things.
To retweet simply click on the symbol:

15. Direct Messages
www.sas.ac.uk
• An email-type service for private messaging.
• You can only send a direct message to someone that is following you

16. Adding images
www.sas.ac.uk
• Use the ‘camera’ icon to add images from your desktop
• Images attract other twitter followers to the post
• Don’t over use!

17. Adding video from Youtube
www.sas.ac.uk
Click on Twitter button to tweet the video
Use the
‘Share’
option on
Youtube
• From YouTube select the video and
click on ‘Share’ then on the Twitter
icon.
• Keep an eye out as some videos
should not be shared.

18. What to tweet
www.sas.ac.uk
• Don’t repeatedly tweet the same topic/hashtag – always think
about adding value to the conversation in an attempt to get the
topic trending.
• Post a variety of tweets each day (these can be scheduled
ahead of time with services such as Buffer and Sproutsocial
• Follow those who follow you and continue to add more. The
more people you follow the more followers you will attract.
• Keep tweets clean and professional

19. What to tweet
www.sas.ac.uk
• Be careful making negative comments about anything
• Post links to your site and blog [important for driving traffic]
• Interact with other people
• Remember this is a place for conversation not just selling
what you do – include both types of tweets.

20. Twitter ‘campaign’
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When trying to put across something specific
e.g. a new website/blog launch or an event
• Email people you know on Twitter to retweet
your tweet (include the link).
• Don’t forget @SASNews – email the Comms
team at sas.info@sas.ac.uk.
(SAS Comms Team):
Topicality is key. Create lists of ‘industry’
contacts you want to follow and keep an eye on
their updates every day. If you engage with
other people’s tweets, you’ll see the benefits on
your account.

21. Mandela day: case study
www.sas.ac.uk

22. Activity
www.sas.ac.uk
1
Twitter: So this is where taxpayers money goes. What a waste!
3
Twitter: @SASNews I went to that lecture last night and thought @johnsmith was a rubbish
speaker!'
Note: This exercise was originally created for the www.smke.org conference 2013 by Mark Carnall and has been
modified
2
Twitter: I cannot believe that @UniOfLondon made me fail my PhD. A terrible experience.
Don’t consider going there!

23. www.sas.ac.uk
Thank you for listening!
Matt Phillpott
Matt.phillpott@sas.ac.uk