2. Introductions My name is Angela Brandt I live right here in Spring Lake Park. I am enrolled in Graduate School for Human Resource Development, and I specialize in Online Learning.
4. Outline of this Course What is Twitter Getting setup on Twitter (if you’re not already) Follow / Be Followed Twitter Lists Updating your twitter Sending Direct Messages through Twitter @replies (public) on Twitter RT Retweeting URL Shortning, www.tinyurl.com Using #hashtags Twitter Etiquette
6. Important Terminology Follow: Subscribing to one’s status updates Follower: Someone who is subscribed to your status updates. Lists: A way to organize the people that you subscribe to in a more coherent fashion. ReTweet: Sharing the tweet of one user with all your Twitter followers. Hashtag: Used when people are talking about the same event, so that you can see what others are saying about what you are talking about. For example: #minnesota Tweet: A message that is 140 characters or less; you are “tweeting” when you are updating your Twitter account. @ : directly referring to a Twitter user in your Tweet. Reply: or publicly replying to someone in your tweet. For example: @angelambrandt Direct Message: When you respond to someone privately on Twitter.
7. Who came up with Twitter? Jack Dorsey, CEO of Odeo, the podcasting service, came up with the idea of Twitter to pull the company out of a creative slump. Based on the idea of chatting through SMS text messages, only doing it online.
8. How Twitter became amazing Twitter originally began as a “status update” service – I had macaroni and cheese for lunch, I’m going to work, etc. Now, Twitter has become a sharing service – interesting articles, information about events, and thoughtful postings about world events. Twitter has been used in presidential elections (Barack used it in the 2008 elections @BARACKOBAMA. Twitter has even been used in operating rooms, giving step by step instructions to medical students.
11. What am I going to use Twitter for? “Live-Tweeting” events – play by play updates on what is going on around you. Promoting something – your business, your blog, etc. Networking for jobs Getting your questions answered Meeting new friends
12. How to sign up with Twitterand Finding People to Follow
15. Who should you follow? News People you know Celebrities People who share your hobbies School Districts Cities Brands (coupons?) People that are following you (if you are interested) Bots that help you do something useful
19. Re – Tweeting (RT) Re-Tweeting is requoting someone else’s Tweet. Commonly referred to as RT’s. Don’t spam the world with RT’s, however. RT’s are useful when adding your own commentary to them. For example: @angelambrandt Tweets: The vikings are the purple gods! Your retweet: @(username) RT: The vikings are the purple gods! Yes they are!
20. URL Shortening Since Twitter is only 140 characters, it is nearly always a good idea to shorten links that you post on Twitter. If you post a Tweet on Twitter.com, you will have to shorten the URL manually. Some other services will shorten the URL automatically (TweetDeck, Ping.fm, etc.) The most popular website to shorten URL’s is http://www.tinyurl.com. Let’s practice this. Let’s take the urlhttp://www.springlakeparkschools.org/departments/communityeducation.asp and shorten it.
21. Using #hashtags Using #hashtags allows you to be tracked by other users who are talking about the same things. Not sure if your #hashtag is being used already? Look it up at http://www.hashtags.org. Let’s play with #hashtags!
22. Direct Messaging Direct messaging allows for you to send a message to someone, so that not everyone reads it. Kind of like an email service! To send a direct message, you click on “Direct messages” on the right hand side. From there, you will see a drop down menu with a text box. Choose who you would like to send a direct message to, and type a message. Let’s send a direct message!
29. Ping.fm Ping.fm is a great way to post to multiple services (including Twitter). You won’t want to update your status individually to multiple places, if you have them. For example, let’s say you want to update your Facebook status and Tweet that same thing. Ping.fm will allow you do that.
31. Twitter Etiquette It’s helpful to be transparent about your work/employer in your profile, if your use of Twitter has any implications for your day job. It’s okay to follow people you don’t know on Twitter. They can choose whether or not to follow you back. It’s also ok to unfollow people on Twitter. Tim O’Reilly suggests that @replies have lots of detail in them, so that others picking up the conversation can understand the response (example: turn “yes” into “Yes, I really love the new G.I. Joe movie.”)
32. Twitter Etiquette (cont..) Don’t ever Tweet personal information. At the same time, be personal – but to a point. Don’t spam people – even by saying “thanks for following me” can be misconstrued as spam. Use Twitter for communicating meaningfully.
Editor's Notes
My name is Angela Brandt. I live right here in Spring Lake Park, and I have two children that are 4 and 16. My 16 year old attends Spring Lake Park High School. I work full-time as a Project Specialist in the GroupLens Laboratory, which is at the University of Minnesota. This laboratory studies a field called Human-Computer Interaction: things like recommender systems (for example, when you visit Amazon and it recommends other products that may be of interest to you) social networking in general (Twitter being one of them) and other collaboration tools that we use online.
This course is designed to be for those who have never used Twitter before, or have very little experience. We will be starting with the basics – such as what is Twitter? I have overheard many conversations about doubting the usefulness of Twitter, and why we should use it. Isn’t it just a status update tool? We will go over Twitter’s many uses. Then, we will walk, step-by-step, through getting setup on Twitter if you are not already. We will also talk about following – who is watching you, and who you are watching. We will discuss who you should follow, give you some ideas on what the best way is to find new people to follow, and how to protect yourself from people you do not want seeing your Twitter profile. We will also look at how to organize these people into lists – making your Twitter look “less messy” and allow you to view only the people you are interested in seeing at the moment. After that we will move onto how to update your Twitter. You can do this not just from the web, but from other devices on the go. We will then go into the components of Twitter – sending direct messages that are private, replying to someone publicly using their user name – for example @angelambrandt, re-tweeting, and url shortening, and using hashtags. Finally, we will touch on what it means to have Twitter Etiquette – what is proper to say on Twitter, proper subject matters, and making sure others receive credit where credit is due.
This video is a general overview of Twitter in Plain English. The group that makes
Before we move forward, let’s discuss some important terminology. As with most things, Twitter has it’s own vocabulary, and knowing that vocabulary will help you be successful in getting started with it. We will be going through each of these things in depth, but for now, it’s good to have a working definition of what we are talking about.
Twitter, on the outset, was an idea that originated from Jack Dorsey, who ran Odeo. For those of you not familiar with Odeo, this is a site that pulls in RSS feeds into one place, and their focus was on podcasts. After experiencing a decline in numbers, he came up with the idea of Twitter to pull the company out of a creative slump. Originally, the idea was that users could “text” each other online, vs. using SMS messages.
Since that point, Twitter has grown exponentially. At first, many early adopters were turned off to the site because it was just a “status update” service. Updating each other on what we are doing multiple times a day seemed fruitless and unproductive. Twitter has since evolved to an information-powerhouse. Users log on and share opinions, articles and links. Twitter was even used in the presidential elections, and used in operating rooms where step by step instructions were given to medical students. For example, let’s say the Vikings are playing the Packers in the superbowl on a given Sunday (I know, far fetched). As you are watching the game, you are on your computer watching Twitter. Pulling up the hashtags #superbowl, #vikings or #packers, you could watch what others are saying as a play-by-play during the game.
Twitter has become a worldwide phenomenon. Japan leads the way with Tweets, with the United States following closely behind them.
Twitter is a very white, no kids, all income levels phenomenon. It is also very under 50. More females tweet than males, but that percentage difference is significant, yet small.
There are a multitude of reasons that you would use Twitter. You can use Twitter to promote something – a party you are having, your business, your blog or a blog of someone else’s. You can find other people in your field and use Twitter for networking purposes. This is especially helpful if you are using #hashtags in your post.s
Some Twitter Humor. The bottom says “would it kill you to update your Twitter status if you’re going to stay out so late?” Funny.
Let’s go ahead and setup our Twitter profile. You are first going to choose a username. There are two important pieces of information about this step: First, it is always best to use your real name, like I have @angelambrandt. The reason for this is twofold. For one, it will allow people to find you easily on Twitter. Also, if you plan on doing any job networking, you are not going to want to use a username that makes you appear silly – plantlover101 or catlover65432 may not be representative of your personality to a potential employer. Yet, you may choose to use this type of username, and that is fine. Do keep in mind, however, that you are only allowed one Twitter account per email; so, if you ever want a serious Twitter account, you are going to have to use a different email address. Now, we are going to want to fill in the details of our profile. Bear in mind – that when you setup your profile, you do not have to include a profile picture. Yet, you are going to want to make an impression on people – and using a photo does just that! If you are uncomfortable having your photo on the internet, you can always use a photo of a landscape, or something else that may reflect your personality. Many organizations will use their business logo. Then, you are going to want to include a one-line bio about yourself. This is something that you can of course change later. This short bio needs to be less than 160 characters.
There are numerous people you could follow on Twitter. News sources, people you know already, celebrities, people who share your hobbies, school districts, cities, brands, and those that are following you.
Let’s all visit slptwitter.weebly.com. This is the accompanying website that I have put together for this course. Here, you will find a copy of the powerpoint presentation, interesting how-to articles on how to use Twitter, then there is a giant massive list of people that you may be interested in following to get you started on Twitter.
Since Twitter only allows for 140 characters, it’s nearly always a good idea to shorten the links that you post to Twitter. There are numerous ways you can do this, and if you are using a third-party application to use Twitter, chances are that they will shorten the URL’s for you. Let’s take a url http://www.springlakeparkschools.org/departments/communityeducation.asp and shorten it.
Using #hashtags allows you to be tracked by other users who are discussing the same things that you are. Not sure what hashtag to use? You can look on the website www.hashtags.org. Let’s take a look at hashtags.
Twitter does allow for some anonymous posting through their direct message service. When you use direct messaging, you can send smeone a message anonymously without them seeing it. It’s better to direct message someone if you’re making 1:1 plans or having a very focused, personal conversation. To send a direct message, click on “Direct Messages” on the right hand side. From there, you will see a drop down menu with a text box. Choose who you would like to send a direct message to, and type the message. Let’s send a direct message
There are a variety of ways that we can update Twitter. We can do it right from the web, as displayed here. We can do it from an IM chat client. We can do it from our phones, either through a Twitter application, or through text message. We can do it from our web browser.
There are a variety of ways that we can update Twitter. We can do it right from the web, as displayed here. We can do it from an IM chat client. We can do it from our phones, either through a Twitter application, or through text message. We can do it from our web browser.
There are a variety of ways that we can update Twitter. We can do it right from the web, as displayed here. We can do it from an IM chat client. We can do it from our phones, either through a Twitter application, or through text message. We can do it from our web browser.
There are a variety of ways that we can update Twitter. We can do it right from the web, as displayed here. We can do it from an IM chat client. We can do it from our phones, either through a Twitter application, or through text message. We can do it from our web browser.
There are a variety of ways that we can update Twitter. We can do it right from the web, as displayed here. We can do it from an IM chat client. We can do it from our phones, either through a Twitter application, or through text message. We can do it from our web browser.
There are a variety of ways that we can update Twitter. We can do it right from the web, as displayed here. We can do it from an IM chat client. We can do it from our phones, either through a Twitter application, or through text message. We can do it from our web browser.
