A session I am providing on Wednesday afternoon to the School of Media & Film at the University of Winchester, assuming zero knowledge, although they'll be plenty of theoretical knowledge at the very least!
2. Time is Short. Money is Short.
ī¨ Invest in Twitter?
ī¤ What is Twitter?
ī¤ How do you use it?
ī¤ What are some of the conventions
of Twitter?
ī¤ Where can you find out more?
Image: http://www.xenstudio.co.uk/blog/sales-and-marketing/using-twitter-in-your-small-business-marketing/
4. What is Twitter?
ī¨140 Characters known as
âTweetsâ
ī¤ Displayed on authorâs profile
page
ī¤ Read by subscribers (known as
âFollowersâ)
ī¨Privacy Options (not
6. Thanks to http://twitter.com/ccondray for the
structure of a couple of slidesâĻ
http://www.slideshare.net/collincondray/getting-started-with-twitter-4053835
Why Twitter?
7. Why would you bother with
Twitter?
ī¨ Instead of Facebook/LinkedIn/MySpace
ī¨ Because
ī¤ Fast â Only 140 characters
ī¤ Interesting people talk there
ī¤ Fun!
ī¤ Sharing interesting information draws followers.
More followers means more reach and more
influence
ī¤ Connect with people you wouldnât normally meet
ī¤ Public â what you talk about is picked up by
search engines.Image: http://tweeterism.com/3-ways-to-work-within-twitters-140-characters-limit/
10. What do you want to do on
Twitter?
ī¨ Build personal brand
ī¨ Find friends with similar interests
ī¨ Show your expertise
ī¨ Drive traffic to your business/course
ī¨ Find new readers for your blog
ī¨ Share your passion
ī¨ Communicate what youâre working on with
colleagues
Image: http://digital-fingerprint.co.uk/
11. Getting Started with Twitter
Image: http://michaelhyatt.com/2008/05/the-beginners-guide-to-twitter.html
14. TASKS
ī¨ Set up your Twitter account/user name
ī¤ Short is sweet!
ī¨ Set up your profile
ī¤ Full Name
ī¤ Location
ī¤ Link to personal or winchmfs website
īŽ http://winchmfs.wordpress.com/
ī¤ Bio: 160 characters, think âkeywordsâ
ī¤ Photo (of your face!)
ī¤ Can use e.g. http://www.twitbacks.com/ to change the
default background
Image: http://doubleyourincomechallenge.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/twitter-name-copy-300x300.jpg
15. What are the conventions of
Twitter?
Image: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Well-Bred-Persons-Book-Etiquette/dp/0752442902/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274619356&sr=1-3
18. What is Twitterabout?
ī¨ Twitter is about relationship
building, you canât just
âbroadcastâ announcements out,
you need to engage with your
followers.
20. FIRST TWEET
ī¨ Tweet
ī¤ Simply type (140 characters or less), then press
âTweetâ
īŽ The shorter you keep it, the more options you give others to
âRTâ
īŽ Learn that âtext languageâ
http://www.netlingo.com/acronyms.php
ī¤ Congratulations, youâve just sent your first tweet!
22. #Hashtags: Following
Conversations
ī¨ Well-known: #followfriday
ī¤ We want REASONS
ī¤ http://wthashtag.com/
ī¨ Invent a Hashtag
ī¤ Keep it short, e.g. #cmn10
ī¤ Worth checking itâs not in use (
http://www.hashtags.org/)
ī¤ For an event, agree beforehand.
23. TASK
ī¨ Visit: http://wthashtag.com/
ī¨ Identify a hashtag of interest, and add an entry
to the conversation
ī¨ 21st
May: I loved
http://wthashtag.com/Lesserbooks
24. #: Follow a Story
ī¨ http://hashtags.org/condem
26. FOLLOW & BE FOLLOWED
ī¨ @drbexl
ī¨ @winchmfs
ī¨ @markshaw
ī¨ @jamesclay
ī¨ @nwjerseyliz
ī¨ @lisaharris
ī¨ @mattbuck_hack
Start Following Finding people to follow
27. http://www.markshaw.biz/20-mins-per-day
ī¨ The 20 Minute perday TwitterWorkout
ī¨ 1. Send out 3 social chit chat messages as you go about your day
2. Share 3 things that you have found that you want to share with
others
3. Retweet 3 messages from others, that you wanted to share with
others
4. Send out 2 messages that demonstrate your expertise or
knowledge
5. Spend time replying to anyone that messages you
6. Spend time answering any questions around your area of
expertise
7. Spend some time recommending other peeps to follow
8. Answer any direct messages that are not spam
9. Invite a daily question on your area of expertise or knowledge
10. Find several new peeps to follow each day based on your
criteria
28. TASK
ī¨ Find 20 people to follow
ī¤ http://mrtweet.com/
ī¤ http://www.twellow.com/
ī¨ Find an appropriate message and âRTâ it
ī¨ Write a message which you would like RTâd on
the @winchmfs site
Image: http://social-shirt.com/wp-content/uploads/retweet_me_shirt-p235424843409036863o1o7_325-300x300.jpg
29. How Can Twitter Lists Help?
Image: http://gakuranman.com/eng/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/twitter-list.jpg
31. Lists
ī¨ Right-hand column
ī¤ Lists I created
ī¤ Lists I am following
ī¨ Donât necessarily need to be
âfollowingâ someone to list
them
ī¤ Some use as an alternate to
following
ī¨ Select âview allâ
34. TASK: Strategy
ī¨ Who do you want to reach with the
@winchmfs Twitter account?
ī¨ What kind of tweets can you send?
ī¨ How often do you want to send?
ī¨ What categories are you going to use to find
new followers?
ī¨ Who is responsible â e.g. one person each
day?
ī¨ Do you want separate accounts for each
subject, feeding into @winchmfs?
35. Twitter Tools/Third Party Apps
Image: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/twitter-tools.png
44. So, what do I need to do?
ī¨ Tweet often
ī¨ Tweet honestly,
ī¨ Donât think too much
ī¨ Follow interesting people.
ī¤ Not compulsory to follow
back
ī¨ Link to interesting stuff
ī¨ Re-tweet otherâs
knowledge
ī¨ Respond to debates in your
area of expertiseImage: http://blogforprofit.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/what-are-the-unspoken-rules-of-social-networks.jpg
Editor's Notes
So, this session is all about why bother with Twitter, and an introduction to using TwitterâĻ
The intention is that by the end of this session you will have at least a basic understanding of Twitter, and be able to help build up traffic to @winchmfs, a Twitter account that I set up last year and already has over 100 followers with very little activity â imagine what can happen if we add more?!
So, having said that I didnât want to go into the âhow toâ of Twitter â we do need to briefly address what it is, and some of the conventions that we have to work within â only by understanding those can we understand how we can best make use of it.
So, briefly, Twitter is a form of âmini-bloggingâ - each message is composed of no more than 140 characters, based on text messaging - where the system originated.
Significantly, Twitter used to ask âWhat are you doing?â, and now ask âWhatâs happening?â
Will show an example of a profile page shortlyâĻ but, just to noteâĻ
Password protected accounts allow you to have private conversations, but you can only have one account per email address so think carefully.
That most famous of British usersâĻ
Stephen Fryâs profile page, also known as a âTweetstreamâ
Passed his 1 million follower mark towards the end of last yearâĻ
well known for causing websites to crash when he mentions themâĻ
Lot of people think Twitter is just like Facebook status updatesâĻ (including the students who responded to the survey âdo students use Twitter?â
I would definitely see them differently â on Facebook I need some kind of concrete connection with the person before I will become âfriendsâ, whereas on Twitter I will follow anyone whom I find posts interesting information (and it doesnât have to be reciprocal), from anywhere in the world, at any time of the day and nightâĻ
Unless youâre a celebrity, posting personal information only wonât gain you many followersâĻ
Colleagues â immediate and external!
So, now that weâre hopefully a bit clearer on the purpose of Twitter (and believe me, it can take a while before it clicks and you âget itâ!)
To help you find the first few people that you follow, it should take you through some options (itâs a while since I signed up for a new account, and, as with everything in the web world, things change), but if not, can follow this link to find people on your email. Most websites will list Twitter names, and will show you some ways to find people to follow shortlyâĻ
But firstâĻ before you actually sign up â want to show you my account, and something to think about before you sign upâĻ
Hereâs my Twitterfeed shortly before I did that webinarâĻ
Arrow 1
Twitter name â think carefully. Shorter is better, as it all counts towards your 140 characters & avoid underscores
Image: Add a clear picture of yourself. I donât like following people without âavatarsâ unless I already know them in âthe real worldâ.
Arrow 2
This section is where many users may make a decision to follow you (can be changed in âSettingsâ)
Location is important, especially for users targeting local information.
Always include your web address, so people can find out more!
Bio: Key. Only 160 characters, think carefully about can include here!
Below = number of people Iâm following (limited to 2000, until you get over 2000 followers), number of people following me
Arrow 3
The icons of those Iâm following, most recent first
Arrow 4
My most recent tweet. I use a real mix of personal information, recommendations of otherâs tweets/web links, and conversations with othersâĻ as Stephen Fry said â itâs Twitter, and as in everyday conversation, itâs not all composed of grand thoughts!
Arrow 5
A âretweetâ of another users information â weâll come back to that.
University website photos?
So, now youâve set that up, sit back for a minute and look at some of the key conventions of TwitterâĻ, etiquette/conventions rather than RULES, as thereâs no one RIGHT way to use the service â thatâs one of the joys of it!
Then weâll get Tweeting!!
Here we can see a detail from a great diagram, demonstrating where Twitter can have an impactâĻ
The big purpose for many is to drive traffic âĻ part of the lifeblood driving traffic back to the heart of your online presence â your blog (we could go more into that, but thatâs a different topic!), and I have definitely noticed spikes in traffic back to my blog after posting blog links to TwitterâĻ.
Have a proper look at the diagram to see what itâs possibilities areâĻ
Now, the purpose of this session is to enable you guys to feed into the @winchmfs Twitter feed, which has over 100 followers without any real activity, so just imagine what it will be like with lots of activityâĻ similarly SFDO â had 11 followers for months, I came along, started targeted tweeting & targeted following, and soon rose to 900, have not been so active recently, so it plateaued and started to decline in numbers, so a bit of vigorous activity over last 2-3 weeks, and have another 50-60 followers!
Really canât be offended if people defollow you â have noticed some who defollow, but then put you in a list, which is even more flattering (weâll come back to those)!
PasswordâĻ
As we said, Twitter should be a mix of useful & personal information (not TOO MUCH INFORMATION please), but this shouldnât all just be âbroadcastâ to users â I have made friends with a lot of people online and then met them âin personâ later on, and it makes that initial meet-up feel like a seamless conversation â e.g. gave a conference paper over Easter with someone Iâd only ever met on Twitter! Also enables me to continue conversations with people I have met at conferences, etc. (as we already have something in common there)
Twitter works best if you can engage with other users, responding to their Tweets, and thanking them when they Retweet your informationâĻ
So, what are RetweetsâĻ
Yours will be blank, as youâre not following anyone yetâĻ
Essentially, a Retweet is a sign that you like someone elseâs message so much that you want YOUR followers to read it â when you RT, it appears in your Twitter FeedâĻ so there can be a snowball effect as your followers can also retweet the informationâĻ this can grow exponentially, and even become a trending topic
2 Examples
The first is where Lisa, who is following me, has taken my Tweet about preparing for my JISC webinar on Twitter, and retweeted it (RT is a convention), taking the opportunity to add a comment in brackets (using her phone to post the message). This is the preferred way of engaging amongst those âin the knowâ, and existed before Twitter provided the 2nd example last year
In this example, I am on the web version of Twitter, and have chosen to retweet âas isâ, which is the option provided by the Twitter âRetweetâ buttonâĻ if not on a 3rd party app, youâll have to cut & paste!
Weâll come back to Retweets once weâve found some followersâĻ
Use the hashtag symbol/word within your tweetâĻ
Follow Friday (http://www.topfollowfriday.com/ )
A well established convention, where (on a Friday) users recommend other users they think are worth following
The etiquette for recommending is somewhat interesting
A certain amount of you pat my backâĻ
Seems to be dying off â maybe replaced by lists (weâll come back to those)
Invent a Hashtag
Thereâs no central register of hashtags, so you just need to do a bit of research before defining one â e.g. a module code may be good to use!
It counts towards your 140 characters so keep it short.
Check itâs not already in use (especially if for a porn siteâĻ didnât the BBC get caught out on that the other week?)
Mutual agreement by users leads to consistent use of the same hashtag
Issues with Hashtagging?
Hashtag a hangover from when Twitter was built around mobile phones, so just another convention
Created by the community using them â so, if not careful, can be 2 groups trying to use the same hashtag.
How do you find out? Guess? Try âwhat the hashtagâ. Not very effective, so tend to be pre-advertised by events (e.g. #cmn10), or when created by community, start to see a number of friends using the same hashtag, and can then âjoin the conversationâ! Just have to ignore irrelevancies who join the conversation (e.g. Habitat famous gaffe).
Follow a Story
Many news stories break on Twitter, e.g. CNN announced earlier this year that Social Media was the best place to find breaking news â they were talking about most recent Tsumani.
More recently have been searching for this hashtag, which has grown up amongst those dissatisfied with the Lib/Con coalition government â itâs slowed down a bit, but it was VERY busy (almost trending â which is the top 10 phrases used!) as the story first broke (and Twitter is very much about ânowâ â e.g. Hudson River & Michael Jackson both first broke on TwitterâĻ although lots of fake deaths have also been posted, so the debate buzzes, whilst people await âofficialâ confirmationâĻ
Itâs easy to follow tweets which are specific to that story, by putting the hashtag into the search box (you can also search for terms without a hash-tag, thatâs fine too)
The results appear âin real timeâ in a search feedâĻ
So
Retweets, at the heart of Twitter have a couple of key purposes which can be optimised in education
Using a hashtag as a course code to have conversations with students
Finding new/interesting people to link with whom you have in common I have around 700 people with whom I have conversations re: social media/tech in education on my other Twitter account @digitalfprint.
Use direct messages for 1-to-1 conversations if you feel thereâs no value to Twitter at large to hear the conversation, e.g. here I have sent a message to the local networking group, to arrange giving a talk â which was going to be about WW2 posters, but was asked to talk about Twitter intstead..., and I quite often talk to David Rush re: a conference paper that weâre givingâĻ
Note: Direct Messages only work if the person you are sending them to is following youâĻ otherwise you will have to refer to them in a public messageâĻ
You canât force anyone to follow you, you need to provide the content to make them interested, but aiming to follow 10-20 new people each day should help, as many people receive notifications each time someone follows an account, and people can be curious, come back and follow you..
To find people to follow, check out those hashtags, look at lists (weâre just coming to those), and, most useful â check out those you have already decided to follow and see who THEY follow. You can then click on this button, and you will be able to follow them too.
I wouldnât do this all in one block, necessarily, I would spread the tweets over the day..
http://mashable.com/twitterlists/ (recommendations)
So, Twitter listsâĻ these were a function added by Twitter last year, and which I have not really had the time to fully use, but can see the potential for @winchmfs
Just a couple of options hereâĻ just added myself to Listorious on Sunday â be interesting to see if it makes any difference?!
With Twitter lists you can build up ideas of who is influential and WHYâĻ
As http://mashable.com/2009/11/04/twitter-lists-uses/ indicates, lists were only launched around a year ago, and there was a real opportunity to create the âde factoâ list in your area of core interest.
The more influential the person listing you, the more likely you are to get a number of new followersâĻ
@timbuckteeth (Steve Wheeler @ Uni Plymouth) added my âDigital Fingerprintâ to his âtop picksâ, I got another 50 followers that day, which gives me a wider base to interact with on the topic that Iâm interested in!
OK, so one of the elements I was attempting to set up with Twitter for @winchmfs is using lists â still an area where we can build âde-factoâ lists for our students to tap into, aligned by subject specifics. Weâre only allowed 20 lists per account, so have to think which of these are the most usefulâĻ
Aside from being able to post administrative notices to students who may follow, I have also started to build lists centred around the teaching areas (they are still in the early stages!) â including key people to follow re: film, online, journalism, jobs, university-courses, uni-of-winch, advertising, radio, tv, print press.
As more students join Twitter they should find ready-made lists which will help them in both their career development and in accessing material appropriate for their current courses.
There are SO MANY tools that you can use as add-ons to Twitter, but Iâm just going to tell you about a handful that Iâve found particularly interesting/usefulâĻ Iâm always discovering more, and I may use one and forget about it.. That was partly why I started my own website back in the 90s, as a form of bookmarking sites! Blogging is even betterâĻ maybe we need a workshop on that too!
One of the big pluses for Twitter is the ability to use it on the move via a Smartphone
Echofon is the main app that I use on my iPhoneâĻ giving me as much functionality as the web app, often more!
Are many other apps, e.g. Tweetbird, Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, etc. and everyone has their favouritesâĻ
If using the iPhone/Echofon, it will automatically use Twitpic to publish photos youâve taken with your phone, with whatever you write in the accompanying Tweet. You can also upload a photo via the web addressâĻ
I got great response to a photo I took of muffins as I was trying to decide which to buyâĻ (the hashtag #fb on there means my Tweet will be published as my status update on Facebook, as I have the app âSelective Twitterâ installed in Facebook)..
Again, there are other programmes, e.g. Yfrog, etc.
With only 140 characters, itâs best not to lose large numbers of those with long URLs.
There are many URL shortening services, but 2 of the best known are TinyURL and Bit.Ly â with Bit.Ly you can also track the number of times an item is clicked, and Iâve really taken it as my tool of choice at the momentâĻ
Friend or Follow is really useful tool â you can see in one go who youâre following, who isnât following you (with a requirement to have 2000 followers before you can follow over 2000 people, this can come in useful!), and decide if you still think they are worth following. You can also see who is following you that youâre not following, and where thereâs a reciprocal agreement.
Some people keep their Twitter accounts very âcleanâ, but I prefer to have a lot of information, and have specific people I know I want to read their stuff more than othersâĻ
If you get to the stage that you have more than one Twitter account, multiple account managers can help.
Some of the best known are Tweetdeck, Seeismic and Twitterific (for Macs), and Hootsuite, which I use.
Hootsuite Offers
Multiple account management, including Facebook and Linked In, all with a single log-in
The ability to create multiple columns so that you can see the activity across your account (in/out/waiting, etc.)
URL shortening (although I have received it as the Ow.ly links mask the real links!)
The ability to write tweets and set them as âpendingâ for a later date (especially useful for when going on holiday).
http://digital-fingerprint.co.uk/2009/09/hootsuite/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXpYVTnyCjU
The other week I did a webinar on this â my presentation is available on this URL, so you can find out more. A podcast is supposed to be available, but has not yet/never made its way to me.
Some of the teaching uses we identified for Twitter include:
Group Tweeting (for less âacademicâ information related to the course)
Concise writing (stories, news, reflection)
Backchannelling â tutor can interact with stories that are appearing repeatedly
Collaboration (Last Saturday I got an invite to the Bridge CafÊ, met some people I already knew from Winchester Web, but weâve started to talk about some collab projects, which weâll continue to develop online)
Crowd-sourcing (Got a lot of the information for my interview for this job from asking my âfollowersâ for the big ideas in Blended Learning â which required that I had already built up a good followingâĻ and continue to get a lot of information that wayâĻ)
But thatâs if you want to go off and check out moreâĻ
I donât want to get too bogged down in the âhow-toâ, as there are plenty of videos such as this on YouTubeâĻ on setting up a Twitter accountâĻ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0xbjIE8cPM
Hope Iâve given you something to think aboutâĻ now Questions?