As the tenth most popular website in the world, Twitter has quickly grown into a formidable communications platform. But what can you really do with 140 characters or less? How can arts managers make the most of this increasingly useful tool?

1. Presented by the Center for Arts Management and Technology (CAMT.Artsnet.org), Carnegie Mellon’s H. John Heinz III College
Presented by David Dombrosky
Carnegie Mellon’s Center for Arts Management and Technology
November 18, 2010
Getting the Most Out of Twitter

2. Presented by the Center for Arts Management and Technology (CAMT.Artsnet.org), Carnegie Mellon’s H. John Heinz III College
Learning Objectives
• Overview of Twitter: what it is;
who uses it; and why they want to
engage your organization.
• Exploiting the powerful aspects of
Twitter
• 70-20-10 Rule for Engagement
• Best practices
• 3rd
party applications
• Twitter analytic tools

3. Presented by the Center for Arts Management and Technology (CAMT.Artsnet.org), Carnegie Mellon’s H. John Heinz III College
What is Twitter?
• Twitter is a website offering a social networking and
micro-blogging service, which enables its users to send
and read other users' messages called tweets.
• Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters
displayed on the user's profile page.
• Users may subscribe to other users' tweets—this is
known as following and subscribers are known as
followers.

4. Presented by the Center for Arts Management and Technology (CAMT.Artsnet.org), Carnegie Mellon’s H. John Heinz III College
On September 14, 2010, Twitter announced
that the number of registered users had risen
to 175 million. That’s a growth of 69 million
users or 65% in 5 months.

5. Presented by the Center for Arts Management and Technology (CAMT.Artsnet.org), Carnegie Mellon’s H. John Heinz III College

6. Presented by the Center for Arts Management and Technology (CAMT.Artsnet.org), Carnegie Mellon’s H. John Heinz III College

7. Presented by the Center for Arts Management and Technology (CAMT.Artsnet.org), Carnegie Mellon’s H. John Heinz III College
On September 14, 2010, Twitter announced
that the average number of tweets per day
had risen to 95 million. That’s a 72% growth
rate over 5 months.

8. Presented by the Center for Arts Management and Technology (CAMT.Artsnet.org), Carnegie Mellon’s H. John Heinz III College

9. Presented by the Center for Arts Management and Technology (CAMT.Artsnet.org), Carnegie Mellon’s H. John Heinz III College
Powerful Aspects of Twitter
• Capitalizes on the Attention
Economy
• Hyper-finite real estate for
communication
• Immediacy
• Open social network
• Strong focus on sharing
• Thrives on authentic voices

10. Presented by the Center for Arts Management and Technology (CAMT.Artsnet.org), Carnegie Mellon’s H. John Heinz III College
70-20-10 Rule of Engagement

11. Presented by the Center for Arts Management and Technology (CAMT.Artsnet.org), Carnegie Mellon’s H. John Heinz III College
Best Practices for Twitter Writing
1. Be clear and concise
2. Be simple
3. Be relevant
4. Offer exclusives
5. Ask away
6. Use URL shorteners like Bit.ly
7. Sound like a human being
8. Don’t imitate the voice of the community
9. Provide context for what you share
10.Save room for retweets – 120 Char. Rule
A clever and useful Twitter style
guide may be found here –
Strunk and Twite.

12. Presented by the Center for Arts Management and Technology (CAMT.Artsnet.org), Carnegie Mellon’s H. John Heinz III College
Customize Your Twitter Page’s Background

13. Presented by the Center for Arts Management and Technology (CAMT.Artsnet.org), Carnegie Mellon’s H. John Heinz III College
Customize Your Twitter Page’s Background

14. Presented by the Center for Arts Management and Technology (CAMT.Artsnet.org), Carnegie Mellon’s H. John Heinz III College
Other Best Practices
Do
• Follow other people/organizations
• Retweet and respond to others
• Use hashtags
• Communicate with others as you
would if they were standing in your
lobby or at your event
• Use 3rd
party applications to provide
interesting content and manage your
Twitter account
Don’t
• Spam people with the same message
over and over again
• Use txt speak – it’s lazy
• Stifle your personality – be human
• Forget to post regularly
• Tell us what you had for lunch
• Forget to measure your success

15. Presented by the Center for Arts Management and Technology (CAMT.Artsnet.org), Carnegie Mellon’s H. John Heinz III College
3rd
Party Applications and Analytic Tools
• The Only Twitter Applications List You’ll Need
• Four Free Analytic Tools for Facebook and Twitter
• 11 Free Services for Scheduling
Social Media Updates

16. Presented by the Center for Arts Management and Technology (CAMT.Artsnet.org), Carnegie Mellon’s H. John Heinz III College
daviddom@cmu.edu
www.twitter.com/DDombrosky
David Dombrosky
Technology in the Arts
www.technologyinthearts.org
www.twitter.com/techinthearts
Center for Arts Management & Technology
http://camt.artsnet.org