Twitter

TWITTER
Suzanne Kart, M.A. CeP
Associate Vice President, LERN
@suzannekart #lern13

Need to take a minute …
• I’m going to do a brief overview of exactly
what Twitter is first and then we’ll be
covering:
– Creating interesting messages
– Doing research on Twitter
– Integrating Twitter with publicity
– Tagging
– Developing relationships in the Twitterverse
– Getting retweeted
– Creating and editing lists
– Getting others to share your lists
– Getting listed yourself.

Twitter
• Twitter is a micro-blogging social networking
tool where you can post short messages (no
more than 140 characters).
• A lot of prominent people are using Twitter,
from Karl Rove to the CEO of Zappos, and they
offer quick, punchy updates about anything
they happen to be doing or thinking about –
from politics to their daily trips to Starbucks.

The key is not to push content, but to
engage people

How do we use it?
• People have to be a “follower” to receive your
tweets.
• You also need to start following others to
receive their tweets.

Twitter is a broadcast medium with a
reply function
• We don’t use it like Facebook

Twitter is a pull communication
• Good way to give people a heads up on
something new
• Make it worth someone’s time to “follow”
you, don’t oversell, update.

How do I get people to follow me?

Add a link to your Twitter page on your email signature (i.e.
Follow me on Twitter!)

Add a link to your web page

Start following other people

Search for people within your target
group

About half of those you follow will start to follow you

Follow someone else’s followers

Click here to follow this person

One more way
• Write interesting tweets that others will
“retweet”
• Example:
– Original Tweet:
• LernUpdates: Join us for a Twitter webinar. Info at
www.lern.org
– Retweet:
• SuzanneKart: RT @LernUpdates Join us for a Twitter webinar.
Info at www.lern.org
• By putting @LernUpdates in the retweet, all
SuzanneKart followers know where to find the
LernUpdates feed.

The science of retweeting
• Highly followed accounts that tweet a lot of links (1K+
followers) are most effective at getting retweeted.
• If 60-80% of your tweets include links, you will get
more followers and retweets.
• The more you reply to tweets, the less you get
retweeted.
• Including “Please Retweet” in your tweet results in 4X
more retweets.
• Retweets spike between 4 and 5 p.m. ET
• Saturday and Sunday are the days that get the most
retweets.

What should I be tweeting about?
• You can’t just push your sales message, because
your followers will stop following you.
• You can tweet sales messages, as long as you
tweet other information, too – information that’s
of interest to your followers:
– Articles
• Do not need to worry about legal issues
– Retweets
– Announcements
– Information about people involved in your program
– Tweets about new blog posts

Info about
a member
Retweet
Announcement
Article

Can I get my Twitter updates to automatically
show up on other social networks like Facebook &
LinkedIn?
• Hootsuite.com
• Applications within the other social
networks

How do I let my current visitors know
we’re on Twitter?
• Put a widget on your website

Follow us
on
Twitter

Where do I find these “widgets”?

Widgets link gives you choices and
easy directions

Who should tweet for your
organization?
• It’s fine if everyone in your organization
tweets, but there should be only one tweeter
that handles your organizational feed.

How often do you need to tweet?
• An organizational Twitter feed doesn’t need to
be updated as often as an individual.
• For individuals – aim for daily (3-5 times)
• For organizational feed – aim for 3-5 times a
week.

TAGGING AND HASH TAGS

What’s the difference?

Tagging
• Refers to using the @ symbol to reference
people in our tweets.
• You get a notice from Twitter when someone
tags you.
• “You should have attended the Twitter session
presented by @suzannekart”
• When you click on @suzannekart, it takes you
to Suzanne Kart’s Twitter feed.

Hashtags
• Similar to tags, but you use the # to
aggregate/group tweets together.
• Great for conferences and events.
• “You should have attended the #lern2011
conference. It was fun.”
• When you click on #lern13, you see what
everyone who tweeted about the conference
with that hashtag has said.

What not to do
• To connect unrelated topics – the result could
mean loss of followers and hate mail.
• For instance: “If you think #911 was big, you
should check out the #LERN2011 conference”

We’re
Tweeting THIS
conference!
#lern13

Why even bother with tags and
hashtags?
• Tagging people & sharing content keeps you
relevant.

It establishes you as a messenger of
information

It establishes you as an expert on a
particular subject

It establishes you as someone who
influences others
• Websites like Klout.com gauge the influence
you have by monitoring things like how active
you are and how much you’ve been tagged on
Twitter

What exactly is Klout?
• The Klout Score measures influence
based on your ability to drive
action.
• Every time you create content or
engage you influence others.
• The Klout Score uses data from
social networks in order to
measure:
– How many people you
influence (True Reach)
– How much you influence
them (Amplification)
– How influential they are
(Network Score)

What’s better – tagging or direct
messaging?
• Definitely tagging
• DM is now often seen as spam

Tagging versus DM
• Tagging someone show the Twitter ID to more
people
• DMing someone just puts spam in their inbox
• Unless you ACTUALLY know someone and/or
have talked prior, don’t bother with DM –
especially with things like “Thanks for following
@SuzanneKart. You should check out my
Facebook fan page, too.”
• The result is often that the person will “un”
follow you.

A few more tips to remember
• If you want to develop relationships on
Twitter, read other tweets, retweet good
content, tweet good content, and stay on top
of keywords and interests you follow.
• If you want to get retweeted, you do the same

Using lists in Twitter

What are Twitter lists
• Twitter lists are a way to organize others into
groups.
• When you click to view a list, you’ll see a
stream of tweets from all the users included in
that group.

What can lists do for you?
• Boost your online presence among the most
engaged users.
• Brand you as an expert.
• Associate your Twitter feed with other
experts.
• Get you more followers

A list I created

List for THIS conference
twitter.com/LERNUpdates/lern13

See what lists people are on

Want someone to put you on their
list?
• Just ask! Most people are happy to
accommodate.

Using Twitter as a networking
tool

How do you use it to network?
• To connect with people with similar interests
• To find other professionals
• To connect without being “friends.”

Twitter versus Facebook
• Facebook is a more personal place.
• Facebook is a neighborhood, while Twitter is
“downtown.”

Personal branding
• Share interesting information
• Respond to questions
• Retweeting

Always include a link!
BAD:
“Check out our conference brochure” (How?)
GOOD:
“Check out the latest on the California wildfires
http://bit.ly/cali234”

Creating a quality list
• Quality is better than quantity when you are
trying to brand yourself
• Block spammers
• If someone RTs your content, consider
following them.

Thank you!
• Kart@lern.org
• SuzanneKart.com

Twitter

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