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.

@suzannekart #lern13

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.

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

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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.

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Twitter is a broadcast medium with a reply function

• We don’t use it like Facebook

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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.

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How do I get people to follow me?

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

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Add a link to your web page

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Start following other people

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Search for people within your target group

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About half of those you follow will start to follow you

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Follow someone else’s followers

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Click here to follow this person

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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.

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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.

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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

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Info about

a member

Retweet

Announcement

Article

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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

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How do I let my current visitors know we’re on Twitter?

• Put a widget on your website

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Follow us on Twitter

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Where do I find these “widgets”?

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Widgets link gives you choices and easy directions

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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.

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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.

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TAGGING AND HASH TAGS

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What’s the difference?

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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.

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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.

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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”

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We’re Tweeting THIS

conference! #lern13

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Why even bother with tags and hashtags?

• Tagging people & sharing content keeps you relevant.

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It establishes you as a messenger of information

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It establishes you as an expert on a particular subject

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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

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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)

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What’s better – tagging or direct messaging?

• Definitely tagging

• DM is now often seen as spam

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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.

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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

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Using lists in Twitter

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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.

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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

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Example

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A list I created

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List for THIS conference

twitter.com/LERNUpdates/lern13

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See what lists people are on

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Want someone to put you on their list?

• Just ask! Most people are happy to accommodate.

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Using Twitter as a networking tool

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How do you use it to network?

• To connect with people with similar interests

• To find other professionals

• To connect without being “friends.”

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Twitter versus Facebook

• Facebook is a more personal place.

• Facebook is a neighborhood, while Twitter is “downtown.”

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Personal branding

• Share interesting information

• Respond to questions

• Retweeting

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Always include a link!

BAD:

“Check out our conference brochure” (How?)

GOOD:

“Check out the latest on the California wildfires http://bit.ly/cali234”

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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.

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Thank you!

• Kart@lern.org

• SuzanneKart.com

@suzannekart #lern13