For Archivists and Archives

Kiara King | ARA Scotland – The Born (Digital) Identity | 1st June 2012

What is twitter?

• An online social networking and microblogging service that enables instant communication

• 465 million user accounts globally – 23.8 million in the UK

• 175 million tweets sent per day

• A form of microblogging – like texting with a max of 140 characters per message or “tweet”

What is it for?

Twitter is “an efficient platform for conveying news and short pieces of

information directly to interested people”

~ Kate Theimer, Archivist

Why?For Archives:

• Promote your archive and its collections to a wider audience

• Link to your archives' website or blog

• Get feedback from others about your services

For Archivists:

• Build and maintain a professional profile• Connect and learn from other information professionals• Keep up to date with news, articles, conferences

How to get started• Think about it

• Sign up and create an account

• Search and follow people or organisations

• Tweet!

• Engage and build your profile by retweeting, replying and reacting

Twitter lingo & conventions• Tweet = to send a message

• @username = your username, e.g. @ballasttrust

• Follow = to subscribe to a user’s tweets and receive updates from them

• RT = retweet or repost a message from another user

• DM = a direct (private) message

• #hashtag = tags or keywords used to track events, people and activities e.g. #archives

• @mention = include someone’s username to mention them in a message or reply to them

Tips: Hashtags• Hashtags are keywords or tags preceded by a '#' symbol

• It is an easy way to locate information on a particular topic, or get your message out to a wider audience

• People often use Twitter's Search page to locate information

• For example you can use #archives to share stories about archives, #DigitalPreservation, #askarchivists (on June 9th)

• Hashtags are a great way to include your tweets in the conversation

Tips: Retweets• You can use "RT" to repeat information sent out by one of your

followers, share:

− Positive feedback about your searchroom services

− Unusual finds by researchers

− Media use of your collections

• Or use Twitter's "retweet" link to republish someone's original tweet on your own profile page

• Retweeting gives tweets composed by others a second life, by rebroadcasting that information across to your own list of followers

Tips: FollowingHow to find people and archives to follow?

• Twitter Lists

Use lists of archives and archivists that are available on Twitter:https://twitter.com/#!/followanarchive/europe-archives

https://twitter.com/#!/archivesnext/archives-on-twitter/members

Also see the archives 2.0 wiki by Kate Theimer: http://archives2point0.wetpaint.com/page/Twitter+%28microblogs%29

• Check out who other people are following for inspiration

How to manage your twitter• Access it online www.twitter.com

• Or via a mobile device using twitter apps for your phone/tablet

• Use 3rd party services to monitor and manage your mentions, RTs and followers e.g. hootsuite or tweetdeck (now part of twitter)

Hootsuite

How to share your twitter• Tell your researchers and public that you are tweeting – publish your

@username

• Get other twitter users to follow you and subscribe to your tweets

• Anyone can view your feed online https://twitter.com/#!/username

• Display your twitter feed on your website or blog

• Join some of the archive/archivists lists on Twitter

• Stay active!

PreservationHow to preserve your hard work?

There are external services for this:

• Twapperkeeper – now part of Hootsuite’s paid for services

• The Archivist http://archivist.visitmix.com/

Or subscribe to your own twitter feed through a reader service (like google reader

BUT the library of congress is archiving all twitter tweets as well!

Archives – what to tweet?

E.g. News & Updates - @PKCArchive

E.g. Livetweeting - @ukwarcabinet

E.g. Diary extracts - @QueenVictoriaRI

E.g. Projects - @eVII_PO

Twitter for professionals

• Follow professional bodies on twitter to keep up-to-date with what they are doing easily

• Find other archives or archivists that inspire you and connect with them

• Favourite certain tweets to bookmark and read later when you have time!

What next?

• Have a look for yourself!

• Investigate what other archives are doing

• Check out @AskArchivists on 9th June

• Think about whether its suitable for your organisation or would it be useful for you professionally

• Have a go