Introduction to Twitter

Dogs Trust

Jacqui O’Beirne

Digital Marketing Manager

Kate Walker

Digital Marketing Assistant

What is Twitter?

Twitter

• “Microblogging”/ “Micromessaging”• Updating status regularly (similar to Facebook) in 140 characters

or less• Not locked to PC, you can “tweet” on phone, iPod Touch etc.• Used by e.g. BBC/SkyNews to show when new posts are

published• Can help to reach an audience that may not have heard of you or

your company otherwise• Has many famous Tweeters, including Stephen Fry, Philip

Schofield or Demi Moore. Celebs do love sharing!

A short history of Twitter (in 140 characters or less)

• Formed by US company Odeo in 2006 after day long brain storm session. Caught on @SXSW music festival, since launched online to huge success

• As of June 2010, 65 million posts per day = 750 tweets per second

• During #WC2010, a record number of tweets was reached when fans posted 2,940 tweets p/second after Japan scored vs Cameroon on June 14

• The Twitter server crashed after user's were updated their status to included "Michael Jackson"@ 100,000 tweets p/hour after his death

Twitter is still growing!

105 million users

Twitter users may be older than you think!

What can social media help with?• Customer Services• Community Building• Volunteering & Community

Fundraising• Engaging Supporters• Storytelling• ‘Show’ & Tell• Transparency• Widening Demographics• Brand Monitoring• PR

Why do we use it?

• Going where the people are• Already used Twitter personally• Low maintenance• The conversation was going on without us

Why is social networking useful?• Free! • Personalised communication with existing AND new,

international audience• Access to some non-profit schemes e.g. free Flickr Pro

accounts• Attracts next generation supporters and inspires

fundraising• Going where the people are; appeals even to least

motivated• Reward for support; the ‘ask’ is indirect• “ePhilanthropy” is fast growing; giving online is the

future• Much more regular communication than DM• Viral marketing means free advertising and increased

traffic

Get started!

• Create an account

• You need to think of a username

• Enter your full name, create a password and enter your email address

Username: To be or not to be?• For a company profile, your name should not have

been taken already

• Remember to keep it short and simple

• For personal accounts, you can be more quirky if you like….!

• Think about your interests, a nickname, add numbers?

• Common names may need to add more characters to make it work

Profile page – readers view

Home page – your view

Find friends

Search results

Search returns Chris Moyles’ pages and tweeters who are mentioning Moyles

How do you find people?You can find people talking about you by using Twilert.com

Reply to anyone who finds you!

Find common interests

In the beginning….

…you will talk to yourself.

(Everyone does it…)

Short and sweet• ‘Think succinct’ – you only have 140

characters to play with. The idea is to get your message in one post, not multiple!

• Characters are precious – it’s fine to use ‘&’ to represent ‘and’, or any other shortening symbols.

• You can even squash words together to make hash tags - #iamsleepy or making them shorter, #wc stood for ‘world cup’

Getting in touch!• Usernames are ‘@’ inclusive

• So, typing “hey @dogstrust, we

love to see all of the cute dogs when we visit the Harefield centre! Love and licks xox” will mean we see the message as a ‘mention’ (via clicking @dogstrust) on the log in page

• Other people can then view this message if they search for ‘@dogstrust’ or dogstrust

Sending a direct message

The drop down menu gives you a list of people who are your mutual friends (you follow them, they follow you)

It still works by using ‘@username’, but this time will not be shown in a public search

You can view the messages sent to you and those you have sent

Navigation

Clicking here shows you all of the mentions

Direct messages are private

Retweets (the double arrow icon on the tweet) show what you have said that others have posted on their wall

Search for people/item – this will return the person and anyone talking about the person/item

The Golden Rules• Read, reply, respond• Links to our site AND others• Generosity – retweets and thanking

RetweetingOn the main page, you can view all of your friends’ tweets

You can retweet these by clicking the double arrows ‘retweet’ function on the bottom right hand corner of each tweet (double arrow icon)

This will then appear in all your followers feeds as you ‘retweeting’

It’s amazing who you can follow…

• Victoria Beckham was ‘addicted to Twitter’ during the recent New York Fashion Week.

• Dannii Minogue and Kelly Osbourne are having a very public spat on Twitter right now.

• Alex Ferguson has famously banned anyone from tweeting while at Old Trafford (journalists etc) during press conferences, but interesting Rio Ferdinand is still online and is a generous Tweeter, often giving away prizes to his random followers when he reaches a certain number

• Kirstie Allsopp of (LLL fame) really likes her Twitter account and has recently started a big debate about the pros and cons of setting homework for young children.

• New One Show host, Jason Manford got lots of coverage over speaking out about having his speech cut during his presenting duties at the Help for Heroes concert

Twitter manners• It’s an informal space

• We start and follow hashtags e.g. #keeppetscool

• BUT don’t abuse the trending topics (lessons learned from Habitat) Don’t jump on the bandwagon unnecessarily!

Follow us!

@dogstrust @jacquiobeirne @devongalkate

@lnicas @mokuska