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Twitter for Educators

Caitlin Cahill

Updated June 20, 2011

Transcript

Twitter for Educators

By @CCahillMN

Basics

What is Twitter?

Getting Started

Twictionary

What to Tweet

How to Twitter

Tools of the Trade

Following

Who to follow

*This does not include spammers, boring people, or anyone else you'd prefer not to follow.

How to Find Them

Hash Tags, Trending Topics, and Search - Oh My!

Culling the Flock

Followers

Tips

Tweeting

Web

Twitter.com
Hootsuite*
Brizzly*
Google Gadget (iGoogle/Gmail)
TwitterBar/InstantTweets/HelloTXT Bar (Add-ons)

To tweet or not to tweet...that's a silly question.

Desktop

Tweetdeck* (Adobe AIR)
Seesmic (Adboe AIR)
Tweetie* (Mac)
Thwirl (Windows)

News

Mobile

Text Messaging
Twitter Mobile Site
Echofon - iPhone*
Hootsuite - iPhone/Android
Tweetdeck -iPhone/Android
TwitterBerry - Blackberry
TinyTwitter - Balckberry/Nokia

Ideas

Musings

Retweets

Pictures

Links (shortened, not stirred)

Questions

Announcements

Answers

Direct Message (d)

Private tweet sent directly to one user.
Begin a tweet with d or use Direct Message function to send one.
Direct Messages can only be sent between mutal followers.

Etc.

Tweet Schedulers
Survey/Poll Tweets
Group Tweets
Greasemonkey Scripts

Retweet (RT)

Reposting someone else's tweet and giving them credit

Old School

Add RT to the beginning of the tweet, add commentary (may have to modify original to do so).

New School

Tweet is reposted in original form with orginal twit's username/avatar, but shows which of your follower's retweeted it.

Self-promotion (in small doses)

@Username

Designate a fellow twitter user with an @.
Begin tweets with username(s) to direct at certain people.
Mention other people within a tweet.
Usernames link to that user's profile.

Video by HowCast.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0xbjIE8cPM

Et al.

Media Sharing

Upload and get short url for picture/video.
Many apps integrate picture sharing
Share files

URL Shorteners

Links take up a lot of real estate (some are longer than 140 characters!) => shorten them before posting.

Twitter now has built-in URL shortener

bit.ly provides addition features like analytics, lists, and custom URLS.

A microblogging service that allows users to post ("tweet") content limited to 140 characters in length.

Be Real

Don't Spam

Post a picture
Have a bio
Be YOU!

Don't automate everything (especially DMs, follows, cross-posting)
Should be more than just blog feed

Stay Active

Give it a chance.
Only useful if you use it!

Engage

Don't be afraid to reply to people
Ask questions of people you've never met

Twitter for Educators by Caitlin Cahill is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

...but quantity does matter

Provide Something of Value

Growing Your Entourage

Don't be narcissistic

Icon by IconTexto

Be interesting.
Post tweets with value.
Add yourself to directories.
Embed your tweets on your site.
Connect Twitter with other services

Followings do not have to be mutual
BUT, followers found something interesting in you; probably have common interest.
You can always unfollow...or refollow

Without followers, tweeting is like asking a question to an empty room.

Not that it's a popularity contest...

Don't Take it Personally

Follow Back?

hakuna matata

No worries! Remember to have fun.

Beware the Mystery Meat & Artificial Intelligence

No pic, default background, NO TWEETS
High following to follower ratio
Internet Gurus, SEO specialists, "experts"
THOSE pictures

With enough of them, you could take over the Twitterverse.

Notifications

Have updates of select followers sent to phone
Use 3rd party app to get notifications based on lists

Other Educators
Professionals in careers related to your subject matter
News Outlets
Companies & Organizations
People who follow you*
Friends & Family
ANYONE you find interesting

Twitter Karma

See which followers/followees are mutual...or not

Lists

Sort followers into groups; public or private
Don't miss tweets from favorites
Help others find people to follow

Your email contacts

Find contacts who are also on Twitter

Directories

Browse users by topic or search for specific topics

Twitter Lists

See who your favorites are following.

Websites/Blogs/Profiles

Check your favorite websites for embedded tweets or twitter usernames

Twitter's User Search

When all else fails (seriously, should be last resort), try twitter.

Using searches and following hashtags enable you to find valuable information from outside your network...and possibly find new people to follow.

Twitter - sidebar or search.twitter.com
Google - integrated in latest results; greasemonkey script
Real-time Twitter Searches