How To Tweet
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The document provides a comprehensive guide on how to effectively use Twitter, including joining the platform, setting up a profile, and engaging with others through tweets, retweets, and direct messages. It emphasizes the importance of creating a professional image and offers tips for finding people to follow, using hashtags, and sharing links. Overall, it highlights Twitter as a valuable tool for sharing information and networking in a professional context.
How To Tweet
- 1. Learn how to use Twitter through the #learning3 experiment Input!
- 2. I thought Twitter was just a load of gossip Think again, it has far more uses than you might think! Get breaking news Share information Ask questions – and get answers from experts Follow and participate in conferences remotely Learn Be part of a professional network Promote the work you’re doing
- 3. What is a tweet? A tweet is a short message comprising 140 characters (that is letters plus spaces) which answers the simple question ‘what are you doing?’ Twitter is based on the sharing of these short messages between people who choose to ‘follow’ each other. It’s a bit like a micro form of email
- 4. How do I join? Visit the Twitter website: http://twitter.com Click on ‘sign up now’ & follow the instructions. Choose a user name – this could be your real name or a nickname. The shorter the better (this will leave more room for your tweets – 140 character messages). Once chosen, you can’t change your username so choose carefully.
- 6. Example
- 7. Privacy settings & notifications Decide whether to make your tweets ‘protected’ – only certain people can read them or ‘public’ - everyone can read them. Decide on how regularly you wish to receive emails informing you of new ‘followers’.
- 9. Profile picture In ‘settings’ and then ‘profile’ you can add an image. Choose a picture that you have stored on your PC. You could use a cartoon or other image, it doesn’t have to be of your face. Next to where the image icon is, go to ‘change image’ and then ‘browse’. Find your picture in the box and select it by clicking ‘open’, then click ‘save’ at the bottom of the screen and your picture will upload. This works just like when you add an attachment to an email. Having a picture is important as it makes you appear more ‘real’ and friendly. You wouldn’t attend a meeting or a conference with a bag on your head would you?!
- 10. Example
- 11. Add a biography It helps if you complete the ‘bio’ section describing a bit about yourself. This will help people to find you and also help them to decide whether to follow you. Some people use a list of key words, others write a greeting. It’s up to you but don’t leave it blank. If you have a blog or company website – add this in the ‘web’ section – this should increase traffic to your site.
- 12. Example What it looks like on my profile
- 13. Choose a profile theme There are a few different ‘themes’ to choose from to create your profile background. This is what people will see when they visit your Twitter profile. Visit ‘design’ in settings to do this. You can design your own background by choosing an image you have stored on your PC and selecting the colour scheme. To do this click on ‘change background image’ and ‘change design colours’.
- 15. Settings You can change any of these things (apart from your username) at any time by clicking on ‘settings’. For some tips, have a look at other people’s profiles to see what they have put in their biographies and also what their photos and themes look like. Your profile is like your advertisement for yourself so think about the image you want to portray. Again, I would suggest, be yourself as much as you can!
- 16. Find people to follow The whole of Twitter works by people ‘following’ each other. When you follow someone, you will see their most recent tweets appearing on your Twitter home page. The easiest way to find people to follow is to find one key person, eg. @BarackObama – and see who they’re following. Click on a name to go to their page and then simply click on ‘follow’.
- 17. On the right hand column of any twitter profile is a list of people being followed by that individual. Hover over the photo to see the person’s name. Click on the photo to visit that person’s page and then click ‘follow’ to follow them.
- 18. Find people to follow Search for the term #learning3 in the search bar on the Twitter home page. Here you will see all the tweets of people using the ‘hashtag’ #learning3. If you’re interested in what someone has said, click on their name, this will take you to their page and click ‘follow’. See if they’re following anyone you would like to follow and repeat the process. The more people you follow, the more useful Twitter becomes.
- 19. Search for a person or hashtag/ keyword here
- 20. Some recommendations Here are some recommendations of people/organisations to follow: Must-follows! @BarackObama @ll_uk @stephenfry @vahva News @bbcbreaking @reuters_co_uk @bbceducation @epolitix @MonitoringUK @reutersgovtuk @FEnews @guardiannews Government @bisgovuk @dcsfgovuk @bis_unis @bis_skills @ westminbriefing @CommunitiesUK @UKCES
- 21. The ‘retweet’ A retweet is like forwarding an email – you basically repeat someone else’s tweet by putting RT (for retweet) and their twitter name @name before it. If you see something you want to retweet – click on ‘retweet’ (this will add the RT @name bit for you automatically). This is the major way information is shared across twitter.
- 22. The reply To reply to what someone has said or asked, simply click on ‘reply’ next to their tweet. To see who’s replied to you, in the right hand column you will see your name @name – click here and see all the tweets where people have mentioned your name. This is a public one to one conversation.
- 23. Click here to reply Click here to retweet
- 24. The direct message These are called DMs for short. A DM is a private message to someone you follow – only the recipient can view it. You can only DM someone if you’re following them and they’ve given permission to receive DMs.
- 25. Click here to send a direct message
- 26. What’s a hashtag? Hashtags are keywords and are a way of tracking topics on Twitter. By using hashtags, you can help people who are looking for more information on your subject find your Tweets. You add hashtags to your tweets by using the hash symbol, #, and a word that defines the tweet's topic. For example, #michaeljackson or #G20. You can include more than one hashtag in your tweet, if appropriate. You can also search for tweets with hashtags that interest you. You can click on a hashtag to view everyone’s tweets using that hashtag. Many conferences use a hashtag to enable delegates to track comments about the conference online.
- 27. Write a tweet! Some people find it hard to know what to write about. My advice is ‘be yourself’. The #learning3 experiment should get you started. What thoughts do you have about how technology is changing the way we learn? Ask a question, or make a statement and then write the hashtag #learning3 and click on ‘update’!
- 28. Write your tweet in the box under the words ‘What’s happening?’ If you want to add a comment as part of the #learning3 debate then add the hashtag #learning3
- 29. Sharing links Link sharing is great on Twitter. If you want to share a link, copy the link from the search bar at the top of your browser and paste it into the tweet. It won’t work as a link unless it’s preceded by http:// If the link is really long, put it into a url shortening site like: http://tinyurl.com – this will give you more space for your accompanying comment.
- 31. Trending topics ‘Trending topics’ are topics lots of people are talking about - live. You can see these down the right hand side of your Twitter home page. Click on a topic you’re interested in to see all Tweets relating to that topic. Alternatively, search for a topic or keyword using the search bar on your Twitter home page.
- 32. These are the topics which were trending in the UK on 24 th February 2010. Click on a topic to see all live tweets related to that topic or hashtag.
- 33. And that’s the basics There are many more things you can do with Twitter but hopefully this has got you started. The more you use Twitter the more you’ll get the hang of how it works. Persevere – it could be the most valuable professional development tool you find this year! Finally, don’t forget to follow me: @vahva !