Twitter Workshop Twitter Workshop 20 Tasks to Get Started with Twitter Jane Hart, Social Media & Learning Consultant
Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies www.c4lpt.co.uk

This Twitter Workshop provides you with h Jane Hart is a Social Media and
20 tasks Learning Consultant who has a 25 for finding out about year track record of helping both year track record of helping both Twitter businesses and education understand how new technologies can be used and how to use it for for learning . She currently focuses for learning She currently focuses p personal, teaching, , g, on helping organizations introduce learning social media tools and platforms into and other activities. their learning and performance their learning and performance support initiatives. (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 2

What is Twitter? Twitter is a very simple – and yet very powerful ‐ concept (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009
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What is Twitter? Twitter lets you write brief text updates (of up to 140 characters) and broadcast them. People sign up to follow your messages (or tweets as they are known) and you sign up to follow others. You can receive i
f Y i information, news and much more from colleagues, friends, celebrities, politicians as i d h f ll fi d l bii li i i well as companies and services. You can share your own news, links or even ask a question of your followers. (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 4

Twitter in Plain English A CommonCraft video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009
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1 – Sign up for a Twitter account Twitter will suggest some people to follow. You will need to choose a unique username (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009
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Your Twitter home page Your Twitter home page
On the left hand side you will see: • the place to enter your own updates • the updates of those you follow On the right hand side, you will see: • information about you, who you follow and who you are followed by • links to messages sent to you • trending topics Select Profile from the top menu to go to your personal profile page (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 7

Your Twitter profile page Your Twitter profile page
This is the page that others see about you. Its URL will be www.twitter.com/yourusername. p g y /y It will show information about you and your recent updates. To customise your Profile page, select Settings. (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 8

2 Customise your Twitter profile page 2 ‐ Customise
your Twitter profile page You can change your existing settings. You add a one‐line bio and your location. You can even protect your updates if you want to keep them private. Go to: • Password tab to change password • Devices tab to add a mobile phone • Notices tab to control how you are notified about different things • Picture tab to upload a picture or avatar • Design tab to change the background colours and images (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 9

Customise your Twitter profile page You can try out different colour schemes and background images of your page. Save the one you like to take effect. (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies ,
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3 ‐ Write your first tweet Remember your tweet can only be up to 140 characters long. The characters will count down as you type. Remember, too, that no one will receive this tweet as no one is following you yet, but at least it will put something onto your
gy y , p g y timeline! (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 11

4 – Find people to follow Directory of Learning Professionals on Twitter lists over 1,000 people www.c4lpt.co.uk/edutwitter.html (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009
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How to follow someone Take a look at a member’s profile, what they are tweeting about, who they are following and who follows them – to help you to decide
if you want to follow them. if you want to follow them If you do, click the Follow button beneath their profile icon. You will now receive their updates. updates Many people “follow back” the people who follow them, but you shouldn’t feel obliged to do so. do so Some people only follow a few others. How many can you cope with? If it gets too “noisy”, you can always un‐follow people. You can also “block” someone following you. (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 13

5 – Send someone a tweet Address a message to any Tweeter by inserting @ in front of their username. This is known as an @reply.
Note: everyone who is following you will receive this tweet. Note: “What are you doing?” will change to “Reply to ..” if you start your update with an @reply (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 14

6 – Send a direct message to a follower Send a message to one of your followers by using d followed by their username Note: you can only send a direct message to someone who is following you
Note: “What are you doing?” will change to “Direct message … ” if you start the message with d and username (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 15

7 – Retweet someone else’s tweet If you want to retweet a posting, there
are two ways to do this: 1. 1 If you are re‐posting an entire If you are re posting an entire tweet, select RT ‐ which becomes visible when you hover over the tweet – or add RT username or Retweeting username username 2. If you are rewording the tweet and/or adding your own comments, add via username comments add via username (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 16

8 – Share a web link (URL) If you type in a URL and it is more than 30 characters long, Twitter will shorten it to 30 characters.
You could also use a URL‐shortening service like the following • www.TinyURL.com • www.ow.ly • www.bit.ly ‐ which also helps you keep track of hits on your links (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 17

9 – Display a Twitter badge If you have a blog or website, you could place a Twitter badge on it that
displays your latest tweets, displays your latest tweets This is a useful way for people to find out you are on Twitter, and to follow you if they want. you if they want Twitter provides a number of different types of badges to embed on your blog or to embed on your blog or web page. The badge you choose will depend upon if you can use depend upon if you can use Javascript on your site, or whether only Flash is allowed. twitter.com/badges (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 18

10 – Watch Twitter trends If you want to see what's the hottest news –
i.e. what are currently the most used words – take a look at the Trending Topics, displayed in the right‐hand column of your home page. Click on a trend to see the real‐time results for this trend. (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 19

Search for Twitter trends To search for what’s happening on a particular topic, select Search from the footer bar. Type in your search terms and see the real‐time results.
yp y (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 20

Twitter Search in Plain English A CommonCraft video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGbLWQYJ6iM (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009
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11 – Use #hashtags #Hashtags are also often used to categorise or tag tweets, i.e.
a number of people all agree a number of people all agree to use the same word so that their related tweets can be grouped together, e.g. #abcdef Search for a specific #hashtag (as shown in the previous slide) and watch the real‐time results. The #tag may even results The #tag may even become a trending topic. Or go to hashtags.org to see what s happening right now on what’s happening right now on Twitter. (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 22

12 – Use a Twitter client If you don’t want to use your web page to write and read tweets, there are a number of ways to do this.
1. Use a Firefox add‐on like TwitterFox 2. Use a desktop client like Twhirl or Tweetdeck (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 23

13 – Twitter on your mobile phone You can access an optimised version of Twitter at m.twitter.com There are also Twitter clients for iPhone (see the Apple Store) and Blackberry.
(c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 24

14 – Find other great Twitter 3rd party apps There are lots of 3rd party Twitter apps. Here are some
examples • Customise your Twitter profile background – e.g. use Twitbacks or Twitter backgrounds • Re‐distribute your blog feed via Twitter – e.g. use twitterfeed.com twitterfeed com • Integrate Twitter with your Facebook account ‐ e.g. use the Twitter Facebook application • Send a tweet to a group ‐ e.g. use grouptweet.com • Set up a Twitter poll – e g use strawpollnow com Set up a Twitter poll e.g. use strawpollnow.com or Polldaddy • Keep track of what’s being said about you and/or your company – e.g. use tweetscan.com See a list at www.c4lpt.co.uk/socialmedia/twitterapps.html (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 25

15 – How are YOU going to use Twitter? Think about the types of tweets you want to write? Rod Lucier has posted about Top 10 Types of Tweets:
yp thecleversheep.blogspot.com/2008/11/top‐ ten‐types‐of‐tweets.html Think about your engagement formula: Angela Maiers uses the 70‐20‐10 rule. www.angelamaiers.com/2008/09/my‐twitter‐enga.html (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 26

16 – Twitter for Teaching & Learning Dr. Rankin, professor of History at UT Dallas, wanted to know how to reach more students and involve more people in class discussions both in and out of the classroom. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WPVWDkF7U8
p // y / (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 27

Twitter for Teaching & Learning
www.astd.org/LC/2009/0409_galagan.htm
pistachioconsulting.com/enterprise‐micro‐learning/
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16 – Twitter at a Conference www.twitip.com/twitter‐trumps‐online‐conference‐six‐ steps‐for‐using‐twitter‐for‐your‐conference‐or‐event/ Live feed from the 140 characters Twitter conference,
16‐17 June 2009 (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 29

18 – Twitter for (Self‐)Marketing & Promotion Twitter is being used by both individuals and companies for marketing and promotion purposes www.twitip.com/personal‐brand‐how‐to‐build‐yours‐in‐twitter/ (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009
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19 – Twitter in the Workplace Twitter is increasingly being used by employees in the workplace as a business tool. If you aren’t already doing so, here are some tips. www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/162943/10_twitter_tips
_for_the_workplace.html p (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 31

20 – Find out more about Twitter Twitter is currently ranked at #1 in our Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009: www.c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/
You can view the comments about Twitter as a learning tool here: www.c4lpt.co.uk/Top100Tools/twitter.html A comprehensive Twitter Reading List is at www.c4lpt.co.uk/socialmedia/twitterrl.html (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 32

The Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies provides a range of Social Learning Consultancy Services. S i
lL i C lt S i For more information, see www.c4lpt.co.uk/socialmedia/ www.c4lpt.co.uk/socialmedia/ (c) Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies , 2009 33