An intro to Twitter and its use in STM publishing prepared for BWIN presentation on 8/14/09.

1. InfoCommerce Group Inc. Twitter 101 Presentation to:BWIN August 14, 2009 Janice McCallum jmccallum@infocommercegroup.com

2. What is Official Definition: Started as a side project in March of 2006, Twitter has grown into a real-time short messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices. Twitter's core technology is a device agnostic message routing system with rudimentary social networking features. By accepting messages from sms, web, mobile web, instant message, or from third party API projects, Twitter makes it easy for folks to stay connected. [From Twitter.com/about] Social Media Definition: A 2-way street: Twitter complements other media: blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook, Simple video tutorial

3. What is Important Basics @name & identity (personal or professional) Followers Following Blocking URL shorteners (Bit.ly, tiny.url) RT Hashtags

4. Beyond Twitter: The Twittersphere Twitter ecosphere -- Open API leads to all kinds of applications: directories, search, integration with blogs, Facebook, widgets. Get Tweetdeck, Seesmic (can use on PC or phone); create groups. Twitter for Research. New vocabulary can seem silly (Tweeple, Twitterverse, Tweetheart); you can use sparingly but learn some texting lingo to help keep msgs short. See: sitemasher. Kids may not be using it, but it helps us older folks understand the texting world and yes, you will start writing things like: gr8, b4, ur.

5. Building a Following Organic or accelerated growth (lots of schemes for acquiring followers) Watch who follows you (tip: Britney4U isn’t interested in scholarly publishing) #followfriday; #ff to gain reciprocal followers. My advice: Quality matters; topic consistency helps; as do regular posts. Network effects of Twitter are impressive: very little overlap in my email/blog readers and my Twitter followers (Tweeple) Great for exchanging ideas across disciplines.

6. Who Uses Twitter? Pharma companies use for marketing, part of overall social media strategies of Pharma. Media companies to promote their content and events. Thought leaders to promote their areas of expertise. Retailers to promote real-time sales. Restaurants to promote special menus, deals, events, and their location (lunch truck in LA). Individuals for real-time communication (meet-ups, reminders) More than I can list….

7. Thought Leaders on Twitter: Publishers “What I'm doing is [acting as] an aggregator and a distributor of content. And what I really try to do in my Twitter feed is to build my community. One of the reasons so many of my tweets are retweets is because I realized I can't possibly cover all of the topics I'm interested in. I would give you what @sonamoon calls "stream fatigue." If I tweeted -- in fact, I did this early on when I was not thinking. Sometimes I would blast out 30 tweets in an hour. And then I went, "Whoa, whoa. That's just not right." So I actually started curating my tweet stream. The point is to figure out how you can add value to the community that you're a part of. That's really the secret of social media. It's about amplifying a community.” Tim O’Reilly

8. Twitter in Healthcare Hospitals: Why Social Media are Essential to Future of Health & Science Communication Excellent presentation from Mayo Clinic on using social media in marketing communications for hospitals. Much more than a how-to, preso provides superb overview of how media landscape is changing, with marketers (in this case Mayo) having access to inexpensive publishing and distirbution tools. Scholarly Publishers: How Tweet It Is - Inside Higher Ed Good piece on use of Twitter by scholarly publishers. Focuses on using Twitter to promote info about books/journals on blogs or websites. Doctors: Should doctors use Twitter? ... American Medical News "One method of providing health education is through electronic media, which can multiply, if used properly, a single individual's efforts to promote healthy life choices," he said. 8

9. Twitter in Healthcare Pharma: Pharma twittersphere - To be followed or to follow? - whydot pharma Trends in use of Twitter by big pharma. J&J & BoehringerIngelheim lead the pack in terms of engaged usage. Many, many more examples in Pharma. To monitor, follow: @swoodruff @pharmaguy @shwen @fardj @pfizer_news @medpagetoday @pharmachameleon @pharmalive @pharmaedguy @eyeonfda to name a few 9

10. Your Twitter Personality It’s up to you! Strictly business, business with a personal slant, or mostly for fun. If using professionally & you want to build a following, be careful to stay on-topic. Unfollowing is easy.

11. It’s Still Very Early …. Should you Invest Time in Learning & Posting? Twitter has to deal with security, SPAM, other issues. Invested time should pay off even if Twitter fades. There will be a replacement in unlikely event that Twitter goes away (might want to back-up Tweets, though) Twitter could be acquired (by Google or others) Facebook + Friendfeed could overtake Twitter. What it Twitter disappears? Need to back-up followers/followings.

12. Janice’s Twitterography: Handout. Email me & I’ll send you a copy of my bibliography with links to tutorials, STM case studies and more. Latest addition: http://www.onlinecollege.org/2009/08/11/100-twitter-tips-and-tools-to-stay-on-top-of-your-field/ Track your progress: Http://twitter.grader.com

13. Questions or Comments:jmccallum@infocommercegroup.com781.356.1766blog: www.healthcontentadvisors.com/blog@janicemccallum