Twitter 101. Hosted by: Rebecca Dakin Communications & Community Relations. Follow us on

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1 Twitter 101 Hosted by: Rebecca Dakin Communications & Community Relations

2 Agenda 1. Introductions 2. What is Twitter? 3. Why Use Twitter? 4. Twitter Best Practices 5. The Basics 6. Group Activity 7. Questions 8. If there s time: set up a Twitter account

3 Introductions 1. Name 2. Community Association/Organization 3. Role 4. Your current knowledge of Twitter

4 What is Twitter? Twitter is an online social media service for friends, family, and coworkers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages Created in 2006, and currently has over 500 million users

5 What is Twitter? Twitter users write short updates called Tweets of 140 characters or shorter These tweets are posted to the user s profile, are sent to their followers, and can also be searched Per day, over 350 million tweets are posted on Twitter

6 Why Use Twitter? Twitter is a quick way to share information of interest An excellent tool to drive people to your other online channels such as your website, Facebook page, YouTube channel, etc.

7 Why Use Twitter? Easy way to connect with other community associations, organizations, partners, etc. Can be used to recruit new volunteers and/or board members Find new partnership opportunities with local businesses

8 Twitter Best Practices #1 RULE: Don t get a Twitter account just to get one! A static non-updated Twitter is worse than no Twitter at all Decide how much time you are willing to commit to Twitter per week and plan around that timeframe, not the other way around. Be reasonable, don t over commit!

9 Twitter Best Practices Start with one person managing the account to streamline the messaging. You can always add more administrators later Best practise shows 1-4 tweets a day. The Federation generally tweets twice a day (during the work week)

10 The Basics 1. Your Handle 2. Your Full Name 3. Your Profile 4. Hashtags 5. Tweeting 6. Re-tweeting 7. Direct Messaging 8. Searching

11 Your Handle Your Handle = Your username This is how people find you on Twitter Your handle (username) always starts with symbol For example, The Federation of Calgary Communities handle and my personal handle

12 Your Handle A handle can have a maximum of 15 characters You can only use letters, numbers, and the underscore symbol (For_Example). Spaces or periods are not accepted

13 Your Full Name Your organization s full name Your full name appears on your Twitter profile above your handle There is a 20 character maximum on the full name

14 Your Full Name For example, The Federation of Calgary Communities was too long, so we could only fit Fed of YYC Comm as our full name Many community associations have to stick with something like Sunalta Community as the word Association won t fit

15 Your Profile Your photo (generally a logo for organizations) Background photo (good idea to change this up) Full Name & Handle Description of your organization (160 character maximum) Your website link How many followers you have and how many you follow All of your tweets

16 Hashtags Definition: The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet as a way to categorize messages Twitter users use the hashtag symbol # before a relevant keyword or phrase (with no spaces) anywhere in their tweet to help categorize it and show up easily in a search

17 Hashtags Best practice suggests no more than 3 hashtags per tweet Hashtags for cities are categorized on Twitter by airport codes So, if you want to search tweets relating to Calgary you would search using the hashtag #yyc

18 Tweeting A short message that is posted on your profile and shared with your followers A tweet has a maximum of 140 characters NOT words Can include other user s handles, hashtags, and links

19 Tweeting This is what a full 140 character tweet looks like: Congrats to 2014 s #CommunityVisioning selections Thorncliffe Greenview and Highland cannot wait to work together!

20 Tweeting Tweets are a great way to direct people to your organization's other online channels: Website Facebook page YouTube Channel This is done best through links

21 Tweeting For example, The Federation uses tweets to direct people to our workshop registration pages on our website: Check out our free upcoming #BSC Partners in Crime Prevention workshop series

22 Re-Tweeting Retweeting is when you choose to share someone else s Tweet with all of your followers When you see a tweet you want to share you simply click the retweet icon which looks like Once you retweet something, it will show up on your profile for your followers to see It will display the original tweet and say Retweeted by underneath

23 Direct Messaging A direct message is a personal Tweet seen only by the sender and the recipient It is like sending a personal through Twitter Direct messaging is used generally to send contact information For example, if you want to send a fellow Twitter user information via you may direct message them and ask for their address

24 Searching On Twitter you can search people, tweets, and hashtags You can search by keywords, handles and hashtags Twitter will provide you with a variety of search results such as people, photos, news, and more

25 Searching For example, if you search Federation of Calgary Communities the results will show you our tweets, our profile, some photos, tweets we are mentioned in, and more You can narrow your search by selecting exactly what you want to see out of the option list on the left

26 Searching Searching by hashtag is helpful when you want to find tweets related to a specific subject, place, event, etc. For example, I was at an event that told it s attendees to include the hashtag yycpkn in their tweets So, if I search #yycpkn I can see all of the tweets related to the event, updated in real time You can also search by hashtag by clicking directly on the hashtag in someone s tweets. It will then pull up all related tweets using the same hashtag

27 Group Activity! At your tables discuss the following questions and write down your answers on the paper provided. 1. How does your community currently communicate with residents and members? 2. How will you work Twitter into that? 3. What do you see your community tweeting about? 4. How will you advertise that you re on Twitter (to get followers)?

28 Question Time!

29 Thank You! Please take a moment to fill out the evaluation form at your table I will around this PowerPoint so you have it in soft copy And now that you re all on Twitter don t forget to follow us!

30 Group Activity #2! At your tables, work with those who have a laptop, tablet, or smartphone Set up a Twitter account (you can select your photo, background, and description at a later time) Once you set up your account, send a tweet Go to the search bar and type in a keyword or hashtag you d like to search Out of the list of results retweet a tweet you like