Using Twitter Twitter has more than 300 million active users, and many of those users fall in our target audience range of young, engaged students. Creating an active presence on Twitter is one more way we can make people aware of what we do at UW Colleges, provide useful content to students, and engage with our followers. The platform is a great way to provide updates on an event in real time, share original images/videos/content, and link to resources students may find helpful or interesting. Main Takeaways Tweets are ways to share information, images, links, video, and other content with a network of your followers. Every time you tweet, it ll pop up on a follower s timeline. Each tweet can only be 140 characters, so regular grammatical rules don t apply! Use slang and abbreviations, and don t stress over correct punctuation. Just make sure the message is clear. Use verbs and other action words, rather than nouns. Space for tweets is scarce, so make the most of it! On average, tweets with images are twice as popular as tweets without. Tweets with up to (but not more than) two hashtags are also generally more engaging. You can engage with other users with mentions (@UWColleges) in your tweets, retweeting a post that your followers would find interesting, or using a hashtag to join in a larger conversation about a trending topic. The Basics
Twitter allows users to create posts of 140 characters or less. These posts (called tweets) then show up on followers timelines. If a user is following the @UWColleges account, they ll have the opportunity to see everything @UWColleges tweets in real time. The 140 character count tracks letters, numbers, symbols, and spaces. It s a good idea to shorten links in your tweets, and you can use a link-shortener like bity.ly or use the link-shortening box on Hootsuite. There are directions on how to use those tools near the end of this document. Here s an example of a recent tweet from the UW-Richland account: This is a standard, text-only tweet that shares new information and does so in a casual, concise way. Note it is fine to use abbreviations or slang (ex: info) in order to fit the 140-character limit. Below the actual tweet, you ll see a couple icons that allow followers to interact. The arrow on the left allows a person to reply to the tweet, which basically starts a conversation with the original poster. The box with the small 3 next to it represents the number of retweets the post has accrued. People on Twitter use retweets to share interesting posts with their own network of followers. The heart symbol is essentially the same as a Facebook Like, and the three dots opens up a drop down menu with more options. Creating Engaging Tweets
Twitter is best used when sharing interesting content and engaging with other users. That means including images, links, and mentions in a tweet all increase the post s chance of getting shared. This tweet is an example of a post that includes an image, a link, and a mention. You don t always have to do all of them, sometimes you ll just want to post an image, or just want to mention another account in your tweet. In this tweet, Chancellor Sandeen shared an image of her trip to Manitowoc, which gives the follower something engaging and original to look at. She also included the @UWColleges handle in her tweet. This is what s known as a mention. That means the UW Colleges twitter account will get a notification that it has been included in another account s tweet. UW Colleges can then choose to reply, retweet, or take other action.
Mentions are a good way to build engagement with other accounts, and show interesting posts by other accounts to your followers. Finally, at the end of the tweet there is a shortened link to a story from the Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter. The link gives followers an item to click on to learn more about the picture, and the information in the article hopefully builds brand awareness and interest in UW Manitowoc. The Hashtag Another major part of Twitter is the hashtag. Posters use hashtags when they want to include their tweet as part of a larger conversation, or talk about trending topics. Users can choose to search for certain hashtags if they re interested in a topic. For example, #tbt is a popular hashtag you may have seen before. The hashtag stands for the phrase Throwback Thursday, where users will tweet an old picture and include #tbt. Here s an example of a tweet that includes a hashtag.
This tweet uses the #WisconsinIdea hashtag in order to be a part of the broader conversation on Twitter about the Wisconsin Idea. That way, people following or searching for #WisconsinIdea on Twitter, will be able to see this tweet even if they don t follow the account. Here are examples of common hashtags we ll use to promote the campuses in the UW Colleges System. These tables can also be found in the Social Media Guide.
Shortening Links Adding links to your tweets is a great way to make them more engaging for your audience. It s a good idea to shorten your links using bi.tly or the link-shortening tool on Hootsuite. Here s a step-by-step on how to use the tool in Hootsuite: Here s me, creating a tweet about Chancellor Sandeen s trip to UW Manitowoc: In the Add a link field under my tweet, I ll copy and paste the link I want to share. In this case, it s a link to the story in the Manitowoc Herald Times reporter. (The Add a link field has the red box around it).
Click the Shrink button, and Hootsuite automatically shortens your link and adds it to your tweet! That s a quick rundown of Twitter and how tweets work. Our messages on Facebook can be easily tweaked in order to fit Twitter s parameters, and regular, quality tweets will allow us to serve our audience and community. Oftentimes it s as simple as sharing the same image, changing the description, and adding a mention. Just like that, there s content that promotes UW Colleges campuses on both Facebook and Twitter. Helpful Links The Twitter Guidebook
A Scientific Guide to Writing Great Tweets Inside Higher Ed s Hashtag Guide -- offers a directory of the most popular educationrelated hashtags used on social media