Thing 2: Keeping Up to Date Part 2

Part 2 of Keeping up to date looks at Twitter. If you have not yet looked at Part 1 (RSS) please scroll to the previous post or use the link to previous posts on the right hand side of this blog.

Twitter

Twitter is a micro-blogging service that allows you to publish short updates of up to 140 characters about what you are doing. Users follow other users to subscribe to each others updates. All the updates from the users you follow will be aggregated in to one timeline that appears when you log in to the site.

Phil Bradley has collected together lots of information and advice on using Twitter on his website and you can download a free Twitter guide from LSE here.


Twitter has been in the news a lot over the last couple of years, what with super-injunction breaking and celebrity endorsements from the likes of Stephen Fry. Although a common belief is that Twitter is filled with people tweeting about what they had for lunch, in reality few users actually use the service to send updates about the minutiae of their everyday activities, instead preferring to use it to network and share ideas or interesting things they have seen around the web. Because of this, Twitter can be of use to librarians on many levels - for keeping up to date, personal networking, and as an institution interacting with users.

In addition to the vast number of individual users of Twitter there are many libraries and organisations now using the service to publicise their services and engage with their users and stakeholders.

Signing up for a Twitter account is an optional part of 12 Things. It may not be possible for you if Twitter is blocked within your organisation, or you may just not want to! Have a read through this section on Twitter anyway, and then Your Thing is to write a short post on your blog about why you don’t think Twitter is for you!

Joining Twitter

 However, if you do wish to join Twitter, follow these instructions:

1. Go to www.twitter.com and click the "sign up" button and follow the steps to create an account.
2. Once you have created your account you will be taken to your Twitter homepage where you can update your profile to include a short biography, a link to your blog and a profile picture. We recommend that you leave the Twitter Privacy box unchecked because this means other 12Things participants can read your tweets. You can always change this at any time.
3. Now post your first update. Click in the status box at the top of the screen where you see "compose new Tweet". Write a comment, maybe something about your participation in the 12 Things programme. You are restricted to 140 characters, and as you type you will see the number at the top right of the box decrease. Leave enough characters to add #12thingseoe at the end. This is known as a hashtag and allows Twitter users to group tweets by subject. By adding #12thingseoe to your tweet your comment will be picked up by other participants. Once you click "Update", this tweet will be added to your timeline, and anyone who follows you will be able to see your tweet.
4. Search for @12thingseoe and click "follow". Now our tweets will appear in your timeline! You will also find links to our Twitter feed on the right hand side of this Blog!

Finding People to Follow

On every users profile page you will see a "Follow" button. To subscribe to a users' updates simply click this button and their tweets will appear in your timeline.

The next step in getting started with Twitter is finding people to follow. This can be done in a number of ways:

• By searching for individuals by name using Twitter's "Find People" page (you must be logged into Twitter to do this)
• Some Twitter users create Lists of people in particular areas or professions. Phil Bradley has created lists of Librarians on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Philbradley/lists. Take a look at his two lists of UK librarians for starters, and then keep exploring!
• If you find someone interesting to follow, take a look at who they follow and go from there.
• Only follow as many or as few people as you can personally manage - current awareness is good, information overload is not!
• Remember, you do not have to personally know someone to follow them and you do not have to follow back everyone who follows you - it's your choice!

The Twitter vocabulary

Twitter brings with it a whole new language. Here are some definitions of a few of the key terms:

• Tweet - a single update of no more than 140 characters
• Retweet (RT) - a reposting of a tweet originally posted by another user
• @reply - a reply to another user
• Direct message (DM) - a private message sent to another user
• Hashtag - a method of grouping tweets by adding a standard tag, e.g. #bodleian, so that all tweets on a particular event or issue can be easily searched and tracked.

Twitter for networking

The majority of accounts on Twitter are not institutions but individuals. Tweeting as an individual you will have to decide on the level of personal vs professionalism you want to have for your "Twitter style", and there is no one right answer to this. As a networking tool, Twitter really comes into its own, as its real-time feed allows conversations to be held, thoughts on conferences to be aggregated as they are taking place using hashtags (more on this later), and questions to be asked and answered.

Once you have been tweeting for a while and have built up a few followers, Twitter can be really handy for asking questions.

Being able to view all updates using a particular hashtag has made Twitter a valuable tool for following conferences. For example, if you wished you'd had the chance to go to the Health Libraries Group conference all the tweets from conference-goers can be found at #HLG2012. 

Another use for the hashtag is for holding real-time Twitter chats on a particular topic. A great example of this is  for library staff is #UKlibChat, held the first Tuesday of the month at 6.30pm. Just follow the Twitter account and join in the chat using the hashtag. More details can be found at http://uklibchat.wordpress.com/

Chats are also held for healthcare professionals - useful to know about if you are promoting Twitter to your users.

#NurChat for Nurses - see http://www.nurchat.co.uk/ for more details
#nhssm - social media in the NHS http://nhssm.org.uk/about/
#TwitJournalClub - meets on Sunday to discuss journal articles http://www.twitjc.com


Many East of England libraries use Twitter to promote their service and highlight useful information and resources. You have probably seen their Tweets on the home page of EEL. You may like to follow some of them!

• Cambridge Medical Library @cam_med_lib
• West Suffolk Hospital Library (Fred the Skeleton) @wshlibrary
• Warner Library @WarnerLibMEHT
• Princess Alexandra Hospital Library @pahlibrary
• Papworth Hospital Library @pwlibrary
• Essex Public Health @medmans

Are there any more? Feel free to tell me in the comments if I’ve missed anyone out!

Could your library use Twitter? Take a look at 100 Ways to use Twitter in your Library

Engaging with your network

When you hover over any tweet in your timeline you will see options to either reply or retweet. Twitter only becomes really useful when you use these two features to:

• Start a conversation with someone
• When you click the reply button their username preceded by the @ symbol is automatically put at the start of your tweet. Any conversation using the @reply feature will be seen by anyone who follows both users.

• Share an interesting tweet with your followers
  When you click the retweet button the whole tweet preceded by RT will be copied in to your next tweet. If there are enough characters left you can add a comment about why you find it interesting.

You can see any replies to and retweets of your tweets by viewing your profile or clicking the @Connect Tab at the top of the screen.

Of course, the use of Twitter may not be that straightforward for you. Many NHS Trusts block or restrict access. If Twitter is available within your Trust / workplace be sure to Tweet within your organisations own social media policy. When you start using Twitter you need to think about what capacity you are Tweeting in. Will it be purely professional, personal or both? For healthcare staff tweeting there are more dangers, such as confidentiality issues.
You may like to read this blog post from the Chief Executive of Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust on her Twitter experience and advice. Social Media for NHS Dummies

Both the BMA and RCN have issued guidance for their members on using social media.

Your Thing Task 3:

• Join Twitter if you wish and post a Tweet - say Hi to your fellow 12 thing participants, or say what you hope to achieve from the course! Remember to include #12thingseoe at the end of your tweet!
• To view all #12thingseoe tweets search for #12thingseoe in the search box at the top of the page
• Write a post on your blog - is this your first experience of twitter? What do you think? Do you use it already? Remember to also blog about why you have decided NOT to investigate it too!

Thing 2, Extra Thing: Twitter, extended! 

This week's Extra Thing is really several things - third party Twitter applications and clients. These tools or add-ons complement your Twitter account and add extra functionality which can be extremely useful. Feel free to explore these if you wish but this section is optional!

Here are a few handy ones, but there are many more out there! 

Applications

• TwitterFeed- sends a tweet every time you publish a new blog post.
• Tweet Archivist - creates graphs about tweet volume over time, top users, top words used etc. Despite the name it doesn't create a full archive of your tweets.
• Twittercounter - update your Twitter status by email.
• Bit.ly- not really a Twitter application, but if you paste a URL into the box, it pops out a shortened URL such as this one - http://bit.ly/jYjYDS - which is a short URL for this blog. If you use shortened URLs in your tweets then it saves on precious characters!

Clients
Twitter clients make it easier to manage more than one Twitter account at once. (Great when you have a library and a personal account!) Most also allow you to schedule tweets, and automatically shorten URLs

• Hootsuite - Comes in browser and mobile versions. Multiple tabs make it easy to keep track of several Twitter accounts at once (and Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare and a few other social media sites). Can also have multiple contributers to accounts without sharing passwords - could be useful for library tweeting teams! It also has an automatic URL shortener included, and also allows you to save searches.
• Tweetdeck - desktop and mobile client (browser version for Chrome only - but with a limited beta testing version for other browsers). This client is now owned by Twitter, so if you want the official endorsed platform, give this a try!

Try out one or two of these, or google "twitter apps" and see what else you can find! 

Part 3 of this Thing is about Alerts. Move on when you are ready.