Thing #42: Pimp Your Twitter

Twitter was Thing #13 in our previous Nebraska Learns 2.0 program, back in November 2008.  It's been a couple of years, and Twitter has evolved since then, so we figured it might be a good time to revisit Twitter.

Some of you may have never used Twitter before, some of you did the original Thing for Twitter, and some of you may be using Twitter on a regular basis. No problem! We have options for all levels of Twitter users.

So, for this month's Thing, you have 3 choices. You can do the Beginner activity, the More Than a Beginner activity, or you can do both!

First, for those of you totally new to Twitter, watch this short video to learn how to get started:



Twitter allows users to post 140 character updates, answering the question: “What's happening?”. These posts are shared via the web to either the world or to the users’ friends.

Users can access Twitter messages - called tweets - on the Web, thru an RSS feed, via text on their cell phones or with any number of third part apps. Accessing a Twitter account, one might find an update on a users' day, a direct message to another Twitter user, a link to something the user wants to share with their friends, or a bit of wit and wisdom.

Libraries are using Twitter as well as a means to update content on the Web or for alert services.

Check out some of these articles to learn more about how you can use Twitter, both personally and for your library:

How to Use Twitter

Twitter for Beginners: 5 Steps for Better Tweeting

How to Twitter - Wall Street Journal

Twitter for Libraries (and Librarians)

How Your Library May Not Be Using Twitter But Should

Beginner Assignment:

1. Visit Twitter and sign up for a free account. Try a few tweets.

See how other libraries are using Twitter:

Libraries Using Twitter - from Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki

Follow one of us - Allana, Christa, Michael, or Susan.

Or follow one of the Nebraska Library Commission's Twitter accounts: NLC News, NLC Tech, or NLC Reference.

2. Search Twitter for mentions of your library, school or anything that interests you to explore how people use this tool. What conversations did you find?

3. Blog about the experience. Did you like micro-blogging? How could libraries use Twitter? How could you use Twitter?
 
There are Many Apps for Twitter

The Twitter web page is where you start using Twitter. But as you use it more, you may discover that the web page is a bit lacking. Maybe there are some features you wish it had. Did you know that you can post pictures via Twitter? And that you can track your account statistics? What if, like we do at the Library Commission, you have multiple Twitter accounts to update? There are services that can do all of these things, and more.

To help users interact with their Twitter account(s), many third party apps and web sites have cropped up. Take a look at these articles about sites and applications that can make Twitter more useful to you and your library:

Top 20 Sites to Improve Your Twitter Experience

5 Terrific Twitter Research Tools

11 Free Services for Scheduling Social Media Updates

25 Twitter Apps to Manage Multiple Accounts

More Than a Beginner Assignment:

1. Try out 1 or 2 of the sites or apps listed in the articles above.

2. Share your impressions of the sites or apps you tested. Write a blog post about what you thought was good or bad about the apps. Did you find them useful? Would you have liked them to do something more or less? Do you think you'll continue using them? How could libraries use them?