Thing 7 2013: Twitter

What is Twitter?
Twitter is a micro-blogging service that allows you to publish short updates of up to 140 characters. You can follow other users to subscribe to their updates. All updates from users you follow appear in your own feed, so it’s easy to see them.

Why use Twitter?
It’s a common misconception that Twitter is ALL about people tweeting what they had for breakfast (or their latest date, or their sleeping habits, etc.). Although there are certainly (many!) people who only use Twitter for these things, the reality is that many users prefer to use it to ask questions, network or share relevant information and interesting links. It can be a powerful tool, both for building professional contacts and for staying up to date in your area. There are also many organisations and researchers using Twitter creatively to stay in touch with their students or contacts. You can use Twitter to tweet your work, ask questions, crowdsource data and reach new audiences, as well as to publicise events and news, get feedback and get/answer questions in the classroom. You might use Twitter for any of the following (via #DH23):

  • Publicising your work, such as a new blog post or article.
  • Disseminating news about your professional activities, such as attending a conference
  • Commenting on news in your field or HE in general
  • Sharing interesting context you find, through tweeting URLs (shortened with services such as tinyurl or bit.ly to leave you more characters to comment with) or through retweeting others’ tweets (marked RT to acknowledge that it’s not your original content, or MT if you change it slightly)
  • News updates (from blogs such as those of other 23 Things participants, InsideHigherEd or publications such as the THES or Guardian Higher Education),
  • Opportunities and news from professional or research bodies such as Vitae or the UK Research Staff Association or funding bodies such as the Research Councils UK or AHRC). These might include calls for papers, funding or jobs.
  • Activities in Departments, Libraries and other research centres. You can find out about seminars and conferences this way.
  • Livetweeting at conferences (either participating in the conference audience ‘backchannel’ or to get a flavour of discussions and speakers to look up, and participate remotely by asking questions, if you can’t attend in person)
  • Asking questions, and answering those of others.
  • Crowdsourcing and finding research collaborators or participants
  • Finding and contacting individual scholars in your field who might be able to recommend readings, answer questions or suggest opportunities that would be interesting for you.
  • Enhancing some of the more informal communication that occurs in the academic world such as networking at conferences and seminars, bumping into colleagues at your own and other institutions or moral support from peers.
  • Peer support
  • A bit of light relief: follow @PhDcomics

Some basic Twitter vocabulary
(see the Twitter Glossary for more)

Task
If you already have a Twitter account, skip ahead to Exploring Further. If not, follow these easy steps to get one set up.

  1. Go to http://twitter.com/ and use the sign up box to get started. Follow the steps to create an account (if you want more help, Twitter provides detailed step-by-step instructions). You may want to think about your online presence when you decide on a user name. Do you want to be consistent across your various accounts?
  2. Once you have created your account, you’ll be taken to your Twitter homepage where there are further steps to work through to get you started, e.g. updating your profile to include a short biography or adding a profile picture. You can come back to these steps at any time using the link to Settings in the top right corner of the screen. We recommend you leave the privacy box unchecked so that others can see your tweets and communicate with you.
    The Twitter profile page for the Bodleian Libraries.

    The Twitter profile page for the Bodleian Libraries.

  3. Now post your first update! Click on the status box on the top left where it says ‘Compose new Tweet…’. Write a comment – maybe something about your participation in 23 Things. As you type you will see the number in the top right of the box decrease; this tells you how many characters you have left. Leave enough space to add the hashtag #oxengage at the end. This is the hashtag for the Engage and 23 Things programmes and will allow others to search for all #oxengage tweets. Once you’re done, click ‘update’. You’ll see your tweet appear in your timeline.
  4. Find people to follow.
    1. Search by name or twitter handle in the search box. Try looking for and following @bodleianlibs and @ltgoxford.
    2. There’s also a follow button on every user’s profile page.

Exploring further

  • Twitter hashtags offer a great way of following conferences – either by finding out about and interacting with those at a conference with you, or by hearing details of a conference you were unable to attend. Take a look and see if a conference of interest to you has/had a hashtag, and then see what sort of tweets come up under that hashtag (keep in mind that Twitter may not show results before a certain date).
  • Another way to use hashtags is to set up real time chats – for instance, the Guardian Higher Education chats each Friday, or the #phdchats on Wednesdays. These are usually held at specific times each week or month, and you can participate by tweeting your comments or questions with the appropriate hashtag. Take a look at the tweets around last week’s Guardian HE chat (conveniently on academic blogging – search for #HElivechat) or #phdchat to get an idea. There’s an open Google doc that lists over 300 live chats and their dates/times; they cover all sorts of topics.
  • Use lists! Twitter allows you to make lists of other Twitter users, so you can categorize people in helpful ways. You can also follow other Twitter users’ lists. @ltgoxford has some great lists of people and departments in the University who are on Twitter
  • Set up and save searches for relevant topics, people or events in your field.
  • Take a look at a few Twitter clients. Tools like Tweetdeck and Hootsuite allow you to schedule tweets ahead of time and track retweets, reach and other stats.

Blog post
Think about Twitter and how you think it may or may not be relevant to you. Do you feel it’s useful? Why or why not? Tag your post ‘Thing 7’.

Further Reading:

Twitter chat roundup

Thank you to all those who participated in today’s twitter chat. We had some great questions and discussion, and we’re certainly thinking about doing another one at the end of the term.

For those who couldn’t participate, or want to catch discussion they missed, I’ve put all the tweets into a Storify story – arranged by conversation, question and tools. It’s available here: 23 Things chat Storify.

Today’s Twitter chat

Today is the 23 Things Twitter chat, so don’t forget to join us this afternoon, 3-4pm GMT, by keeping track of the hashtag #23things.

We’ll be using some questions to keep the conversation guided. In case you want to think about them in advance, here they are:

  • Do you use social media to disseminate your research? How successful has that been?
  • Have you used social media in higher education? What worked well (& not so well)?
  • What are the challenges of using social media for academic work or higher education?
  • What have you got out of the #23things experience so far?

If we have time, we may also address:

  • Who are your top 3 recommendations to follow on Twitter related to research or higher education?
  • Which digital tool (Twitter, Storify, blogging, etc.) do/will you find most useful and why?
  • How much time do you need to put in to get the most out of social media?
  • Do you need to keep your personal and professional online presence separate?

See you this afternoon!

#23Things Twitter chat: Thursday 1 November, 3-4pm

eldh on Flickr

In Thing 7, we talked about using Twitter for live twitter chats, such as the #phdchat that happens every Wednesday. We’re pleased to announce that we’ll be running a #23Things chat next Thursday, 1 November, from 3-4pm, together with the Digital Humanities 23 Things programme at Cambridge. We’ll be talking about social media use in research and the higher education setting.

It’s super easy to participate; all you have to do is make sure you’re on Twitter between 3 and 4pm and keeping an eye on tweets with the hashtag #23things (hint: click on that link for a saved #23things search). We’ll start off the conversation with some questions for you to think about, and we’re hoping to get some of our Engage presenters to take part as well so that you can ask them about their experiences using social media for research. You can respond to questions with thoughts from your own experiences or ask questions of other participants.

If you’d like to read more about tweet chats and how to get the most out of them (don’t be afraid to ask questions! Please do introduce yourself!), take a look at this Tweet Chats 101 article.

Although the chat is #23Things-based, you don’t have to be an actual 23 Things participant to take part. We hope to ‘see’ you on Thursday!

Thing 7: Twitter

What is Twitter?
Twitter is a micro-blogging service that allows you to publish short updates of up to 140 characters. You can follow other users to subscribe to their updates. All updates from users you follow appear in your own feed, so it’s easy to see them.

Why use Twitter?
It’s a common misconception that Twitter is all about people tweeting what they had for breakfast (or their latest date, or their sleeping habits, etc.). Although there are certainly people who only use Twitter for these things, the reality is that most users prefer to use it to ask questions, network or share relevant information and interesting links. It can be a powerful tool, both for building professional contacts and for staying up to date in your area. There are also many organisations and researchers using Twitter creatively to stay in touch with their students or contacts. You can use Twitter to tweet your work, ask questions, crowdsource data and reach new audiences, as well as to publicise events and news, get feedback and get/answer questions in the classroom. You might use Twitter for any of the following (via #DH23):

  • Publicising your work, such as a new blog post or article.
  • Disseminating news about your professional activities, such as attending a conference
  • Commenting on news in your field or HE in general
  • Sharing interesting context you find, through tweeting URLs (shortened with services such as tinyurl or bit.ly to leave you more characters to comment with) or through retweeting others’ tweets (marked RT to acknowledge that it’s not your original content, or MT if you change it slightly)
  • News updates (from blogs such as those of other 23 Things participants, InsideHigherEd or publications such as the THES or Guardian Higher Education),
  • Opportunities and news from professional or research bodies such as Vitae or the UK Research Staff Association or funding bodies such as the Research Councils UK or AHRC). These might include calls for papers, funding or jobs.
  • Activities in Departments, Libraries and other research centres. You can find out about seminars and conferences this way.
  • Livetweeting at conferences (either participating in the conference audience ‘backchannel’ or to get a flavour of discussions and speakers to look up, and participate remotely by asking questions, if you can’t attend in person)
  • Asking questions, and answering those of others.
  • Crowdsourcing and finding research collaborators or participants
  • Finding and contacting individual scholars in your field who might be able to recommend readings, answer questions or suggest opportunities that would be interesting for you.
  • Enhancing some of the more informal communication that occurs in the academic world such as networking at conferences and seminars, bumping into colleagues at your own and other institutions or moral support from peers.
  • Peer support
  • A bit of light relief: follow @PhDcomics

Some basic Twitter vocabulary
(see the Twitter Glossary for more)

Task
If you already have a Twitter account, skip ahead to Exploring Further. If not, follow these easy steps to get one set up.

  1. Go to http://twitter.com/ and use the sign up box to get started. Follow the steps to create an account (if you want more help, Twitter provides detailed step-by-step instructions). You may want to think about your online presence when you decide on a user name. Do you want to be consistent across your various accounts?
  2. Once you have created your account, you’ll be taken to your Twitter homepage where there are further steps to work through to get you started, e.g. updating your profile to include a short biography or adding a profile picture. You can come back to these steps at any time using the link to Settings in the top right corner of the screen. We recommend you leave the privacy box unchecked so that others can see your tweets and communicate with you.

    Twitter profile page

    The Twitter profile page for the Bodleian Libraries.

  3. Now post your first update! Click on the status box on the top left where it says ‘Compose new Tweet…’. Write a comment – maybe something about your participation in 23 Things. As you type you will see the number in the top right of the box decrease; this tells you how many characters you have left.. Leave enough space to add the hashtag #oxengage at the end. This is the hashtag for the Engage and 23 Things programmes and will allow others to search for all #oxengage tweets. Once you’re done, click ‘update’. You’ll see your tweet appear in your timeline.
  4. Find people to follow.
    1. Search by name or twitter handle in the search box. Try looking for and following @bodleianlibs and @ltgoxford.
    2. There’s also a follow button on every user’s profile page.

Exploring further

  • Twitter hashtags offer a great way of following conferences – either by finding out about and interacting with those at a conference with you, or by hearing details of a conference you were unable to attend. Take a look and see if a conference of interest to you has/had a hashtag, and then see what sort of tweets come up under that hashtag (keep in mind that Twitter may not show results before a certain date).
  • Another way to use hashtags is to set up real time chats – for instance, the Guardian Higher Education chats each Friday, or the #phdchats on Wednesdays. These are usually held at specific times each week or month, and you can participate by tweeting your comments or questions with the appropriate hashtag. Take a look at the tweets around last week’s Guardian HE chat (conveniently on academic blogging – search for #HElivechat) or #phdchat to get an idea. There’s an open Google doc that lists over 300 live chats and their dates/times; they cover all sorts of topics.
  • Use lists! Twitter allows you to make lists of other Twitter users, so you can categorize people in helpful ways. You can also follow other Twitter users’ lists. @ltgoxford has some great lists of people and departments in the University who are on Twitter
  • Set up and save searches for relevant topics, people or events in your field.
  • Take a look at a few Twitter clients. Tools like Tweetdeck, Hootsuite and Crowdbooster allow you to schedule tweets ahead of time and track retweets, reach and other stats.

Blog post
Think about Twitter and how you think it may or may not be relevant to you. Do you feel it’s useful? Why or why not? Tag your post ‘Thing 7’.

Further Reading: