Archive for the ‘Microblogging’ Category

Katrina Gulliver at the Chronicle of Education composes the 10 Commandments of Twitter for Academics. These are all excellent tips, not only for those in academia, but anyone who wants to fully leverage the massive microblogging application Here are her first five recommendations:

1. Put up an avatar. It doesn’t really matter what the picture is, but the “egg picture” (the default avatar for new accounts) makes you look like a spammer.
2. Don’t pick a Twitter name that is difficult to spell or remember.
3. Tweet regularly.
4. Don’t ignore people who tweet at you. Set Twitter to send you an e-mail notification when you get a mention or a private message. If you don’t do that, then check your account frequently.
5. Engage in conversation. Don’t just drop in to post your own update and disappear. Twitter is not a “broadcast-only” mechanism; it’s CB radio.

Ann Smarty at the Social Media Examiner has outlined 5 Steps to Hosting Successful Twitter Chats: Your Ultimate Guide. If you’ve ever thought about hosting a Twitter chat for your library or event, you won’t want to miss this post. Here are the first 3 steps discussed:

• #1: Understand How it Works
• #2: Form Your Plan
• #3: Announce and Promote Your Twitter Chat

Julie Greller at A Media Specialist’s Guide to the Internet asks Do Your Students Know How to Cite a Tweet? Since none of the available MLA citation guides seem to include tweets, she put together this quick guide to how it should be done.

Rich Brooks at the Social Media Examiner suggests 4 Ways to Grow a Twitter Following That Matters. This insightful post recommends four actionable steps you can take to improve your Twitter following for your organization. Here are the recommendations discussed:

• #1: Find and Follow Relevant People
• #2: Tweet Interesting Stuff
• #3: Engage
• #4: Promote Your Twitter Account Through Other Channels

Charlene Kingston at the Social Media Examiner suggests 8 Creative Ways to Use Embeddable Tweets. These are all excellent ideas for how you can best use this new feature from Twitter. Here are the first four recommendations:

• #1: Add Customer Comments and Testimonials to Your Website
• #2: Share Event Invitations
• #3: Add Opinions and Ideas from Others to Your Blog Posts
• #4: Continue a Twitter Conversation in a Blog Post

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve recently joined the team at the New York Law Institute in NYC as their Manager of Information Systems. We’re a private subscription law library and one of my goals is to really bring it into the 21st century. To that end, we’re now on Twitter!! I will be tweeting there about law library related topics as well as events at NYLI that you might want to know about. So if you’re in the law or special library field, please follow us at: https://twitter.com/#!/NYLawInstitute

Elijah Daniel puts together an excellent list of 4 Hot Apps for Microvideo Blogging. Social media users are now creating video status updates by shooting short videos on their smartphones. These free apps allow you to record short video clips and share them instantly on social networks like Facebook and Twitter or email or text them to friends.

Liz Borod Wright suggests 8 Reasons People Aren’t Following You Back on Twitter. If you’ve been wondering why you don’t have as many followers as people you follow, you may want to take a look at this insightful list of possible reasons. I’ve seen people exhibit most of these faux-pas on Twitter myself and although they may seem like common sense, they’re easy enough to do, especially as a new user. Here are her top 4 reasons:

• 1. You Don’t Have a Profile Photo.
• 2. You Don’t Have a Bio.
• 3. There Is Some Polarizing Aspect to Your Bio.
• 4. Your Tweets Are Protected.

Neil Patel at QuickSprout provides a mega-list of 100 Ways to Become a Twitter Power User. This amazing post is made up of 10 informative lists of 10 tips each. Here are the respective lists you can find in this post:

1. 10 Reasons why twitter power users are so influential
2. 10 Twitter tools that’ll make you more effective and efficient
3. Generate more retweets using these 10 tips
4. 10 healthy habits of Twitter power users
5. 10 iPad apps for Twitter users
6. 10 Ways to be more interesting on Twitter
7. 10 ways to maximize Twitter usage to promote your events
8. 10 ways power users get more Twitter followers
9. 10 Twitter metric tools for power users
10. 10 Twitter power users I admire

Leon Widrich at the Social Media Examiner discusses the redesign of the Twitter interface in 5 Twitter Changes and How to Make the Most of Them. This on-point article “reviews all the changes, from user interface changes to Twitter brand pages, what the new changes mean and how you can best use them.” Here are the five topics discussed:

• #1: Easier and More Streamlined Navigation
• #2 and #3: Twitter Brand Pages and Embeddable Tweets
• #4: The New, Much Faster TweetDeck
• #5: The New iPhone and Android Apps for Twitter

Cindy King at the Social Media Examiner rounds up tips from 17 Twitter pros in 17 Twitter Marketing Tips From the Pros. There are some real gems here. If you’re looking to leverage the popular microblogging app for marketing, you won’t want to miss this post. Here are the first 8 tips:

• #1: Share valuable content in your own voice
• #2: Use keywords in your tweets
• #3: Share links to useful content
• #4: Use search features to discover what your clients want
• #5: Connect with the right people and tweet with them
• #6: Use a classic icebreaker
• #7: Cultivate relationships
• #8: Engage your audience

Robert Bruce at Copyblogger gathers 9 Resources That Make You a Better Marketer on Twitter. If you’re using the immensely popular microblogging application to spread the news about library events, services, and collections, you’ll want to check out this post for great advice on reaching your Twitter marketing goals. Here are just a few of the recommended resources

• The Art of Writing Great Twitter Headlines
• The Ultimate Guide to Twitter Marketing
• Here’s Hard Data for Headlines that Spread on Twitter

Charlie White at Mashable reports on Lab42‘s outstanding new Twitter infographic, How Are People Using Twitter? The comprehensive image provides statiscis on how often people are accessing the microblogging application, how they access it, how they find new users to follow, how many brands and celebrities they follow and much more.

I have finally sorted through and organized all of my contacts on Twitter and like a good librarian I have categorized everyone using Twitter’s List feature. I have created a list of over 450 librarians who tweet which you can easily subscribe to by following the link. This will give you a curated list view of just tweets by librarians and library associations. If I have missed anyone, please leave your Twitter handle in the comments and I’ll be sure to add you!

Twitter has launched a new photo-sharing service which allows users to upload photos and share them in their tweets. They’ve been rolling out the service this summer and I’ve just been offered the feature which works very well. For more information check out Twitter’s Help pages on image uploading.