Archive for the ‘Microblogging’ Category

Twitter can be used as a powerful listening tool and Cindy King at Social Media Examiner offers 8 Easy Twitter Monitoring Ideas. If you’d like to monitor your organizations brand as well as what’s happening in your field, you may want to check out these suggestions:

1. Decide What You Want to Monitor
2. Find the Best Real-Time Monitoring Tools
3. Track With URL Shorteners
4. Follow Hashtags
5. Monitor Trends When It’s Appropriate
6. Use Twitter Lists to Monitor People on Twitter
7. Set Up a Listening Plan
8. Build Relationships

Claire Cain Miller writes for the New York Times Technology section about Getting the Most Out of Twitter. She gives some great tips for making the most of the microblogging app, even without posting to it. Here are her suggestions:

• A custom news feed
• Check your lists
• Attend a conference, virtually
• What’s around you right now
• Ask questions

Greg Ferenstein at Mashable discusses How Twitter in the Classroom is Boosting Student Engagement by increasing participation and building a community of learners.

“Professors who wish to engage students during large lectures face an uphill battle. Not only is it a logistical impossibility for 200+ students to actively participate in a 90 minute lecture, but the downward sloping cone-shape of a lecture hall induces a one-to-many conversation. This problem is compounded by the recent budget cuts that have squeezed ever more students into each room.

Fortunately, educators (including myself) have found that Twitter is an effective way to broaden participation in lecture. Additionally, the ubiquity of laptops and smartphones have made the integration of Twitter a virtually bureaucracy-free endeavor. This post describes the two main benefits professors find when using Twitter in lecture.”

The NFI Research firm has issued a report listing the Top Public Libraries on Twitter. These are the libraries that are active, make frequent updates, have a good amount of followers, and use the tool to promote communication in their communities. Here are a few who made the list:

19,000+ Followers
1 New York Public Library New York, NY http://twitter.com/nypl

4,000+ Followers
2 Houston Public Library Houston, TX http://twitter.com/houstonlibrary

3,000+ Followers
3 Columbus Library Columbus, OH http://twitter.com/columbuslibrary

2,000+ Followers
4 Kansas City Public Library Kansas City, MO http://twitter.com/KCPubLibrary
5 Hennepin County Library Minneapolis, MN http://twitter.com/hclib
6 Cincinnati Library Cincinnati, OH https://twitter.com/cincylibrary

1,500+ Followers
7 Austin Public Library Austin, TX http://twitter.com/AustinPublicLib
8 Grand Rapids Public Library Grand Rapids, MI http://twitter.com/grpl
9 Boerne Library Boerne, TX http://twitter.com/BoerneLibrary

Twitter has reported that posting activity to the popular microblogging application has reached 50 million tweets per day, or an average of 600 tweets per second.

The folks at Educause have put together another of their “7 Things” guides, this time it’s 7 Things You Should Know About Backchannel Communication. The backchannel is the informal communication that goes on during a conference or other event, most notably on Twitter and other real-time tools. As usual Educause tackles the following questions:

1. What is it?
2. How does it work?
3. Who’s doing it?
4. Why is it significant?
5. What are the downsides?
6. Where is it going?
7. What are the implications for teaching and learning?

Big Is The New Small has compiled a mega-list of 111 Twitter Tools. This handy directory is sub-divided into the following categories:

• Twitter Analysis
• Information Gathering
• Network Building & Management
• Twitter Management
• Sharing Tools
• Organization & Productivity
• Life Tools
• Business & Finance
• Health
• Blogging

The folks at Creative Cloud have come up with some interesting stats about the popular microblogging application, Twitter. Here are a couple highlights:

• If you printed Twitter it would cover 350 million sheets of paper, which is 37 times the number of pages used in bills introduced in the United States Congress since 1955.
• If you printed Twitter and laid the pages end to end, they would stretch 60,763 miles or two and a half times around the earth.

via Mashable

Matt Silverman at Mashable has published an excellent tutorial detailing How-To Create Custom Backgrounds for Twitter, YouTube, & MySpace. This quick article provides a walk-through for how to create your own branded backgrounds on these popular networks, including exact column dimensions, file sizes, and layout information.

Cameron Chapman at Noupe has created a quick and comprehensive guide to Getting the Most Out of Twitter. If you want a quick primer for using the popular microblogging app, you’ll want to check out this article. Here are just some of the topics discussed:

• Twitter Basics
• Terminology
• Etiquette
• Twitter Tools
• Twitter Clients
• Twitter Services
• Finding People to Follow
• Using Lists
• Twitter for Communication
• Twitter for Promotion
• Twitter on Your Blog
• Other Twitter Uses
• Further Resources

Take a look back at notable 2009 trends with this interesting post from Chris Allison at Mashable. He rounds up the most influential topics of the past year in 2009 As Seen Through Twitter Hashtags. If that’s not enough Twitter goodness for you, also check out their article listing the most discussed topics on Twitter.

Stan Schroeder at Mashable analyzes How Twitter Conquered the World in 2009. Here are his main discussion points:

• Who’s Doing All This Tweeting?
• It’s Everywhere!
• New Features
• The Growth Suddenly Stops
• The Importance of Real-Time

Should you share your link on Twitter or on Facebook? Which users click more and which spend more time once they’ve landed on your site? Digital Inspiration provides the answers in their post Sharing on Facebook vs. Sharing on Twitter which discusses new ShareThis statistics.

Olivia Mitchell, presentation trainer and blogger, provides 9 Tips for Enriching Your Presentations With Social Media at Mashable. This helpful article offers tips for encouraging audience participation and feedback via new media tools such as Twitter and Facebook.

1. Build Relationships With Your Audience
2. Recruit a Backchannel Team
3. Create a Separate Hashtag
4. Welcome the Backchannel
5. Reach Out to Your Virtual Audience
6. Make Your Key Points Tweetable
7. Audience Participation Through Social Media
8. Display the Backchannel When You Want to Focus on It
9. Learn From the Backchannel

Soren Gordhamer, author of the book Wisdom 2.0, writes for Mashable about The Tao of Tweeting. Drawing on the Tao te Ching, this post offers guidance in the form of four lessons:

1. Show Versus Tell
2. Have a Passion for the Process
3. Find a Balance
4. Focus on What You Can Add, Not on the Technology