Ready to tweet? Twitter only allows you to send 140 characters, which doesn’t seem much. Many people, especially in an HE context, who are new to Twitter aren’t sure what to say, or why updates about whatever they’re doing would be interesting to others. But there are actually many aspects of your day-to-day work that would be of very practical use to others. Have a look at some Twitter feeds from learning developers and see what kinds of information they share, to get an idea of how you really can say something useful and engaging in 140 characters.
What to tweet?
The appropriate tone for a professional Twitter account doesn’t need to be overly formal – you can be chatty and conversational, and allow your personality to come through. In fact, you’ll have to be a bit informal if you want to fit everything in, using abbreviations and even textspeak! Even if tweeting on behalf of a department or group, you need to be engaging rather than formal. Do remember though, if you’re tweeting in any professional capacity, that Twitter is a very public medium, and that your tweets can be kept by others, even if you delete them (more about this on Day 10). Don’t say anything you wouldn’t normally say openly in a work context.
Some examples of what you might tweet about:
- an article you’re reading that’s interesting or a book you recommend
- an online resource you’ve stumbled across
- a workshop or conference you’re going to – others may not have known about it, may want to meet you if they’re also going to be there, or may want to ask you about it if they can’t make it
- some insight on learning development work from an incident that happened today
- study advice or insights into how you teach a topic
- a question asked by a student or colleague that made you think
- slides from a talk which you’ve just uploaded online
- your thoughts on an education news story
- a funding, project or job opportunity you’ve just seen
- a digital tool or software you’re using or problem you’ve solved with it
- a typical day – an insight into a learning developer’s life or moral support
- your new publication or report which has just come out (there are ways of mentioning this gracefully!)
Sending a tweet
Sending a tweet is really easy – when you’re logged into Twitter, you’ll see a box in the middle of the screen at the top, which says ‘What’s happening?’ If you click in the box, you’ll be able to write your tweet and then click the ‘Tweet’ button. You can also use the feather quill pen icon in the top right of the screen to compose.
Remember – you’re only able to write 140 characters including spaces. A small counter below this box tells you how many characters you have left. It will stop you once you go over and highlight how many characters you need to delete. You’ll soon develop a suitably concise style, and learn the tricks to abbreviate your writing, such as using ‘&’ instead of ‘and’. This all adds to the informal tone.
This bit is important – as your first message, please send the following tweet – we’ll explain why later!
Note:
If you already have an twitter account it is a good practice to let your followers know that you take part in a open course, so this first tweet can serve as an announcement. However, you may want to compose the tweet differently for your followers, please feel free to do so, make sure to include the hashtag #HSLU10DoT.
Over the next week, we’ll be sending various types of tweets. For today, though, just send a few simple messages over the course of the day, using the examples above. You could include the hashtag #HSLU10DoT in your tweets – again, we’ll explain why later! If you’re thinking of tweeting in an official capacity, then think about the balance of your own announcements to other information (Twitter is still a conversation, not an announcement service, and too much one-way, impersonal promotion will turn off your following!).
Send a few tweets, now and perhaps throughout the day, following suggestions from the list above! Make sure that when people check out your profile from yesterday, there’s some interesting and engaging content there! And remember to add the hashtag #HSLU10DoT.
Looking forward to read your tweets.
@cinigabellini