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Twitter: An Introduction for Librarians
- 1. Veronica Rutter, New City Library [email_address]
- 2. Blogging emerged in the late nineties. Text messaging rises in popularity c.2005 Jack Dorsey of the podcasting company Odeo proposed the merging of text messaging with blogging. March 21, 2006, Dorsey sends the first tweet 'just setting up my twttr'. The product was originally called twittr to mimic the Flickr. Like many internet products, Twitter started in the hands of teens. It rapidly rose in popularity among adults.
- 5. Tweet- To send a message to Twitter. It must be 140 characters or less including all punctuation and spaces. Past tense: tweeted. Retweet- the re-posting of an interesting tweet from another twitterer. Hash tag- A way of organizing Tweets for Twitter search engines. Users simply prefix a message with a community driven hash tag to enable others to discover relevant posts. i.e. I'm going to #cil2010. Follower- Someone who has subscribed to your account. Fail Whale- The endearing picture of a whale that informs you Twitter is down.
- 6. The Iran election brought tremendous media attention to Twitter. It was nearly the only way information was getting out of the country. The Mars Phoenix Lander tweeted about the discovery of ice on Mars. Blame Drew’s Cancer
- 8. The most common approach is listing upcoming events and closures. This acts much like an RSS feed. Others utilize Twitter as an extension of the reference desk, answering questions posed to them. Twitter can also work as an entrance point. Provide shortened links to other articles, pictures and videos around the internet.
- 9. The largest library following on Twitter goes to NYPL with over 30,000 followers. Houston Public Library comes in second with 5,000 followers. Locally, Nyack Library has a very lively Twitter feed with 86 followers. This may not seem like a lot, but the numbers are much stronger than the average followers on a local Facebook page.
- 10. Twitter updates should be pithy summations of a larger idea. Links are always appreciated. Twitter readers don’t necessarily want to stop at 140 characters. Go light on netspeak. You don’t want to sound like a lolcat. Good Tweet: The Nyack Library is closed today, Friday February 26th. http://bit.ly/9z2Fgh Bad Tweet: omg srsly, we rly r closed.
- 11. Yes! It’s always a good idea to have a presence. However. You must commit. Twitter users thrive on continuous updating. If you want to create a Twitter account to play around with try a personal account first. Have a goal. That goal should not be amount of followers. Create a new way to update people on events. Post links to reviews on Summer Reading books. Reach parents in a place they already spend a lot of time.
- 12. Questions? Comments? These slides will be posted on Slideshare. You can e-mail me at [email_address] .