Research Guides: Boost Your Scholarly Profile!: Task 7: Get started with Twitter

Why Use Twitter?

Network with other researchers and interesting individuals using the 'Follow' option;
Keep updated on news and events posted by professional organizations, your institution and various news channels;
Discover what's being discussed at conferences, talks and events by following 'Hashtags' (#);
Obtain information or question using 'crowd sourcing' techniques (brainstorming online) by using 'RT';
Publicize and share your research findings which you have presented at a conference written about in a journal pr on your blog or spoken about at your institution; and
Promote yourself - Twitter can be used to find research posts & projects you can work on and collaborate on with other like-minded individuals.

Get Started with Twitter

Go to Twitter.com to sign up for an account
Choose an easy to remember and professional username, also known as a handle
Add a photo and a short bio
Find others to "follow" - search by name, journal title, or conference - be sure to follow @WCU_Library!
Send your first tweet!

Twitter Terminology

Follow: Following another user means that all their tweets will appear in your feed. Click on their user name, and their profile will appear on the right of your screen, with a bright green Follow button. Just click this to follow.
Who to follow list: This is a list of Twitter’s suggestions of people or organizations that you might want to follow, based on points of similarity with your profile. Scroll down the list and click the green Follow button next to anyone you want to.
Unfollow: To stop seeing someone else’s tweets, go to your following list and find the person you want to stop following and hover the cursor over the green Following button until it is replaced by the red Unfollow button, then click.
Block: From time to time a spammer or other unsavoury character may appear in your Followers list. Click the head and shoulders icon next to the unwanted follower’s name so that the ‘Block [their name]’ option appears – click this and they will be removed from your Followers list. For any form of spammer or malware user it’s a good idea to click also ‘Report [their name] for spam’ so as to limit their capacity to annoy others. You should look at and weed out your ‘Followers’ list regularly. Twitter shows the new followers at the top of the list.
Retweet or RT: To share somebody else’s tweet that you have seen in your feed, hover above it and select retweet. It then goes to all your followers, with a small arrow icon, which shows others that this wasn’t originally your tweet.
Reply: To respond to somebody else’s tweet, hover over it and select the Reply option, which will then appear in their @Mentions column. They may also reply to you, so check your @Mentions column.
@: Used in tweets when you want to mention another user. Also the first part of every Twitter user name – for example @LSEimpactblog
Mentions: Check your @Mentions column to see when others have mentioned you.
#: Hashtag – used to categorize tweets. Popular topics are referred to as trending topics and are sometimes accompanied by hashtags, such as #worldseries or #taylorswift. Click on any of them listed on the home page and you’ll see a list of related tweets from many different users. Including popular hashtags that are already in use in a tweet may attract more attention. Hashtags are also used as part of ‘backchannel’ communication around an event, be it a conference, a TV program or a global event, such as #SXSW or #DHSI2015. An event audience can share comments, questions and links with each other while continuing to follow the formal presentation. You can also follow local news or weather using #AVLnews or #WNCwx.
Direct Message or DM: These are private messages that you can send to other Twitter users. Click the Message menu at the top of the home page.

Boost Your Scholarly Profile!: Task 7: Get started with Twitter

Why Use Twitter?

Get Started with Twitter

Twitter Terminology

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Sources and Additional Reading

WCU Twitter Feed

#academia Hashtag Feed

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