Bootstrapping Our Way Across the Curriculum
Twitter Manifesto 4 Conferences
I was involved in a discussion about twitter practices by conference sponsors and I kind of came up with these possible strategies.
Different Tweet Strategies
1) Web 1.0
a. The organization keeps the communication one way. The organization puts out information, updates, public relations and they never follow anyone. It works. It’s another form of communication but it is only 1 way. Has a bit of old media feel – no feedback mechanism in place.
2) WEB 2.0 conference strategy
a. The twitter starts after the conference registration - but not too soon after. There are updates, tidbits, and teasers. They increase as the conference gets closer. The twitter account is included in any follow-up emails with the people registered and is on the conference website. The conference follows everyone who follows them ( after 24 -48 hrs to check & make sure that’s it not an inappropriate twitter account). They direct message their followers and thank them for following.
b. You follow the known twitter leaders in your fields so that they may follow you and their followers may follow you.
c. You put a hashtag # in front of the conference #coltt09 so people can see all the tweets related to conference.
3) Conference twitter as part of conference attendees’ Personal Learning Network (PLN)
a. All of the above from 2
b. Explain to conference goers in advance or at the beginning of the conference the use of twitter as a PLN (some people will already know)
c. Encourage them to tweet questions, ideas, websites and resources. Location reports every 10 mins usually doesn't enhance a PLN. Backchat in a session that allows for text discussion of the session allows the conversation to continue longer and allows conversation to be richer. Think of the difference between a F2F class where there's only time for 2 students to give their opinon v. an online class where there is the opportunity for every student to contribute to the discusssion.
d. You have a handout and mention useful twitter applications (tweetdeck - to filter tweets; twitpics for pictures and hootsuite for time releases) when there is time to do so.
d. Extra hashtags for special topics. Like for the Cafe Pedagogique topics – you would make separate hashtags for the four groups
e. At the beginning of each day show a wordle http://www.wordle.net of the tweets so people can see the conference memes -even on the first day - what have people been tweeting about pre-conference
f. You have a screen running near the registration or in a congregation point for attendees to read tweets
g. You divide the conference tweeting responsibility between a few people. One person tweets and checks tweets during the morning and someone else does this in the afternoon.
i. You respond to tweets about your conference - if someone tweeted that they were wondering if a session is for novices you respond to this.
j. You see if you have any presenters who feel capable of following live tweets during their sessions. You do this by emailing the presenters outlining what a live twitter feed is and see if they want to give it a try.
Other considerations:
-Do you want this linking up to other Web 2.0 applications like Facebook, Ning, flickr,etc. Despite what social media mavens ( who brag on having 4000 people following them) extort - less is sometimes more - better quality, not as much redundancy, less initimidating to people not used to following multiple Web 2.0 applications. A worthwhile PLN is about quality not quantity.
-Do you want this to be a microblog that lasts past the conference. It doesn't have to be yearlong. You would just let people know 2 or 3 weeks after the conference that the account is planning on going inactive until next year's conference. Some things should die a natural death. You can always make another microblog next year and there may be an even better application out there. Plurk is on the rise. :)
Different Tweet Strategies
1) Web 1.0
a. The organization keeps the communication one way. The organization puts out information, updates, public relations and they never follow anyone. It works. It’s another form of communication but it is only 1 way. Has a bit of old media feel – no feedback mechanism in place.
2) WEB 2.0 conference strategy
a. The twitter starts after the conference registration - but not too soon after. There are updates, tidbits, and teasers. They increase as the conference gets closer. The twitter account is included in any follow-up emails with the people registered and is on the conference website. The conference follows everyone who follows them ( after 24 -48 hrs to check & make sure that’s it not an inappropriate twitter account). They direct message their followers and thank them for following.
b. You follow the known twitter leaders in your fields so that they may follow you and their followers may follow you.
c. You put a hashtag # in front of the conference #coltt09 so people can see all the tweets related to conference.
3) Conference twitter as part of conference attendees’ Personal Learning Network (PLN)
a. All of the above from 2
b. Explain to conference goers in advance or at the beginning of the conference the use of twitter as a PLN (some people will already know)
c. Encourage them to tweet questions, ideas, websites and resources. Location reports every 10 mins usually doesn't enhance a PLN. Backchat in a session that allows for text discussion of the session allows the conversation to continue longer and allows conversation to be richer. Think of the difference between a F2F class where there's only time for 2 students to give their opinon v. an online class where there is the opportunity for every student to contribute to the discusssion.
d. You have a handout and mention useful twitter applications (tweetdeck - to filter tweets; twitpics for pictures and hootsuite for time releases) when there is time to do so.
d. Extra hashtags for special topics. Like for the Cafe Pedagogique topics – you would make separate hashtags for the four groups
e. At the beginning of each day show a wordle http://www.wordle.net of the tweets so people can see the conference memes -even on the first day - what have people been tweeting about pre-conference
f. You have a screen running near the registration or in a congregation point for attendees to read tweets
g. You divide the conference tweeting responsibility between a few people. One person tweets and checks tweets during the morning and someone else does this in the afternoon.
i. You respond to tweets about your conference - if someone tweeted that they were wondering if a session is for novices you respond to this.
j. You see if you have any presenters who feel capable of following live tweets during their sessions. You do this by emailing the presenters outlining what a live twitter feed is and see if they want to give it a try.
Other considerations:
-Do you want this linking up to other Web 2.0 applications like Facebook, Ning, flickr,etc. Despite what social media mavens ( who brag on having 4000 people following them) extort - less is sometimes more - better quality, not as much redundancy, less initimidating to people not used to following multiple Web 2.0 applications. A worthwhile PLN is about quality not quantity.
-Do you want this to be a microblog that lasts past the conference. It doesn't have to be yearlong. You would just let people know 2 or 3 weeks after the conference that the account is planning on going inactive until next year's conference. Some things should die a natural death. You can always make another microblog next year and there may be an even better application out there. Plurk is on the rise. :)
Comment
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Comment by Kae on June 1, 2009 at 1:08am -
SO it this helps - from Mashable - the only group I can hear called social media experts without cringing.
http://mashable.com/2009/05/31/twitter-tutorials-youtube/
Top 7 Twitter Tutorials on YouTube
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Comment by Kae on May 31, 2009 at 7:12pm
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Too funny - ASTD - go ahead and guess what it stands for .........I'll wait, okay I won't American Society for Training and Development . hmmmm (I'm sure a great group) has been tweeting today about the lack of a hashtag for the conference. In fact, one well know consultant seemed down right indignant about it. Wonder if their services and twitter/social media expertise will be offered to the conference next year? for a fee maybe or just lots of pubilicity and good will????
But really - ASTD - if you serach for that how many other competing tweets are you going to get? If you have it setup in Tweetdeck I'm sure you'll be overwhelmed in random ASTD tweets.
Don't sweat the hashtag ASTD - your tweeps will find you! But just in case anyone is looking I believe it is #ASTD09
Power to the Tweople!
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