Twitter and Its Value To Librarians - The Rise Of The Microblogging Service :Twitter and Its Value To Librarians - The Rise Of The Microblogging Service Phil Bradley LIS 2009


Slide 2:Twitter is a microblogging resource with a character limit of 140 characters per message, or 'tweet' as they are generally referred to. In answer to the question 'What are you doing?' users are free to type in anything that they choose; silly, serious, inane, important etc


Slide 3:People will 'follow' other people, and will be 'followed' in turn. This means that you can see their 'tweets' and they can see yours. It's also possible to import links to blog posts, images, sound files into your 'twitter stream' or to export tweets to your website/weblog


Slide 5:Users can 'Re-Tweet' posts, which is to say copy and paste a tweet from someone they follow to their followers to propagate a message The use of self/group defined #hashtags makes it much easier to search for, and follow tweets about a specific subject or conference


How can librarians use Twitter? :How can librarians use Twitter? Allows you to keep in contact with colleagues, to see what they're doing, what their interests are, read their opinions/thoughts/ideas


Slide 13:Keep informed about developments from publishers; both in terms of what they're publishing, but also events they're running


Slide 14:You can promote what your library service is doing. Attract new users, offer gifts or incentives, increase awareness and have fun!


Slide 15:Provide instant answers and point people in the right direction


Slide 16:Follow links to events, keep briefed on current affairs


Slide 17:Use Twitter as an RSS reader to keep up to date with blog entries


Slide 18:Share photographs quickly and easily, especially if using a smartphone


Slide 19:Ask questions using polls, Re-Tweet for maximum results


Slide 20:Keep involved with conferences even if you can’t attend them with 3rd party sites


Slide 21:Add short (3 minute) audio posts using Audioboo and add in a photograph as well!


Slide 22:Broaden your knowledge of a subject by following the right people/organizations


Slide 23:Ask questions! Answer questions!


Slide 24:Find new people to follow using Twitter search or 3rd party sites like WeFollow


Slide 25:Communicate more effectively Discuss events as they happen Send people Direct Messages


Follow authors :Follow authors


Follow dead people :Follow dead people


And more... :And more... Networking, both professional, friend to friend News: new books, closing early, new staff Marketing tool Broadcasting content Updating a website via Twitter


Advantages :Advantages Free Fast Simple Effective Brevity ‘Always on’ Instant information


Disadvantages :Disadvantages Media hype ‘Fail Whale’ Brevity (what can you say in 140 characters?) Small number of users Spam 3rd party applications Viruses


6 things when getting started... :6 things when getting started...


Directories to find people :Directories to find people http://wefollow.com http://mrtweet.net http://www.twibes.com/ http://justtweetit.com/ http://www.twellow.com/


Not forgetting... :Not forgetting... http://www.twitter.com/philbradley Thank you!


Thanks to: :Thanks to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hansdorsch/1807996676/ for the Twitter/iPhone image