Twitter as an information source

1. Twitter as an information source

2. Definition • Microblog : share short messages (140 characters) • ... To communicate or to get information? • Short history • In 2006 « […] Dorsey co-founded Twitter. Three years after that, the expanding social network averaged 35m tweets per day. Last week, Twitter went public with a share price that valued it at $18bn (pounds 11bn), a number that quickly rose. In the eight years since Dorsey learned about texts, Twitter has: acquired 232 million active users; become an indispensable campaigning tool for presidents; been plausibly implicated in uprisings against dictators; created and destroyed celebrities; helped up-end journalism; given birth to new literary forms.” (Burkeman 2013) “The criticism that you can't say anything meaningful in 140 characters is a red herring: links on Twitter are how I discover 800-word news stories, 8,000-word features, and 80,000-word books.” (Burkeman 2013) The core use of Twitter has: “very little to do with ‘tweeting,’ and everything to do with ‘listening’ or ‘hearing.’” (Gurley 2011)

3. How itworks • Createyourtwitteraccounthttps://twitter.com/login • Or use a managingtool, Tweetdeckhttps://tweetdeck.twitter.com/ • To communicate: • Your profile (photo, description, etc…) • use #hashtags or write a @DirectMessage • follow and getfollowed • To monitor information: • find experts on yourtopic • find relevant hashtags • explore, explore, explore “Follow- see what fellow tweeters, people in your industry and other like-minded types are talking about by following them.  It’s also a good way to get alerts and updates from companies.  Remember this won’t always just be 140 characters about what they people for breakfast but will often contain links back to reports/news articles/opinions/research etc. etc. etc. Search- you don’t need to find people to follow to see what they are saying, just use Twitter’s search to see what people are saying on particular topics.  Tweeters often categorise/tag their tweets with a subject or subjects preceded by a hashtag (e.g. #education #media #marketing); explore these with some simple searches.” (Ellie 2012)

4. How to find people or hashtags to follow? • If you know the experts : • with @nameofthisperson • Search box • make a thematicsearch (via Twitter, via Topsy) : • with #keywords – youcan combine 2 #keywords • Search box • institutions thattweet > spot and go to theirtwitteraccount • Once you have identifiedsomeone to follow: check whothispersonisfollowing! “When you ‘check Twitter’ you are looking at the specific articles and links purposefully chosen by people you have chosen to follow.” (Gurley 2011) [Twitter is] “a ‘discovery engine’ and an ‘information utility’ rolled into one.“ (Gurley 2011)

5. Free toolsaround Twitter : • To manage yourtweets: • https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/ • https://hootsuite.com/ • To shorten a URL’s(included in manytweetplatforms): • https://bitly.com/ • http://ow.ly/url/shorten-url • Search in twitter: • http://topsy.com/ • https://twitter.com/search-home • http://hshtags.com • « Clean up » yourlists • http://untweeps.com/ • http://twitblock.org/

6. REFERENCES Burkeman, O. 2013,“Review: NON-FICTION: Twitter is good for you: Are you dismissive about tweeting? Think again. Hatching Twitter by Nick Bilton 302pp, Sceptre, pounds 14.99”, The Guardian, 18 November, viewed 3 December 2013: http://global.factiva.com/ha/default.aspx Ellie 2013, “Using Twitter as an information tool”, University of Westminister, 24 August, http://blog.westminster.ac.uk/jisc-employability/author/ellie/ [viewed 3 December 2013]: Gurley, B. 2011, “You don’t have to tweet to twitter”, Above the Crowd, 15 November, viewed 3 December 2013: http://abovethecrowd.com/2011/11/15/you-dont-have-to-tweet-to-twitter/ FURTHER READINGS History behind Twitter: All Is Fair in Love and Twitter. The New York Times. • http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/magazine/all-is-fair-in-love-and-twitter.html A guide to Twitter, the basics explained: • https://gcn.civilservice.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/How-to-do-twitter.pdf A business guide to twitter, communication and marketing oriented: • http://blog.bab.la/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/twitter-business-guide-2012.pdf