The Nuts and Bolts of Twitter Presentation

We just wrapped up our Twitter presentation for the Best of the Southwest Communicators Conference. The conference was put on by the Texas Public Relations Association and PRSA Southwest District.

As promised to the attendees, here is the presentation:The Nuts and Bolts of Twitter

View more presentations from Richie Escovedo. (tags: twitter social)

The session went well. Unfortunately, we got a little side tracked a few times and the timing was a little off. I hope the attendees take a moment or two and check out the final few slides. Thanks go to my partner in crime and co-presenter, Terry Morawski. I would also like to extend a special thanks to our volunteer from the session (@mayday08) who set up her profile live for the group to see.

Let me know what you think especially if you were able to attend the session.

How Social Media is similar to Soylent Green

SocialMediaPoster
Originally uploaded by vedo's pics

Social Media (sort of like Soylent Green) ...it's *about* People!

This idea came to me a couple of months back through a conversation I was having on Twitter. A quick search for the Soylent Green movie poster image, a bit of Photoshop magic and voila, I give you my quick take on Social Media.

Social Media Tools for School PR

I presented alongside Terry Morawski yesterday afternoon on social media for school communication/PR professionals at the Texas School Public Relations Association 2009 Conference in San Antonio.

Social media provides many exciting, accessible and affordable communication tools for school PR veterans and newbies alike. In this presentation we provide an overview of social media elements, practical applications for school districts, and additional resources to continue your exploration:


Or go directly to the presentation via Google Docs or Slideshare.

The presentation went well aside from an Internet snafu. Apparently WiFi does not quite reach to the 20th floor in that particular hotel. Luckily, I had taken the sound advice from Bryan Person and had a no-web-necessary version of our presentation. (Note: Bryan Person presented A Blogging Primer a day earlier at the conference which provided a great foundation for other conversations at the conference. Thank you Bryan.)
Note: This post has been updated to include a link to Bryan's presentation.

School district communication/PR professionals are showing more and more signs of wanting to explore social media for school district use. This is highly encouraging both for our field and for the communities that we serve.

Inspiration and Related Material

• Ay Caramba! Social Media Is Not That Difficult
  
• Grow Bigger Ears in 10 Minutes
• Where do you find the time? Social Media Time Management Tips
  
• What the F**k is Social Media?
  

Tweet. Meet. Give. Twestival Time

On Thursday, February 12, users of the micro-blogging service Twitter will gather in over one hundred cities around the world to share the love and raise money for charity:water, a not-for-profit bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations. The event is 100% volunteer-run.

The Dallas Twestival at Mockingbird Station will feature live music by local bands, food and drink, a raffle, WiFi, feeds from other global events, a free film at the Angelica Theater, a show at Hyena's Comedy Club, and friendly, engaged Fort Worth and Dallasites united to "Tweet. Meet. Give." 100% of proceeds go to charity:water. Purchase your tickets now for only $10!

The Dallas/Fort Worth Twestival goal is to raise $4,000, which is the cost of one well. Dallas/Fort Worth Twestival volunteers are looking for sponsors at the $500 or $1000 levels, or who can offer goods or services for donation - these will be part of a raffle or silent auction. Sponsors' logos will be displayed at the event, on the Dallas Twestival website, and included in the live streaming web broadcast; they may also provide materials to be distributed at the event. The sponsorship package information is available online at http://dallas.twestival.com/dallas-twestival-sponsorship/.

Additional information may be found at http://dallas.twestival.com and http://twestival.com.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Twestival is coming to a town near you!
  
• Twestival! A Worldwide Event for Charity:Water 2-12
  
• Twestival, Bringing Together The Twitter Community For A Cause
  

Hash(tags) that wouldn't get Phelps in trouble

Image by Irish Typepad via Flickr

Twitter basics for professional growth - Hashtags

Twitter can be a very useful resource for PR professionals once you get the hang of it. For beginners, I recommend starting with the short video, Twitter in Plain English. Once you have a handle on tweeting, you can start thinking of putting the power of the Twitterstream to work for you.

You can Learn a Lot from a Dummy
(and smart people too)
There is a wealth of knowledge and networking opportunity hidden to most people that do not dig deeper into Twitter. You can dig up this trove of resources and conversations by using hashtags.

According to the Twitter Fan Wiki, hashtags are "a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets."

If you've spent any time in the space you may have seen the # symbol followed by word(s). In Twitter a hashtag looks something like this:


A few hashtags that PR people might find interesting to search:

1. #PRadvice - thoughts, conversations, suggestions and advice involing public relations
   
2. #PRintern - for the student, recent grad, or recently laid off journalist interested in PR, this hashtag is a good source for leads to PR internships
   
3. #journchat - (one of my favorites) is best described by its tagline, "an ongoing conversation between journalists, bloggers and PR folks" (more)
   

The above are just some highlights, there are many more. Hashtags can help organize Twitter and have as many uses as you can think up; from the silly or serious to the conferences and cocktails.

Your Turn...
Have you found an interesting PR-related hashtag? Have you started using hashtags? Do you find them useful?

BTW, here is the hashtag for "Phelps."

Related articles found by Zemanta and Richie Escovedo

• Twitter's Magic
  
• Explore the Twitter Hashtag
• Tweet Your Message to a Larger Audience with Hashtags
• Hashtags, Twitter and Following on Friday
• Twitter Hashtags - What Are They, How To Create Your Own - by Mari Smith

Academia meets Twitter: The Presentation

Getting a handle on Twitter for communication and professional growth in an educational setting.

I started a series of posts to prepare for a presentation entitled Academia meets Twitter for the eMarketing Techniques for Educators event in Austin. This post will serve as a means to follow along during the presentation as well as for attendees to refer back to for future reference:

Twitter can be a game-changer for online communicators. Education provides countless opportunities for various forms of communication, especially online. This leads to the question: Can Twitter be incorporated into an effective online communication strategy for educational institutions?
 

The short answer is yes and I wanted to explore how educational institutions can and are using/trying Twitter to assist in their communication efforts.

Communication needs
We can all agree with the general assumption that there are many areas within an educational institution that require effective communication in order to help meet objectives:

• News Updates
• Athletics
• Admissions
• Marketing/PR
• Development
• Alumni Relations
• Etc.

So what does this have to do with Twitter? 
Think of Twitter as a tool that could be a worthy addition to communication tools already in use.

Twitter is...

• a free social messaging utility for staying connected in real-time (Twitter)
• a social networking and micro-blogging tool (photo: geishaboy500)
  

Yes, but what is it?

 Let's try connections, conversations, community, and content.

For educational institutions, Twitter can be...

• a cost-effective (free) option to accentuate existing messages;
• a broadcasting tool to announce relevant information to specific audiences; and
• a (brief) conversational tool to appropriately respond to relevant inquiries and follow-up questions or comments. 

Two Twitter Types

Broadcaster

• useful if audience knows what they are getting
• another way to push information
• works best if you have good information to give
• could fill a need from specific area or topic

Conversationalist

• provides a "voice"
• seen as an authority and source
• ROE - return on engagement
• a way to interact with those interested in the institution
• all about building relationships

 Twitter is not... 

• a silver bullet for communication problems

"It won't replace crime alerts, regular campus e-mails or our cooperation with local news outlets to help ensure community awareness of important safety issues, but it's an important addition." (quoted from Univ. Michigan adds voice, text messaging for emergency notification, not specifically about Twitter, I just like the sentiment.)

Let's Explore

Broadcaster

• http://twitter.com/UOregonNews
• http://twitter.com/georgiasouthern
• http://twitter.com/johnmaeda
• http://twitter.com/uwgbtutoring
• http://twitter.com/UofA 

Conversationalist

• http://twitter.com/butleradmission
• http://twitter.com/ECCdistrict509 
• http://twitter.com/SDSU_NewsTeam
• http://twitter.com/ThunderbirdNews 
• http://twitter.com/MarquetteU
• http://twitter.com/UTAustin

Want to see more examples? http://twitter.pbwiki.com/Universities

Twitter and Professional Growth

• Referrals
• Community
• Networking
• Commerce
• Knowledge
• Serendipity

Referrals

Community

Networking

Commerce

Knowledge

Serendipity

Academia meets Twitter

• An Introduction
• Part 1 - TCU
• Part 2 - Butler University
• Part 3 - Thunderbird School of Global Management
• Part 4 - Georgia Southern University
• Part 5 - University of Oregon 
• Part 6 - Hurst Euless Bedford ISD
• Part 7 - Elgin Community College
  

Related articles & presentation sources

• Twitter in the mainstream
• When is Broadcasting OK on Twitter?
• Is Twitter a Tool for Alumni Relations? The Potential of Intentionally Weak Ties 
• Are you listening?
• Twitter, Your Free Text Messaging System
• Using Twitter for Higher Ed
• 10 Reasons to Monitor Twitter
• Question of the day: Should universities tweet?
• How individuals use Twitter
• Activating Alumni Networks with Twitter 

 

For inspiration, thoughts, and discussions, special thanks go out to: @BarbaraNixon, @BradJWard, @PRsarahevans, @morate, @vargasl, @GeoffLiving, @davidnielsen, and a few more not on Twitter. 

Academia meets Twitter: Part 7 - Elgin Community College

This is Part 7 of a series entitled Academia meets Twitter, where professionals took part in a short e-mail Q&A session to discuss Twitter incorporation in an educational setting.

Elgin Community College
Twitter Handle: @elginspartans
Participant: Sarah Evans
Elgin Community College , Director of Communications

From which department does the Twitter profile run?
The Elgin Community College (ECC) Twitter account (@elginspartans ) is “run” by the communications team.

How often do you monitor the profile?
The @elginspartans profile is monitored during school hours, typically Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. This does not mean that people can only interact during this time frame. The great thing about Twitter is that responses do not necessarily have to be instantaneous. There is an asynchronistic style to the conversation flow. While we do our best to reply to “tweets” as quickly as possible, I know that a 12-hour window (before and after work) is acceptable. That said, the account is linked to my work email address (which is linked to my BlackBerry), so if someone sends a direct message I can easily respond anytime.

What Twitter applications do you use to run it?
@elginspartans is a relatively new Twitter account and hasn’t seen a ton of action (yet).  Currently, I use a combination of the actual Twitter page and Search.Twitter (formerly Summize) to interact. When interactions pick up, I may move to Tweetdeck (which is what I use for my personal account).

Have you determined if more, students, alumni, prospective students, staff, or community members are following?
The @elginspartans is still in a growing stage.  Currently we have more community members (which is a great thing!) following and interacting with the account. There are a few of each audience following the account: faculty, students, legislators, alumni and local media. I expect this to grow in 2009 and include more current students. My favorite day on Twitter for ECC was the when one of our students tweeted us. Very cool!

What communication goals do you hope to meet using Twitter for your institution?
Twitter is definitely not our only means of using social media to connect with our community. The ultimate goal is truly about making information easier to access and offering another way to interact with those who are interested with the college. Last week, a current culinary student reached out via Twitter to inquire about her uniform.  I was able to respond back immediately and begin a conversation with her.

--
Vedo's Thoughts: I have found Sarah Evans to be a tremendous resource for communications professionals especially for those of us in education. She is @PRsarahevans on Twitter and is doing some great things for the industry and sharing her ideas. The best takeaway that I'd like to highlight is her quote from the last question:

Twitter is definitely not our only means of using social media to connect with our community. The ultimate goal is truly about making information easier to access and offering another way to interact with those who are interested with the college.

Editor's Note: This post has been updated to include Elgin Community College's renamed Twitter profile, @elginspartans

Academia meets Twitter

• An Introduction
• Part 1 - TCU
• Part 2 - Butler University
• Part 3 - Thunderbird School of Global Management
• Part 4 - Georgia Southern University
• Part 5 - University of Oregon 
• Part 6 - Hurst Euless Bedford ISD