How to do Twitter
You may want to use Twitter personally or professionally. Or you may not want to use
it at all. However, as a popular form of communication, you will need to have a basic
understanding of how Twitter works and what the jargon means.
The Civil Service is actively embracing social media. Always remember your
obligations under the Civil Service Code. Your department may have guidance on
using social media. Be sure to familiarise yourself with the relevant guidelines before
starting out. Remember, as Civil Servants we must adhere to the highest standards of
propriety and must never cross the line between promoting government policy and
promoting a governing party. See the social media guidance for civil servants and the
GCN guide to propriety in government communications.
This is a practical guide on how to get started using Twitter. It is set up in three
sections so you can choose to just dip in for information or work your way through it as
you use Twitter.
This guide is not suggesting that you should rush out and tweet. It may not be
appropriate in your team or organisation: this will depend upon the nature of your work
and the issues that you deal with.
The Fundamentals ................................................................................................3
What is Twitter?.................................................................................................3
All this jargon, what does it mean?....................................................................3
How to set up your account ...............................................................................4
Setting up your profile .......................................................................................6
How to send your first tweet ..............................................................................7
How to follow people .........................................................................................7
How ‘retweet’ a tweet ........................................................................................8
Modified tweet................................................................................................8
What is a hashtag?............................................................................................9
Intermediate ........................................................................................................10
Responding to @-replies.................................................................................10
How do I tweet a link or picture or video?........................................................10
Tweet a photo ..............................................................................................11
How do I get smart in searching for hashtags, topics and people? .................11
To search for Tweets containing a keyword or hashtag...............................11
To search for Tweets mentioning a user......................................................12
Twitter advanced search..............................................................................12
Twitter trends...................................................................................................12
Twitter Lists .....................................................................................................12
Advanced ............................................................................................................14
Tweet analysis.................................................................................................14
Other Twitter clients ........................................................................................14
Twitter Influencers ...........................................................................................15
Sentiment Analysis..........................................................................................15
Running Twitter Chats.....................................................................................16
Format of chat..............................................................................................16
Timing ..........................................................................................................17
Hashtags......................................................................................................17
Promotion ....................................................................................................17
Follow up .....................................................................................................17
Personal or professional?
If you’re worried that your interest in retweeting cute cat pictures or what you had
for lunch will detract from your authoritative voice, you might want to run two
accounts – one for personal tweets and one for issues related to work. But be sure
to use the right one for the right purpose.
The Fundamentals
What is Twitter?
Twitter is an online service where users share their thoughts, views, news, information
or images in 140 characters of text or less – including the spaces. You can also share
up to six seconds of video content. You might hear people refer to it as ‘microblogging’.
Twitter makes global communication cheap and measurable. Profiles are (usually)
public — anyone in the world can see what you write, unless you elect to make your
profile private. Users "follow" each other in order to keep up with the latest news and
make connections with people outside their immediate circle. It is free to set up and
run a Twitter account.
You will get the most value, insights and connections by actively engaging with other
users – talking to them, answering their questions. Twitter is about starting and
contributing to conversations, rather than simply a one-way channel to push out
information.
By using Twitter well, you will build a community of people who look to you for
authoritative news and advice and trust you. In turn, you can rely on your community
for ideas, feedback and to positively share your messages. It takes time to build and
nurture this community, but the results pay off in the long run.
It’s not just about Twitter
Remember: Twitter is just one channel among many. It’s not always the right
channel and should never just be used on its own. The entire world is not on
Twitter, so know your audience and where they are.
It is estimated that only about 15-17% of the UK population are active on Twitter.
Facebook is still, by far, the most popular social network platform, particularly
among 16-24 year olds.
All this jargon, what does it mean?
•
Tweet: a 140-character message (including spaces and links)
•
Retweet (RT): sharing someone’s tweet with your followers. Lots of retweets
increase the number of people viewing the tweet.
•
Feed: the stream of tweets you see on your homepage. It's comprised of
updates from users you follow.
•
Handle: @your username, for example, GCN’s handle is: @UKGovComms
•
Mention “@”: a way to reference another user by their username in a tweet
(e.g. @ukgovcomms). Users are notified when @mentioned. It's a way to
conduct discussions with other users in public.
@ mentions only show in your feed and in the feed of the person you ‘@-ed’. If
you want your reply to be viewed by all of your followers, include a full stop
before your @. So, for example: .@ukgovcomms Great work on that project!
•
Direct Message (DM): A private, 140-character message between two people.
You can only DM a user who follows you. Only you and the person you have
sent the Direct Message to can see them.
•
Hashtag (#): A way to denote a topic of conversation or participate in a larger
linked discussion (e.g. #PMQs, #chipmydog).
A hashtag is a discovery tool that allows others to find your tweets, based on
the topic. You can also click on a hashtag to see all the tweets that mention it in
real time — even from people you don't follow.
•
Modified tweet (MT): this is similar to a retweet, but indicates that you have
slightly edited the original tweet (usually for length) before retweeting it.
•
HT or h/t: Hat tip (like tipping your hat to someone as a thank you). This is used
when you tweet something you found via someone else’s tweet. It’s a way to
give credit to the original tweeter. For example, you can do this when you want
to retweet something with a link in it and add your own comments but the tweet
is far too long. You tweet the link as a new tweet, with your comments and then
use HT @username at the end of the tweet.
•
Trending or trending on Twitter – discussion on Twitter can be linked by using
hashtags (see above). When lots of people use the same hashtag to talk about
a subject, it becomes a ‘trending topic’ or ‘trending’ on Twitter. You can see
what is trending on Twitter on your Twitter homepage in one of the left hand
column boxes. Make sure to set it to your country or local area.
What your Twitter.com homepage looks like
How to set up your account
Go to www.twitter.com and you’ll see a box that says ‘New to Twitter’. Fill in the blanks
and click ‘Sign up for Twitter’.
If you are creating a Twitter account for yourself, your Department, Agency or other
organisation, try to follow this convention:
•
•
Use your organisation name or the well known acronym. Add ‘govuk’ or ‘uk’ to
the end of this to make it clear that you are part of UK government. For
example: @cabinetofficeuk, @DefraGovUk and @DECCgovuk
If you are tweeting as the press office, make this clear in your username. For
example: @number10pressoffice or @dwppressoffice
If you are tweeting as yourself, your first choice for a Twitter ID should be your name.
It’s a good idea to make your username as similar to your name as you can, so people
know who you are, especially if you are using Twitter strictly for work. If your name is
taken find a way to keep it as close as possible.
If your team has decided to all start tweeting, it is worth thinking through a naming
convention for the team. Both the Driving Standards Agency and the Department of
Health are good examples of how to take this approach.
Each organisation has a corporate account, but below that, individuals working on
digital engagement also have accounts that identify them individually as part of the
organisation. For example:
•
•
Driving Standards Agency:
o corporate account: @DSAgovuk
o Individual accounts: @JohnDSA @lizDSA @lindaDSA
Department of Health
o Corporate account: @DHGovUK
o Individual accounts: @AnnaHepburnDH @DanatDH @SusyatDH
@ClaireatDH and so on
Setting up your profile
Remember to fill out the biographical section – include a summary of what you or your
organisation does or what you are interested in.
Do: Include a link to your own or department’s website.
Don’t: use lots of hashtags in your biographical information
Twitiquette Tip
People on Twitter don’t like talking to the generic ‘egg’ photo that appears if you
don’t load a photo.
If you are tweeting as an individual you should use your actual picture and real
name, so people feel more comfortable interacting with you.
If you are tweeting as a corporate account, use your organisation’s logo or some
other well known symbol of your organisation that people will readily identify with.
A step further: You can add a ‘Header’ image – this is what sits behind your picture
on your profile page.
How to send your first tweet
Click on the button in the right hand corner that looks like a little pen. Draft your tweet
using the tips below and click send!
We cover how to tweet links, pictures and videos in the Intermediate section.
Tweeting top tips
Keep your tweets pacey and interesting, covering the 'why', 'what', 'where' 'who' if
you can manage it in 140 characters.
Link to a news item or further information on a website.
Always aim to have at least one hashtag – one of these: # and one @ in a tweet too
- this requires a bit of research but will always improve your reach.
Be authentic and true to your values and you'll quickly become a valuable member
of the Twitter community. Take some time to think about and develop your
corporate voice. Remember Twitter is about conversations with an engaged
audience – not broadcasting to a passive audience.
How to find and follow people
It’s completely normal in Twitter culture to “follow” people you’ve never met. In fact, it’s
encouraged. Begin by looking for people with common interests, policy areas, or
professions. Look for journalists or researchers who are specialists in your area and
bloggers who have big followings and are well respected.
To find a person or organisation on twitter, go to the search box in Twitter.com. Type
in your search term: this will throw up tweets mentioning this phrase, or people relating
to this phrase. Click on ‘people’ and you should find who you’re looking for. You will
see a ‘follow’ button next to their profile. Just click on this to follow them.
Another fast way to find out if someone is on Twitter is to Google their name and the
word ‘Twitter’ ie ‘Lucy Manning Twitter’. One of the top search results should be their
profile page.
Organisations often have ‘follow us on Twitter’ buttons on their websites. You can click
this to quickly and easily follow an organisation.
How to ‘retweet’ a tweet
Retweeting is a common way to share something interesting from someone you follow
to your own set of followers. It's important to remember that a retweet should be
thought of as quoting someone or citing a source.
There are a couple of ways to retweet someone.
•
You may choose to simply hit the retweet button that appears when you hover
your mouse over someone else's tweet. When you click this button, the tweet
will be sent to your set of followers, using the original tweeter's profile pic
alongside a note that you have retweeted the post. Additionally, a small green
icon will appear in the top-right corner of the tweet.
•
The second way takes a little bit longer, but it allows you to add your own
comments on the tweet before sharing it. To do this, simply click to expand the
tweet, copy its text, and then create a new tweet by clicking the compose icon
in the top-right of your profile page. Be sure to include the letters "RT" and the
handle of the person who originally tweeted the information and paste the
original tweet in. You can add your own comments in before the RT.
Notice that the tweet now appears in your timeline, with your profile picture and
your comment before the original tweet.
Modified tweet
This is similar to a retweet, but indicates that you have slightly edited the original tweet
(usually for length) before retweeting it.
So instead of the RT before the tweet, you use MT to indicate you have changed the
original tweet slightly.
If you can’t fit your comments in before the RT or MT, you can do a new tweet with the
link but be sure to give a hat tip (HT).
What is a hashtag?
A hashtag - # - is a label that indicates the subject matter of certain conversations
taking place on Twitter. Putting one of these little symbols in front of a word or phrase
indicates a subject you think is worth talking about. The words you use after the
hashtag become searchable because Twitter tracks them. That is to say, if you click
on a particular hashtag, you'll be able to see all tweets that have also used that
hashtag.
Most big events have specific hashtags associated with them, as do big news stories,
campaigns and areas of specific policy or interests.
It’s really easy to see what is happening on a certain hashtag, just click on it to see all
the tweets. It’s a good way to follow an event from a distance or see who may be
active and influential in a discussion.
Twitter Etiquette: Use the relevant hashtag even when replying to tweet on the
subject, this makes sure it is included in the overall discussion.
If enough Tweeters are using the same hashtag then a subject will ‘trend’.
Intermediate
Okay, you’ve got your Twitter account set up, you understand some of the jargon,
you’ve sent your first tweet and have found a few people to follow. So what’s next?
This section will look at the next steps you can take to more strategically find followers
and make the most of what Twitter has to offer.
At this stage, we are still assuming that you are using the Twitter website for posting
tweets and other Twitter activity. The next section ‘Advanced Twitter’ will discuss
different Twitter clients and what you can do using those services.
Responding to @-replies
Twitter is about engagement, not broadcast. Try to respond quickly and politely to
questions that come your way. If you are only going to monitor Tweets between set
times then you should consider indicating this in your profile and/or the first tweet of
the day.
Of course, this isn’t always possible or appropriate when running a large corporate
account. You wouldn’t want to respond to every negative comment or every question
asked. But where you can, direct people to further information or say thank you when
you get a positive tweet.
If you are running a Tweet Chat (see the advanced section) you will be replying to
questions. You won’t necessarily be able to reply to all the questions at the time, but
you can follow up after the chat is over by posting a transcript of the chat on your
website.
How do I tweet a link or picture or video?
It’s really easy to add a link, photo or video link to your tweet. It also really helps to
improve the impact of your tweet if you can add supporting information or visuals.
To add a link, compose your tweet. Have another browser tab open at the same time
with the website/page you want to link to. Copy the URL. Go back to the tweet you
composed and paste the URL into the tweet. Your link will be automatically shortened
by Twitter.
Use this same process for tweeting a link to a YouTube video.
A step further: You can use a link shortening service like bit.ly. This will create a
short link that you can track. This is especially helpful if you are linking to content
on your own site.
Twitter client Hootsuite (see advanced section for more on Twitter clients) has its own
link shortening and tracking capability built in. Create a shortened link to a page in
bit.ly and use this same link in all tweets where you are linking to this content and
you’ll be able to get a good picture of the impact of your tweets, in terms of page
views.
If you are on the go and using a mobile device (phone or tablet), you would do this in
the same way.
Tweet a photo
To tweet a photo you already have stored on your computer or mobile device,
compose your tweet. Then click on the camera icon under the text entry box. Find the
image you want and upload it. Twitter will upload the photo and include a link in your
tweet.
A step further: If you use a service such as Instagram (a creative photo sharing
social network) you can share photos on Twitter by linking your Twitter and
Instagram accounts and send images directly to Twitter from your Instagram
account.
How do I get smart in searching for hashtags, topics and
people?
The Twitter search engine is a powerful (and free) way to search for tweets and
people.
To search for Tweets containing a keyword or hashtag
1. Enter your search query into the search box at the top of the page.
2. Toggle between viewing People and Tweets results by clicking the menu on the
left side of your page.
3. When viewing Tweets, choose to view Top or All results by clicking the options
at the top of your search results timeline. (You can also choose to see results
about a given topic from only the accounts you follow by selecting People you
follow.)
4. You can save your search so you don’t have to redo this each time. To save a
Twitter search:
• Sign in to your Twitter account.
•
Type your search query into the search box at the top of the page and hit
return.
• Click on the gear icon and select ‘Save search’ from the drop down menu.
To revisit a saved search:
• Sign in to your Twitter account.
• Click anywhere in the search box at the top of the page.
• A list of your saved searches will appear below the search box.
• Click on the saved search to revisit results for that query.
To search for Tweets mentioning a user
1. Enter the user's username, preceeded by the @ symbol, into the search box at
the top of the page.
2. Tweets results display tweets mentioning the username; People results display
accounts matching that username. Toggle between the two on the left side of
the page.
Twitter advanced search
If you want to delve even deeper, use the Twitter Advanced Search function. It allows
you to search by a much wider set of parameters, including location and sentiment
(positive or negative).
Twitter has some useful advice on using search operators for fine-tuning search
results.
Twitter trends
Trends are discussions that a large number of Tweeters are engaged in. Trends are
identified by hashtags which show what the conversation is about.
Check UK Twitter trends to see pick-up of government related themes. To do this, log
in to Twitter and look at the left hand bar, making sure the trends relate to the UK,
rather than worldwide.
To find tweets relating to a particular trend, click on the trend you’re interested in.
You can also use a tool like Twitter Trends Map to find even more localised trending
topics.
Twitter Lists
A list is a curated group of Twitter users. You can create your own lists or subscribe to
lists created by others.
Viewing a list timeline will show you a stream of tweets from only the users on that list.
This is useful if you want to keep up to date with a group of people periodically, but
don’t want them in your “stream” all of the time
Lists are used for reading tweets only. You cannot send or direct a tweet to members
of a list, for only those list members to see
Twitter has a really helpful ‘how to’ on creating lists.
As examples, here are a few lists:
•
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Lobby Journalists – https://twitter.com/tweetminster/thelobby
Gov depts - http://twitter.com/tweetminster/ukgovernmentdepartments
Tech journalists - http://twitter.com/Mlsif/techpolitics
Local papers - http://twitter.com/TheMediaTweets/local-and-regional-papers
You might want to create lists for specific policy areas. For example, have a look at
the lists run by the Department of Health Twitter account.
Advanced
This section will look at how to really go the extra mile with Twitter and will focus on
evaluation and other tools for using Twitter better.
Tweet analysis
Two really good ways to dig a bit deeper into your tweet stats and trends:
•
•
www.twitter.com for finding top tweets – that is, most retweeted. These appear
at the top of the Twitter stream after searching on a specific phrase.
www.topsy.com – Good at identifying the tweets and article posts with most
mentions and finding out more detail on a particular tweet.
The Analytics graph gives you a chance to compare three search terms
[hashtags/words/phrases etc] for context.
Topsy is really helpful if you are working on a campaign or an issue that has
more than one hashtag associated with it as it can help you identify which is the
most used one, and therefore best to use to get your message across.
For example, International Women’s Day had several hashtags associated with
it: #IWD13, #IWD, #womensday, #internationalwomensday.
Other Twitter clients
Twitter’s website is not the only option you have for interacting with your followers.
If you only follow a small number of people, and only have a handful of followers, then
the web interface should be sufficient. But if you need to manage a larger group,
schedule your tweets, or use more than one Twitter account, you’ll want to look at a
Twitter client.
You’ll find a ridiculous number of Twitter clients for the desktop, phones and tablets.
There are hundreds of possible options, but below are a few of the more commonly
used clients in government.
•
HootSuite is the Twitter client used by several government departments. It lets
you connect via multiple accounts, and also works with Facebook, Google+,
LinkedIn, Foursquare, WordPress and others. It also allows you to schedule
posts and share accounts with team members (and allows you to set
permission levels for users). HootSuite also has an Apple version for Twitter. It
has free and paid for versions. It has a very good analytics feature.
•
TweetDeck is a power-user’s app that focuses mainly on Twitter. Use this one if
you don’t need to mix and match social networks. It’s available as a native
client for Windows and Mac, or you can use it as a Web service or Chrome
extension. TweetDeck is free.
•
CoTweet is another team-oriented client that supports Twitter and Facebook. It
has team and monitoring features that are well-suited for corporate use.
Twitter Influencers
Social media is a great way to develop strategic partnerships with key
influencers and stay informed about what’s happening in your sector of work. You can
also build up relationships with influential tweeters and use them to help amplify your
message. But you must focus your efforts to ensure that time spent in social media
packs a punch.
Ultimately, the goal is to find individual influencers and the online sites or communities
where they are spending their time. When you find an influencer on one channel, you’ll
likely find this same influencer on a number of other online channels as well.
For example, an influential blogger will likely have a heavy presence on Twitter.
Similarly, the admin of a popular Facebook page may be managing an active LinkedIn
Group and also be on Twitter.
Here are a few tools to help you identify influential tweeters:
•
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•
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Twitter.com (free)
Sprout Social (free and paid for)
Topsy (free)
Social Bro (paid for)
Sentiment Analysis
Sentiment analysis is used to monitor positive and negative feelings about an issue or
your organisation. Sentiment analysis is very much in its early days. No tool is 100%
accurate, but you can use sentiment analysis to begin to give you a benchmark on
your social media activity.
Some departments monitor the trend in sentiment on a few specific issues of
importance to them. It allows them to begin to establish a benchmark for how noisy
and how positive or negative the general flow of social comment is on a particular
issue. Over time, it will be able to help to tell whether social media activity is effective
– something that’s pretty useful at a time of rapid change in the media environment
and new social media tactics are being tried.
A few tools that may be worth trying:
Free:
•
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Twitter.com – advanced search – Twitter only
Twitrratr – Twitter only
Open Social Buzz – Twitter, Facebook and Google
Paid for – Twitter only (budget)
•
Topsy Pro – Twitter
Paid for – cross platform – Facebook/Twitter/Google +, etc (budget)
•
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Social Mention
Sprout Social
Hootsuite Pro
Trackur
Paid for (expensive)
•
Radian 6
Running Twitter Chats
Twitter chats are scheduled gatherings of people on Twitter to discuss pretty much
anything that interests them, using a hashtag to keep track of the conversation. There
are chats for everything from blogging to art to agriculture.
Format of chat
The first thing to think about is what type of chat you’d like to run. These are a few
different kinds of chats you might think about running:
1. Single Topic, Question Based
One topic is set with questions asked by participants around this set issues. This
could be around a specific policy area with questions flowing in to be answered by
a central tweeter.
2. Single Topic, Freeflow
One topic is set for each chat and conversation can just flow naturally. NHS social
media chat and local government social media chats run this way. Each week a
specific top is set and discussion flows around that.
3. Q&A
This could be around a specific policy area with a Q&A style chat with a minister or
other senior official. The Foreign Office has run very successful Q&A style chats on
specific issues with the Foreign Secretary.
Timing
You'll also want to make sure you pick a time that doesn't conflict with a pre-existing
chat in topic areas that might attract similar chatters. Think about the time of day if you
are aiming to engage overseas audiences or working parents or younger people. If
you’re not sure what timings would best suit your audience it may be worth trying a
variety of different timeslots over a period of weeks/months.
Hashtags
Your hashtag should be as short and explanatory as possible. Everyone who
participates in the chat will have to use the hashtag with every tweet, so the shorter
the tag, the more space they have to write chat messages. For example, the NHS
social media chat uses #nhssm and the local government social media Twitter chat
uses #lgovsm.
Promotion
Be sure to give thought to how you want to promote your chat and start doing this well
in advance of the chat itself. Don’t just rely on Twitter to promote it, use your other
channels as well.
Follow up
Post a transcript of the chat on your website or on Storify or somewhere else so that
people can follow up on it.
More Twitter Etiquette for advanced users
Don’t set up auto-tweeting of content from other accounts. Chances are your users
already follow the organisation you are auto-tweeting.
Instead, add value by carefully selecting what you retweet to your followers. Add
your own voice and opinion. Your followers are your community. Think of yourself
as a curator.
If you have a lot of tweets to send out – say you are alerting followers to the
publication of several news stories. Space them out over a period of time rather
than sending a big block of tweets.