Starting today, you will move from blogging to micro-blogging. This means you will *not* write a blog post next Mon or the following Mon. Instead, you will "tweet". In this lab and class, you'll learn all about Twitter.
Starting today, you will:
- Tweet at least 3 times per day
- @reply at least 4 times in the next 14 days
- Follow 3 companies and 3 individuals (activity 4 in lab)
You can tweet on anything related to this class.
- Tweets on the reading for next week should be tagged #itec335mobile
- Tweets on the reading for the following week should be tagged #itec335politics
- Tweets on assignment3 should use your custom tag from delicious
You can also do random tweets on unrelated topics. These will not be counted as one of your 3 tweets for the day, but they will make the assignment more fun.
Activity One: Get set up on Twitter
Go to http://www.twitter.com/signup
Write your username on the board
Write your first "tweet". Anything you like (just keep it clean).
Start "following" meIn the update box on Twitter, type "Follow Melander"
Now start following everyone in the classIn the update box on Twitter, type "Follow {username}"
Repeat for every student in the class
Once you are done, you should be following 18 students plus me
Activity Two: Learn Twitter commands
Twitter is easy to use but it does have a few features that you need to learn. You can "tweet", you can "follow" people, you can "reply" to people, and you can send direct & private messages. We've already done the first two. Let's look at "reply" and "direct messages".
Now that you are following the other students, reply to one of their tweets.
Choose any tweet from any student (or me)
Click the circular reply symbol next to the tweet (on the right hand side)
You'll see @{username} in the update box. This means you are replying to that username.
Write a reply (anything you like) to that user
Write a reply to another person by typing @{username} in the update box (instead of clicking on the reply symbol)
Send a direct message instead. This is a private message seen only by that person.In the update box, type "d {username} message" (the "d" means direct message to {username})
Determine on your account settings.Click on "settings"
Make sure your timezone is correct
Click on "notices" and set your preferencesDo you want to be notified if you haven't tweeted in 24 hours?
Do you want to receive an email when you have a new follower?
Do you want to receive an email when you get a direct message?
Which @reply's do you want to see?Reply settings are a little confusing. You can decide whose "@reply" tweets you want to see.
Read more here: http://help.twitter.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=85
You probably want to leave the default "@replies to the people I'm following".
Check your replies and direct messagesClick on "replies" (on the right side) to see if anyone replied to one of your tweets
Click on "direct messages" (on the right side) to see any direct messages sent to you
Activity Three: Tags and Twitter
As you already know, tags (labels) are important for promoting your blog. They are also important for categorizing and finding things in twitter.
Create a new tweet using a tag. Write your update and include "#itec335rocks" somewhere in the text. It can be anywhere in the tweet.
Now search for all the tweets by tag or keyword.
Go to http://search.twitter.com/
First, check out some of the "trending topics". These are "hot topics" on twitter today.
Now enter "#itec335rocks" in the search box to see all the tweets tagged by students in the class.
Activity Four: Find companies and people of interest
Follow 3 Companies
Learn what companies are doing on Twitter. Find at least 3 companies to follow over the 2 week period.
Use this list http://www.socialbrandindex.com/twitter to find companies of interest.
An easy way to follow is to click "follow" under the profile picture when viewing the company's twitter page.
Follow 3 People
You are subscribing to blog feeds for 4 bloggers for Assignment 3. Are any of them on Twitter? If so, start following them.
Use Google to search for them (e.g. "twitter" "name of blogger"). Also check their blog to see if they have a twitter feed.
If that doesn't work, you can use http://www.socialbrandindex.com/twitter/executives to find notable people and executives to follow. Find at least 3 people to follow over the 2 week period.
Activity Five: Visualize
Take a closer look at the Twitter "mashups". Any site can access the public Twitter data and combine it with other data/images to create new "mashups"
Popularity http://twitterholic.com/ or http://tweetvolume.com/
Maps http://twittervision.com/
Moods http://twistori.com/
{Optional} Activity Six: Send tweets from your phone
Tweet by texting to 40404. Set up your phone here: http://twitter.com/devices
{Optional} Activity Seven: Add tweets to your blog or Facebook
You can send your tweets directly to you blog using this widget:
http://help.twitter.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=232
You can also use Twitter to update your Facebook status
http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2231777543
