2. Social Media for Health Advocates Twitter 101 @YI_Care

3. Agenda What is Twitter? Who uses Twitter? Outreach methods

4. What is Twitter? Twitter is an information network made up of 140 character messages called tweets People, organizations, and businesses use it to discover and share new information Followers receive messages in their timeline that includes a feed of all the accounts they subscribe to, or “follow”

5. Retweet is the Twitter version of email forwarding Name and Twitter handle Share tweets with important updates via email “Favorite” is similar to bookmarking your favorite tweets #Hashtags identify the content of the tweet. Start a local or national conversation Links can be abbreviated to allow for more room in your tweet Anatomy of a Tweet

6. Who uses Twitter? Over 200 million active users Over 400 million tweets per day Young adults between the ages 18-29 make up the largest demographic of Twitter users 1 in 10 African American internet users visit Twitter on a typical day 54% of Twitter users access the service through their mobile phones

7. And the network continues to grow…

8. Use Effective Methods of Interaction on Twitter Listen Twitter SearchHashtags Engage Ask questions Respond in real time Fun and informative posts Build RelationshipsID InfluencersShare infoConversationsShout outs

9. Use Effective Methods of Interaction on Twitter Listen Twitter SearchHashtags Engage Ask questions Respond in real time Fun and informative posts Build RelationshipsID InfluencersShare infoConversationsShout outs

10. Twitter Search Twitter’s built in search engine allows you to “listen” to conversations about topics important to your outreach targets

11. Hashtags The “#” symbol turns a word into a link to all tweets with that tag Hashtags allow you to participate in real-time conversations about a topic or event Combining Twitter’s search feature and hashtags creates an enormous, real-time social search engine

12. Use Effective Methods of Interaction on Twitter Listen Twitter SearchHashtags Engage Ask questions Respond in real time Fun and informative posts Build RelationshipsID InfluencersShare infoConversationsShout outs

13. Ask questions to start conversations with your followers Be sure to respond in real time so they keep coming back Ask Questions

14. Twitter Chats Twitter chats (aka forums or town halls) are a great way to engage with other activists or outreach targets Set a specific time and date Use a specific hashtag for questions and comments (YI used #LAMayor for this Twitter candidate’s forum) Participants can submit questions ahead of time by tweeting at you, or they can ask questions in real time

15. Stay Fun and Informative Not every post needs to be related to your work Establish yourself as a source of fun and interesting information

16. Use Effective Methods of Interaction on Twitter Listen Twitter SearchHashtags Engage Ask questions Respond in real time Fun and informative posts Build RelationshipsID InfluencersShare infoConversationsShout outs

17. ID Influencers and Share Info Identifying influencers can greatly influence your reach on Twitter Twitter users can use @mentions to interact with each other and share info Users can Retweet (RT) messages their followers will find interesting

18. Shout Outs Give and you shall receive

19. Follow us @YI_Care Keep in Touch