Nearly every topic is currently being discussed. As educators we often want to define and control that conversation, but we can often be more effective if we identify and join that conversation instead.

1. Finding Online
Conversations
Bob Bertsch
NDSU Agriculture
Communication

2. Listen
Time investment: 15 min./day
Tools: Twitter, Google Alerts, SocialMention, Feeds
Objective: To listen to and learn from the people we serve

3. Google Alerts
Google Alerts are e-mail updates of the latest relevant Google
results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or
topic.
• monitoring a developing news story
• keeping current on your topic area
• looking for mentions of your organization or office

4. Google Alerts
• go to www.google.com/alerts
• enter a term
• choose the type of results you want
• news
• blogs
• realtime
• videos
• discussions
• choose how often to receive alerts
• choose selected results or all results
• enter your e-mail address
• create or login with Google account to manage your alerts

5. Socialmention
Social media search and analysis
• search all or selected social media
• create e-mail alerts
• tap into the conversation

6. Socialmention
• Go to www.socialmention.com
• enter a term
• select all or some social media sources
• click search
• create an e-mail alert
• search term
• social media sources
• language
• frequency
• e-mail address

7. Search for Conversations on Twitter
• Go to twitter.com or search.twitter.com
• Type a topic in the search bar
• Use the “Tweets” tab for people who have
tweeted the term

8. Search for Conversations on Twitter
Check for better search results by using a
hashtag.
• Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding
additional context to tweets.
• You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash
symbol: #hashtag.
• Hashtags were developed as a means to create "groupings"
on Twitter, without having to change the basic service.

9. Search for Conversations on Twitter
Look for existing real-time Twitter
conversations
• Twitter Chat Schedule -
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0A
hisaMy5TGiwcnVhejNHWnZlT3NvWFVPT3Q4NkIzQ
VE&hl=en#gid=1