The slides for my presentation at the ARA Scotland conference on 1st June 2012

1. For Archivists and Archives
Kiara King | ARA Scotland – The Born (Digital) Identity | 1st June 2012

2. What is twitter?
• A form of microblogging – like texting with a max of 140 characters per
message or “tweet”
• An online social networking
and microblogging service that
enables instant communication
• 465 million user accounts
globally – 23.8 million in the UK
• 175 million tweets sent per
day

3. What is it for?
Twitter is “an efficient platform for
conveying news and short pieces of
information directly to interested people”
~ Kate Theimer, Archivist

4. Why?
For Archives:
• Promote your archive and its collections to a wider audience
• Link to your archives' website or blog
• Get feedback from others about your services
For Archivists:
• Build and maintain a professional profile
• Connect and learn from other information professionals
• Keep up to date with news, articles, conferences

5. How to get started
• Think about it
• Sign up and create an account
• Search and follow people or organisations
• Tweet!
• Engage and build your profile by
retweeting, replying and reacting

6. Twitter lingo & conventions
• Tweet = to send a message
• @username = your username, e.g. @ballasttrust
• Follow = to subscribe to a user’s tweets and receive updates from them
• RT = retweet or repost a message from another user
• DM = a direct (private) message
• #hashtag = tags or keywords used to track events, people and activities
e.g. #archives
• @mention = include someone’s username to mention them in a message
or reply to them

7. Tips: Hashtags
• Hashtags are keywords or tags preceded by a '#' symbol
• It is an easy way to locate information on a particular topic, or get your
message out to a wider audience
• People often use Twitter's Search page to locate information
• For example you can use #archives to share stories about archives,
#DigitalPreservation, #askarchivists (on June 9th)
• Hashtags are a great way to include your tweets in the conversation

8. Tips: Retweets
• You can use "RT" to repeat information sent out by one of your
followers, share:
− Positive feedback about your searchroom services
− Unusual finds by researchers
− Media use of your collections
• Or use Twitter's "retweet" link to republish someone's original tweet on
your own profile page
• Retweeting gives tweets composed by others a second life, by
rebroadcasting that information across to your own list of followers

9. Tips: Following
How to find people and archives to follow?
• Twitter Lists
Use lists of archives and archivists that are available on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/#!/followanarchive/europe-archives
https://twitter.com/#!/archivesnext/archives-on-twitter/members
Also see the archives 2.0 wiki by Kate Theimer:
http://archives2point0.wetpaint.com/page/Twitter+%28microblogs%29
• Check out who other people are following for inspiration

10. How to manage your twitter
• Access it online www.twitter.com
• Or via a mobile device using twitter apps for your phone/tablet
• Use 3rd party services to monitor and manage your mentions, RTs
and followers e.g. hootsuite or tweetdeck (now part of twitter)

11. Hootsuite

12. How to share your twitter
• Tell your researchers and public that you are tweeting – publish your
@username
• Get other twitter users to follow you and subscribe to your tweets
• Anyone can view your feed online https://twitter.com/#!/username
• Display your twitter feed on your website or blog
• Join some of the archive/archivists lists on Twitter
• Stay active!

13. Preservation
How to preserve your hard work?
There are external services for this:
• Twapperkeeper – now part of Hootsuite’s paid for services
• The Archivist http://archivist.visitmix.com/
Or subscribe to your own twitter feed through a reader service (like
google reader
BUT the library of congress is archiving all twitter tweets as well!

14. Archives – what to tweet?

15. E.g. News & Updates - @PKCArchive

16. E.g. Livetweeting - @ukwarcabinet

17. E.g. Diary extracts - @QueenVictoriaRI

18. E.g. Projects - @eVII_PO

19. Twitter for professionals
• Follow professional bodies on twitter
to keep up-to-date with what they are
doing easily
• Find other archives or archivists that
inspire you and connect with them
• Favourite certain tweets to bookmark
and read later when you have time!

20. What next?
• Have a look for yourself!
• Investigate what other archives are doing
• Check out @AskArchivists on 9th June
• Think about whether its suitable for your organisation or would it be
useful for you professionally
• Have a go