Okay mamas, a few people people posted in the group wanting to get a bit more information on how we should utilize sites like Twitter.
I'm going to first start with the basics. Twitter is a site that allows you to make posts containing no more than 140 characters. Due to the low character amount, posters need to get the most out of their "tweets." There are even sites that specifically cater to helping you shorten up URLs and picture links to be more Twitter friendly.
You want your messages to be short, but sweet. We're going to start with going over the use of hashtags (#).
Putting the "#" sign in front of a word creates a link to others using that same #word combination. For instance, there is a group of doulas, headed by the lovely Desirre Andrews, that meets up once a week using the tag "#doulaparty". Some common ones for breastfeeding moms include:
#breastfeeding
#BFing
#bfchat
#bfcafe
If you want to gain exposure to this cause, posting to those specific hashtags will help. The hashtag for our personal cause is "#BFback2SesameSt". No need to worry over the capitalization, just "bfback2sesamest" will work just the same! EVERY POST YOU MAKE about this cause would benefit from having the HT added to it! Also consider adding the "#" symbol in front of other words that correspond with the people you want to appeal to.
For instance, if I was posting about trying out the "no poo" method I may type:
"Just started out trying #NoPoo and so far it's going well, so happy to be using a #natural method instead of using commercial #shampoo!"
That would then be posted on a list for #NoPoo, #natural, and #shampoo. And to find others interested in the same things you can always click the hashtag link or search for it specifically at the top of Twitter.
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Next is how to use "at mentions." At mentions are when you tag someone specific in your post, just like you can now on Facebook. For our cause a good one would be "@SesameStreet. It would then list your post on their list of @mentions and they would personally see what you said. It's a way of DIRECT communication.
This is also good if you see that someone else has brought up the cause and you want to acknowledge them for their help!
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Another great thing you can do is link things using a shorter URL. There are many sites that will do this for you. You just go to them, put in the URL you need shortened and they will spit out one that is much more tweet-friendly. Some sites that do this are:
http://www.tinyurl.com
https://bitly.com/
goo.gl/ and
tiny.cc/
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There is also "retweeting". A retweet is when someone posts something that you agree with or want to share with others, and you post that to your own Twitter account. If you hover over a post you like, it will be highlighted and the options to do things such as reply or retweet will pop up. Choose what you want to do and the rest of that explains itself :). Ask others to retweet your posts for the cause to get maximum exposure.
So there are your basics when it comes to Twitter. If all else fails, here's a simple tweet to use that will hit all the notes above:
Did u know that @sesamestreet showed #bfing n the 70s&80s? Help bring that back! http://tinyurl.com/BFback2SesameSt #BFback2SesameSt #bfchat
There you go ladies, if you need anymore help feel free to let me know on my Facebook (Christina Hudler) or by e-mailing nlapcoalition@gmail.com
I'll be posting more guides to other social networking sites whenever I can today :)
