Tweeting the Meeting

This post was written by Dan McCloskey, MAHSLIN Webmaster.

Last year was the first MAHSLIN Annual Meeting that included a fairly successful campaign to chronicle the event’s happenings on Twitter. This year, we’d like to step up those efforts and encourage as many meeting participants as possible to contribute.

At least partially inspired by MLA’s recent efforts, I decided to create–OK, actually I “borrowed” much of this from MLA’s site–a really basic Twitter tutorial to help folks who need a little encouragement to get started and/or become familiar enough to engage in, or simply to follow, the discussion that will take place on May 6.

Step 1: Create an account

• If you already have a Twitter account, proceed to step 2.
• Otherwise, go to http://www.twitter.com
• Click the “Sign Up” button.
• Complete the form to create your account.
• If you need additional help, you can watch this short video.

Step 2: Follow MAHSLIN on Twitter

• Click the “Who To Follow” link at the top of the page.
• Search for MAHSLIN and click the “Follow” button.
• Find at least 3 more people to follow. The best way to do this is to look at the list of people that MAHSLIN follows. You’ll find quite a few of your colleagues on that list, including current MAHSLIN Board members Elaine Alligood, Sally Gore and Brandy King.
• For additional suggestions on finding people to follow, check out step 2 of the MLA Twitter Tutorial.

Step 3: Searching and using hashtag #MAHSLIN

A hashtag is a user-driven convention for connecting a conversation on Twitter. The official hashtag for the meeting is #MAHSLIN. When you search this hashtag in Twitter you will find all the tweets from users who add this to their post. It’s a great way to discover tweets from users even if you do not follow them. Adding a hashtag to your tweet lets you participate in the conversation and can be used anywhere in a post.

Search for the hashtag #MAHSLIN. Prior to the meeting, you’ll only see a few tweets related to planning and promotion, but during the meeting, hopefully the conversation will be much livelier.

Step 4: Messaging

Review the following information about messaging in Twitter. You may find this useful at the conference.

• Replies: @username; Use the at sign (@) and the Twitter username of the person you wish to contact then type a message. These replies are public and can be seen by others.
• ReTweet: RT @username; When someone you are following tweets something you want to share with your friends use the ReTweet option. Others will then be able to see the original message.
• Hashtags: In your tweet, adding the number sign (#) to a commonly used keyword adds the tweet to other users’ results when they search that particular hashtag. When “Tweeting the Meeting,” add #MAHSLIN to all of your tweets to be part of the dialogue.

Step 5: Twitter Tools

For some useful information about Twitter apps available for your mobile device, see step 5 of the MLA Twitter tutorial.

That’s about all you need to know to get started. Remember to follow @MAHSLIN on Twitter, and to search and use the #MAHSLIN hashtag to take part in all the information sharing on May 6.

If you have any questions, please feel free to shoot me an email at dmccloskey@partners.org.

Looking forward to seeing and “hearing” what you have to tweet at the meeting.

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