Social & Digital Media Resources

Tweet Tweet! A Few of My Favorite Twitter Tips 

Dr. Rose Hayden-Smith

Twitter is my favorite social media platform and I use it extensively. I currently helm three Twitter accounts. I hope that these resources will help you; they have certainly helped me.

I use scheduling tools quite a lot for my Twitter activity. Hootsuite recently changed its interface and it’s not as intuitive as the old interface. As a result, I’m using Hootsuite less, and the in-platform post schedulers provided by Facebook and Twitter more.

Twitter’s in-platform scheduling feature has a quirk: you have to be signed up for Twitter Ads to unlock it. This requires having a debit card on file (although you are not required to advertise). I have not created an ad campaign – nor do I intend to – but again, having my debit card on file opens up the scheduling feature.

This scheduling feature has saved me much time in the last couple of months. As I encounter content I want to Retweet (RT), I can schedule it for a later time, so that I’m not RTing many things at once. Some folks won’t be comfortable doing this, but it’s been quite helpful to me in my work.

I also write goals for each social media platform – typically bullet points – on an index card, and revisit it a few times a year. My goals for Twitter in 2021 include:

• Focusing on sharing high-level content in areas where I have disciplinary expertise (food systems, history,  digital communications);
• Shining (even more) light on individuals and organizations whose work matters;
• Connecting with more people whose work I admire;
• Using the scheduling feature to make life easier; and
• Threading discussions more (using Twitter for narrative storytelling).

Just having simple goals like this really helps me. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash