I’ve put together a handy quick-start guide to Twitter for people who work in and around government.
I have had loads of requests for this, from people who can see that Twitter is taking off in a big way, but who also just can’t quite make their way around the service enough to make the most of it.
The guide takes absolute beginners to Twitter right from the start – explaining what Twitter is, and how to sign up – right through to replying, retweeting, hashtagging and using tools to measure success.
It’s UK focused, so if anyone would like it localised, let me know. Alternatively, as it is published under Creative Commons, you could use it as the base of your own guide.
It’s free to download, just click the cover graphic or the text link below!
Download Learning Pool’s Twitter Guide
I’d love to know what you make of it, and if you have any suggestions for an updated version. Maybe you have an idea for another subject crying out for the Briggs treatment. Drop me your comments using [email protected] or send them via Twitter to @davebriggs.
Thanks for sharing, Dave. Obviously a great deal of work went into this.
Thanks, Dave! Just time for a quick skim, but looks great.
In the U.K., Neil Williams (@NeillyNeil) with the Dept. for Business, Innovation and Skills, pushed out a 20-page Twitter guidebook for government that snowballed into quite a good bit of media coverage on both sides of the pond, including stories at Mashable, the New York Times, AP and the BBC. Some of the headlines and leads poked fun at the length of the guide when talking about a service limited to 140 characters per message, but overall the piece was recieved well by govies and social media evangelists alike (though InformationWeek’s Mitch Wagner had some qualms). It should be noted that both USA.gov and HHS both published similar (but shorter) primers in July as well.
@Sam and @Adriel – thanks guys!
@Steve – Yup, I know – and work with, on occasion! – Neil and his twitter strategy for government departments gets a name check in this document. This is a more operational, hands guide than his work.
I just realized my comment may have come across rude…it was actually a pull from a blog post I wrote back in July, thought it would be useful to include links to other resources like Neil’s and the HHS and USA.gov overviews for folks reading your guide…but I dumped it in and hit add before I wanted to.
I should have said: “this is cool Dave, some other resources folks may want to check out would include….”
@Steve – not at all! Thanks for contributing some useful resources to the discussion!
thanks for the resources. Let’s get these to more people in gov!
@Kathleen – thank you! Feel free to distribute it round to colleagues!