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Building your regional wildland fire science and management community in 140 characters or less
2013 UPDATE
Marjie Brown | Science Writer | Social Media Community Manager Firescience.Gov @FirescienceGov @sciencefire wildfirewriter@gmail.com 801-971-8781
Why Twitter?
The social media landscape is an ever-expanding moving target that can be completely overwhelming. Because overwhelmed is already how we roll, its important to carefully pick and choose our social media channels based on the realities of our workload and skills. Twitter is the social media platform for the overwhelmed. It has the fewest barriers to entry, the lowest time obligation, the fewest technical/skill requirements, and the easiest learning curve, while providing the potential to reach and influence the most stakeholders. If you do nothing else in the social mediasphere - get on Twitter.
What it is:
An essential component of a 21st century communications toolbox. The way to keep your finger on the real-time pulse of the rapidly growing, digitally savvy, smartphone/ tablet-toting component of the wildland fire science and management community. The place to be to put your work and knowledge on the radar of local and national media when they are casting about for experts.
What it isnt:
A substitute for face-to-face engagement and interaction. The place to reach everyone. A stand-alone communications solution.
Best Practices
Tweet
A silent Twitter account sends a message. Kind of like the houses on Halloween that have a glowing pumpkin on the porch but dont answer the door. We set this up but we really dont want to be on Twitter. The wildland fire science and management Twitter community has no relevance to our mission. (Ouch.) None of our constituents are on Twitter Maybe theyre not because youre not. Be the early adopter. You get out of it what you put into it.
Engage
Number of followers is important. The degree to which you engage with them is more important. What does it mean to engage on social media? Its the digital equivalent to engaging with a live human right in front of you. You look them in they eye, invite them in, pay attention, listen to what they care about, give them a nod, offer something of value, observe their response, get input, share experience, say thank you, tell others how great they are, invite others to join the party. Twitter is a two-way street. Work to go beyond using it simply as a bullhorn to announce upcoming webinars, workshops, newsletters and other media products or events. Tweet during and after your events: Tweet key points, invite attendees to post questions via Twitter by creating and using an event #hashtag. Shout out a thank you to the 104 attendees from four agencies across eleven states (its OK to brag). Tweet the link to the on-demand option as soon as possible. Invite feedback. Did that work for you all? Anything we didn't get to that we can help with? This is engagement - the effort that provides real value, raises credibility and expands your impact on Twitter. It shows you are listening as well as broadcasting. More people will see your value, recognize your influence, and engage with you. When they engage with you, they bring more followers because theyre talking about you by referencing your Twitter @name. Tweeters who have no idea who you are become curious because someone they respect just mentioned what you do. They click on your @name to go to your profile. They see that theyve struck gold for relevant fire science and management information specific to their territory. They click Follow - and so it goes.
Use #hashtags
The # symbol before a word or phrase is called a hashtag. Hashtags serve as searchable labels for a topic or a conversation, and are useful for finding out whats going on right now. By adding the # at the end of or within your text, your tweet will appear in a Twitter search for that word or phrase. Hashtags help users zero in on content that they care about, and filter out what they dont. You can search topics by hashtag, or follow a hashtag to see tweets from a fire, conference or workshop. When referencing fire information specific to a state in your tweet, incorporate the common fire hashtag format: #COfire #NMfire #ORfire #FLfire. Other common hashtags in the fire science and management community: #rxfire #firescience #WXfire #firesmoke #AQfire Heres textbook use of hashtags incorporated into the body of tweets by David Godwin @SEfirescience:
Listen
If you use Twitter for the sole purpose of pushing out science youre missing out on the opportunity to determine whether or not your followers care. Use Twitter to get their thoughts on what they like and dont like about your product offerings. 4
Encourage feedback and make it a priority to respond. Pass it on to others in your organization to help drive change. Take notes about what tweets get the most traction. Report this to your coworkers so they can be cognizant of the products and information that are resonating with your audience. A good understanding of your audiences values and opinions adds value for your followers.
Strategy
Having a social media strategy is important. Creating a complex strategy is overrated, especially when you are just starting out and you are all youve got. You dont have full (or even part-time) time social media staff. Many of you are just learning how to ride the Twitter bike. At this point youre simply trying to figure out how to pedal to the end of the driveway and back, and trying to find the time to do it. Your social media strategy can evolve as your social media fluency evolves and your social media presence matures - when youre comfortable riding around the neighborhood, familiar with the landscape, and maybe feeling ready to plan a tour, and perhaps have another body and brain to help you. For now, keep it simple to keep it going. Your strategy can be as simple as: Know your organizational goals and use Twitter to support them. Learn to use Twitter effectively so you arent wasting your time, o r that of your followers and fans. Tweet daily to: 7 Increase visibility and accessibility Establish and broaden credibility Promote your events and products Understand and respond to the needs of your audience Demonstrate your value, and that you are a human. Support your mission Support each other
Measurement
Good news! Twitter analytics are EASY to track! There are many 3rd party platforms that can help you map and measure your success on Twitter. My favorite is Crowdbooster, an interactive tool with a clear graphic interface that gives you the information you need at a glance. Like other Twitter analytics tools you can set it up to email your Twitter numbers to you d aily or weekly. Its the elegant interactivity and accurate real-time reporting that I really like. Easily see how many followers saw each tweet, see your best performing tweets, and your your biggest influencers (the people/entities with lots and lots of followers that retweet you most often). Crowdbooster clearly shows how many people and organizations youve reached with your tweets. This is a measure of your impact and influence. This is much more telling than the number of followers you have, and a wonderful little piece of data you can export to help demonstrate the reach of your consortia efforts. Once youre really in the Twitter groove, its $8 per month well spent. Heres a shot of the interface:
Twitter Manners
Keep it short
Short, concise tweets are more readable and retweetable. Just because you are allowed 140 characters doesnt mean you have to use them all. Its actually better if you dont. 8
This will translate Facebook posts to Twitter effectively. If you d ont take these steps, your auto-tweeted Facebook posts can end up looking like this:
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Also work to thank the individual firefighter or tiny, invisible rural fire department. They are stunned. Theyve been seen and acknowledged. They love it. They can be counted on to connect your products to others who have never heard of you.
Recommending users to each other helps improve everyones Twitter experience. It also helps you to see your reach, and can act as a motivator for becoming more engaged. You might be surprised who noticed your content and deemed it valuable enough to recommend. I certainly was when @KQEDscience and @NASA_EO gave @FirescienceGov a #FF shoutout.
When youre ready to get fancy, you can group your #FF recommendations by type. Recommend a list of tweeting scientists one week, a list of wildlife refuges the next, fire operations folks the next. Lather, rinse,repeat.
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Heres a sample: Original tweet: The UUU Extension Service offers the following guide on selecting fire-resistant plants to help protect your home. bit.lyINDEY26 (145 characters)
Modified: (shorter) MT@UUFirescience UUU Extension Guide: Selecting fire-resistant plants to help you protect your home bit.lyINDEY26 (121 characters! Woot!)
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More Resources
Visit the Firescience.gov Twitter profile page. View the the list of over 450 users that we follow. Click Follow next to their @name to follow them too. Dont miss @fireinfogirl, @wildfiretoday, @nature_LANDFIRE. Find yourselves and each other on our JFSP Regional Consortia List Handy Twitter following FAQs 26 tips for Twitter Success from socialmediaexplorer Journal Article Tweets May Predict Citations - Scientific American Podcast
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Laurie Gharis - Social Media Use in Natural Resources Outreach - recorded webinar Poster: The Twitter Social Media Platform- The Southern Fire Exchange experience in fire science communication Scientists and science on Twitter More scientists who are doing great job on Twitter Peruse this list of the folks @sfriedscientist follows Social Media Performance Metrics: What You Need to Know - a webinar from howto.gov Hootsuite is free. It has a built in URL shortener, character counter, scheduler, and an auto -scheduler that analyzes the Twitter activity of your followers and sends your tweets when your audience is more likely to see them. It allows you to see your timeline, your scheduled tweets, tweets from your lists, tweets youve sent, users whove retweeted or mentioned you, and any hashtags youre following all in one screen that scrolls horizontally. This eliminates the need to click to different screens within Twitter itself to see these streams, or to click out, copy and paste URLs to shorten them. You can also use Hootsuite it to post to your Facebook page simultaneously (but not all the time), and preview how the post will look before you send it. Crowdbooster Twitter analytics tool ------------------------------------------I hope this guide will help you stretch your legs in the fire science and management social media sphere. Social Media is a wildly dynamic field, with platforms and methods changing and evolving at a dizzying pace. None of us can know it all. I certainly do not. I learn from others every single day. I welcome your feedback and suggestions. What tricks, tools and practices have I left out? Have more questions? Suggestions? Let me know at wildfirewriter@gmail.com, send me a DM @sciencefire or @FirescienceGov, or give me a call - 801-971-8781. Marjie Brown Science Writer / Social Media Community Manager Joint Fire Science Program
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