We're thrilled to see you on TweetCommons and, hopefully, using Twitter. We've been getting some questions about how these resources might be used most effectively, so we've put this guide together to get everybody on the same page. We welcome you to click on any of the questions below to find an explanation which will be of use to you.
1. What makes Twitter different and uniquely valuable?
Twitter is part of a bigger trend called social media, also known as New Media. The idea of New Media recognizes the power of anybody and everybody to harness the internet and make themselves heard.
This is a fundamental shift in the way information is spread. Instead of a central news authority which decides what is and isn't useful, people decide for themselves by judging what each user has to offer, and deciding whether or not that user is worth following.
Almost every major news company has a Twitter account at this point, and those accounts do tend to get a lot of followers simply because of name recognition. The tweets, however, tend to be little more than a headline with a link to a news story. This is admirable, but little different from many other tools that have been around for years, such as RSS feeds.
New media takes greater hold when the people using it use it to interact. Instead of sending a press release into the ether and hoping people read it, what now happens is people retweet it, passing it on to the people who follow them, or respond. Response can give quick feedback useful to the original poster, but it can also stimulate conversation. This conversation is Twitter's key selling point, and there are a number of ways Twitter facilitates it.
2. How do you have a conversation on Twitter?
Every conversation starts with a statement of some kind. These statements are the sorts of tweets you are most likely to see. Unlike a conversation in real life, there is no impetus to respond to these statements unless you feel driven to do so.
If a tweet does inspire you to respond, there are a few ways you can do it.
@ reply (pronounced at-reply)
If you want to respond to the user directly, you can do something called an @ reply. Usernames on Twitter are distinguished with a @ right before the name (@MinJK, for example). If you want to reply to something @MinJK has said, simply begin your message with @MinJK and type away! This will be viewable by people who follow both you and @MinJK. Since @MinJK is a Member of Parliament, it will also show up on the TweetCommons home page.
For example, maybe you saw him tweet:
Just cooked a curry dish @ home. Message to self: next time, less curry paste, and use the mild kind instead of hot.
And have some useful information for him. Your message would look something like:
@MinJK The Co-Op Midtown Market in Calgary has a great selection! You should check them out.
Retweets
If you don't necessarily have a response but want people who follow you to see a tweet you came across, you can "retweet." Begin the message with the capitalized letters "RT" and then the original tweet preceded by the username of the person who said it. For example, maybe Olivia Chow tweeted:
http://twitpic.com/eilq3 - Check out the Bloor Borden farmers' market: shop local, support farmers
A retweet of that will look like:
RT @OliviaChow http://twitpic.com/eilq3 - Check out the Bloor Borden farmers' market: shop local, support farmers
Sometimes there will be enough room for you to add a brief response, and that would go before the retweet. It might look something like:
That's really cool! RT @OliviaChow http://twitpic.com/eilq3 - Check out the Bloor Borden farmers' market: shop local, support farmers
Hashtags
If it's a subject you're interested in and not a particular person, you may want to check the hashtag. Hashtags are denoted by a # preceding a word or phrase, and are used to unite tweets about a particular subject. Generally, the name of the hashtag will be relevant to the subject at hand. You might do a search on Twitter using the box on the right-hand sidebar for the subject, and then see a tweet using a hashtag. Clicking on the hashtag will take you to all of the recent tweets using it.
For example, the recent NDP convention in Halifax was denoted with the hashtag #hfx09. General Canadian politics fall under #cdnpoli, and the next federal election, whenever it may be, is discussed with #elxn41.
Whenever you come across a hashtag that looks interesting, click on it and see what you find! You can @ reply or retweet anything interesting that comes up, and maybe even forge some new connections.
Via acknowledgments
Sometimes you'll see a link or an idea in a tweet, and you'll want to pass it on to your followers. Retweeting is great a lot of the time, but you may also want to use your own witty or insightful commentary which will have too many characters to fit into the retweeting framework.
This is perfectly okay; you can and should go ahead with your tweet. But it was nice of that original tweeter to give you the idea or link, wasn't it? To give them that initial credit, include their Twitter username in parentheses at the end of your tweet.
So maybe you saw @mpjamesmoore link to some news:
This will be great! Top Canadian artists to re-create Beatles' Abbey Road live: http://tinyurl.com/nmprjv
And you want to pass it on with your own personal style, but you wouldn't have known about it without seeing @mpjamesmoore tweet about it. You should say something like:
The Queen is still our head of state, so it's time for us to cash in on Abbey Road! http://tinyurl.com/nmprjv (via @mpjamesmoore)
If somebody else sees your tweet and does something similar, they should credit both you and @mpjamesmoore like so:
Nobody will ever be like The Beatles, but some Canadians sure will try... http://tinyurl.com/nmprjv (via @TweetCommonsFan, @mpjamesmoore)
3. Why are Twitter messages so short?
This brevity is Twitter's beauty, and there are a few reasons the 140-character limit makes sense.
Since many twitter users follow many hundreds if not thousands of people, messages must be short enough to read digest and reply to most items on one's twitter feed. Long messages are cumbersome, and Twitter is useless if you don't have the patience to read the majority of what you see.
140 characters is just about enough to encompass a single thought. The foundational idea of Twitter is to answer the question, What are you doing? The answer to that question should not require an essay, or even anything much longer than a single sentence.
Additionally, many people like to tweet on the go using Blackberries, iPhones, and regular cell phones. Many cell phones incorporate length limits of 140 characters for any single text message, so Twitter's incorporation of this limit works nicely with the peripheral technology.
There are ways people get around this limit to incorporate more into their Twitter message. Links can be shortened using websites such as http://bit.ly and http://is.gd, and this helps a great deal. Also, do not be afraid to use standard internet shorthand. What may be unacceptable in a professional email is perfectly fine for Twitter. A few examples are:
b/c or bc = because
btwn = between
gr8 = great
pix or pics = pictures
re= regarding, or, about
w/ = with
You may also think of your tweet like an old-style telegram in which every word is worth money to the person sending it. If you browse tweets, you'll find that many of them sound almost like telegrams or headlines if you read them out loud. This saves characters on the function words you would need to write a proper essay, for example.
4. I'm an MP! How should I be using Twitter and TweetCommons?
As a Member of Parliament, your job in Ottawa is multi-faceted. You serve the constituents who elected you, the party who nominated you, and the country you live in. These duties all come into play when you use Twitter, but at the same time you should not feel restricted by them.
Especially in anticipation of an election season, Twitter and TweetCommons are not only the newest tools at your disposal, but they are also freely used, freely disseminated, and overflowing with creative potential.
Dialogue with the Canadian People
Perhaps you've gotten some ideas from our conversational pointers, and that is certainly a good start. You can see comments, concerns, and questions that have been directed at you specifically by clicking '@YourNameHere' on the right sidebar of your Twitter homepage. This is quick, easy, and a valuable use of your time. These people don't have to go all the way to Ottawa to get your personal attention now, and that's a very powerful thing.
Since voter apathy is a tangible problem in the Canadian political landscape, if you can engage Canadians in dialogue regarding issues of concern to them they will not only feel reassured of the power of our political system, they will also be inclined to vote for your party's nominee in their riding with the expectation that you will be working together in Parliament.
Dialogue with your Colleagues in Parliament
The other kind of conversation you should be having on Twitter is with other Members of Parliament. One growing concern is that Canada is increasingly administered behind closed doors (unfortunately, not too many people watch CPAC). By @ replying a colleague in response to a position you disagree with, or an issue you support, or something you think they should think about, you bring this dialogue into the open for everybody to see.
This does a number of important things for voters. It rephrases your personal platform into the context of a debate, rather than a series of platitudes on a website or commercial. It shows that you are engaged and interested in the specific goings-on in our government. It shows that you are accurately and actively representing the point of view your riding voted into office. Most importantly, it shows that you are willing to work with your colleagues to get things done for Canada, regardless of party affiliation.
Your Personal Story
Finally, people enjoy the reassurance that you are not really so different from them. Maybe you went to your child's sporting event or recital. A friend may have come over for dinner, refreshing your spirits. You could have had a wonderful day browsing the shops in your riding, supporting local commerce and interacting in normal, everyday life.
You might even have taken some pictures along the way. Everybody loves pictures! http://twitpic.com/ is a wonderful tool you can use to share them on Twitter. Just log in with your Twitter account information, click of 'Upload a Photo,' and the rest will explain itself. By default, it will tweet for you with a link to the picture and the text you included.
When you are faced with a limit of 140 characters, nothing is too trite or silly to share with everybody, especially if you are a person of particular interest to the public. Don't be shy! These personal tidbits make you more human and endearing in the public eye.
How TweetCommons can help
We have designed and organized the site specifically to make these conversations and stories easy to see, follow, digest, and respond to. As a Member of Parliament, your tweets will always go on the left side of the page. Comments directed at you and your colleagues go on the right, making it visually easy to track any kind of conversation that is happening. Our photostream feature also makes it easy to quickly browse whatever pictures have been posted by MPs.
By using these tools we have provided, you don't have to worry about scouring Twitter to find the people you need to be following. Not only are they all right on our main page, you aren't bothered with irrelevant chatter about what constituents have had for lunch. Of course, if you actually do care what they had for lunch, you can click their name and choose to follow them with your own Twitter account.
Our one and only goal is to facilitate these interactions between you, your colleagues, and the public. If there is anything we can do to make things easier for you, please do not hesitate to send an @ reply or direct message to @tweetcommons.
5. Sorry, but Twitter's not for me.
Aw, that's okay.
Perhaps instead of a Twitter site, you could think of TweetCommons as a useful Canadian political news source. It's updated in real time with lenient editing. Select people (our representatives in the government) are filtered so as to be more prominent, but everybody who talks about what's going on shows up.
Even if you don't actively participate in our political conversation online, what you see discussed here is still very relevant to your everyday life. Your government's decisions and laws affect you every day, and the people you see on the left side of our TweetStream make those decisions and laws. They decide things like how much tax you pay, how you and yours may be educated, which jobs are available, and what you as a citizen are entitled to. Your health and well being are in their hands.
Bringing up politics might not always be the popular thing to do, but remember: the beauty of Twitter is that it's opt-in. Nobody's forcing you to participate, but they are providing discussions to listen to. One of our goals is to filter that into something that is highly relevant and useful to ordinary Canadians. We hope you can use our site as a way to stay informed.
