Using Twitter To Build Communities

Using Twitter to Build Communities looks at ways for libraries, archives, and museums to go far beyond Twitter as a “broadcasting” tool, and highlights innovative methods to use the service to spark communication and create ties within your institution’s greater community. Appropriate for the social media beginner as well as the experienced user, it covers topics like: Creating a Social Media Strategy/Policy Choosing the Right Software Gaining Followers How to curate content How and when to automate your feed How and when to embed your feed How to use cross-platform strategies Using Analytics This book condenses years of research and expertise on using Twitter in an institutional setting into one handy reference for launching or reviving your organization’s Twitter presence into an impactful medium in your community.

"A tactical primer for any business embarking on the critical work of actively building community."—Seth Godin, Author, This is Marketing "This book perfectly marries the psychology of communities, with the hard-earned secrets of someone who's done the real work over many years. David Spinks is the master of this craft."—Nir Eyal, bestselling author of Hooked and Indistractable The rise of the internet has brought with it an inexorable, almost shockingly persistent drive toward community. From the first social networks to the GameStop trading revolution, engaged communities have shown the ability to transform industries. Businesses need to harness that power. As business community expert David Spinks shows in The Business of Belonging: How to Make Community your Competitive Advantage, the successful brands of tomorrow will be those that create authentic connection, giving customers a sense of real belonging and unlocking unprecedented scale as a result. In his career of over 10 years in the business of building community, Spinks has learned what a winning community strategy looks like. From the fundamental concepts—including how community drives measurable business value and what the appropriate metrics are—to high-level community design and practical engagement techniques, The Business of Belonging is an epic journey into the world of community building. This book is for decision makers who want to better understand the value and opportunity of community, and for community professionals who want to level up their strategy. Featuring a foreword by Startup Grind and Bevy cofounder Derek Andersen, it will give you a step-by-step model for strategically planning, creating, facilitating, and measuring communities that drive business growth. Attracting and retaining community members who are also loyal customers, brand evangelists, and leaders—that’s the goal for today’s connected businesses, and this book is the map to getting there.

"OK. I’ve got my Twitter account…now what can I do with it?" Sound familiar? #tweetsmart provides the answer with 25 creative projects to help your business, cause, or organization grow. But this isn’t just another social media marketing book—it’s the anti-marketing how-to community-engagement book. Twitter is not a marketing channel (and should never be used as such) but it is a community of interested, engaged, and influential people. Meeting and getting to know these people can help you build your own community. In this useful guide, you’ll find projects to help you approach your Twitter audience in ways that are strategic, measurable, and fun. Put a new wrinkle on an old contest: "be the 10th person to tweet" Create a hashtag game around your company or products Instead of polling, ask your followers to help you make a product decision Make MadLibs out of your marketing copy or mission statement Hold a scavenger hunt, and relay clues via Twitter Organize a weekly Twitter chat on various subjects Solicit funny product shots, using Twitter’s photo-sharing utility Spontaneously tweet from a store location: "Meet me now and win!"

Using Social Media to Build Library Communities: A LITA Guide is a community-building action manual for practitioners across the profession. By bringing together an array of perspectives to explore community building through social media, this book serves as the go-to resource for professionals who want to take social media beyond marketing and promotion to build an inclusive and engaged community of library users. Each chapter contains clear explanations of important topics for building communities through social media, and readers will come away with cohesive approaches for their own libraries. Using Social Media to Build Library Communities demonstrates that an energetic and committed community exists to help and guide fellow community builders.

This book is fantastic for anyone looking to open a Twitter account. It guides you through the exact steps to take to increase business awareness. The key to Twitter for small businesses is to grow a Twitter community that will retweet the things you post, reply to the things you post, and recommend you to others in their own Twitter communities. But growing a Twitter community takes more than just following anyone and everyone and tweeting out a few promotional messages. It takes time, it takes effort and it takes focus. This book will show you how to get found on Twitter, how to find prospective clients on Twitter, and how to find opportunities on Twitter. In short, this book will show you how to grow your very own Twitter community of advocates for your business.

Online and Social Networking Communities is a professional guide written for educational practitioners and trainers who wish to use online communication tools effectively in their teaching. Focusing on the student experience of learning in online communities, it addresses ‘web 2.0’ and other ‘social software’ tools and considers the role these technologies play in supporting student learning and building learning communities. The guide offers: real-world case studies and quality research must-have lists of useful resources guidance on building and supporting online learning communities discussion of how collaborative learning can be assessed coverage of wikis, forums, blogging, instant messaging, Second Life, Twitter, desktop videoconferencing and social networking sites such as Facebook. Online and Social Networking Communities helps educators and trainers develop a critical approach by exploring online learning from both the student’s and educator’s perspective. This practical guide provides the tools to help develop confident and thoughtful online educators, able to create successful and enjoyable learning experiences for their students.

Social media is here to stay. A robust social media campaign can provide academic libraries with a means to showcase library resources, highlight content and events, and attract students to sample what the library has to offer. Building Communities is a handbook to implement social media technologies for academic libraries. It is a guide to planning and implementing a successful social media campaign and evaluating its impact. This title covers: the beginning of social networking in the academic context; how to implement use of social media technologies; and evaluating their use. The final section considers the future and asks: ‘What’s next?’ Provides information on how to plan, integrate, and assess the use of social media in academic libraries Gives examples on the best social media technologies to implement in academic libraries Discusses the skills and knowledge required in the academic library to launch a successful social media campaign

Social Network Analysis (SNA) is the identification of the relationships and attributes of members, key actors, and groups that social networks comprise. The National Research Council, at the request of the Department of Homeland Security, held a two-day workshop on the use of SNA for the purpose of building community disaster resilience. The workshop, summarized in this volume, was designed to provide guidance to the DHS on a potential research agenda that would increase the effectiveness of SNA for improving community disaster resilience. The workshop explored the state of the art in SNA and its applications in the identification, construction, and strengthening of networks within U.S. communities. Workshop participants discussed current work in SNA focused on characterizing networks; the theories, principles and research applicable to the design or strengthening of networks; the gaps in knowledge that prevent the application of SNA to the construction of networks; and research areas that could fill those gaps. Elements of a research agenda to support the design, development, and implementation of social networks for the specific purpose of strengthening community resilience against natural and human-made disasters were discussed.