The Long and Short of TwitterKaren Hatfield Alex Lamers Tim Brice

WFO TSA WFO TAE WFO EPZ

The Long and Short of Twitter

•

• Twitter Tips and Best Practices

• Avoiding Fake TweetsTwitter Basics

What is Twitter?

• “A real-time information network”• “Connects you to the latest stories, ideas,

opinions and news about what you find interesting”

• “Short bursts of information…Tweets”

www.twitter.com/about

Why Use Twitter?

• “Connects businesses [government agencies] to customers in real time”• “Quickly share information with people interested in

their products and services”• “Gather real-time market intelligence and feedback”• “Build relationships with customers, partners, and

influencers”• “Listen in and retrieve up-to-the-second

information”

www.twitter.com/about

To Give AND Get Information!

Basic Terminology• Tweet

• Tidbit of Information• 140 Character Limit

• Follows• You Follow Other Accounts to See Their Tweets• Others Follow You to See Your Tweets

• @Username• Mentions Another User in a Tweet

• #Hashtags• Groups Tweets into a “Category”• More Likely that Non-Followers Will See Your Tweet

Basic Terminology

• Retweet• Transmits Another’s Tweet to Your Followers

• Reply• PUBLIC Response (Tweet) to Another’s Tweet

• Direct Message• PRIVATE Response to Another User

• Favorites• Saves a Tweet for Later Reference

When You Log In:Home Feed

• See Tweets From:• People YOU

Follow• You

When You Log In:Interactions & Mentions

• See Who Has:• Retweeted

You• Favorited You• Asked You a

Question• Provided An

Answer to Your Question

Yes, Spam Accounts will Tweet you. DON’T CLICK THE LINK!

When You Log In:Your Information

• See:• Your

Tweets• Follow Info• Favorited

Tweets• Access

Direct Messages

Getting Information:Searching for People to Follow

Type a Name or Username (if known)

Click to Follow

Suggested People to Follow Based on Who You Currently Follow

Getting Information:Searching a Hashtag

Type a Hashtag

Getting Information:Searching a Keyword

Type a Keyword

Useful to search for info & reports from people who know nothing about the state + wx hashtags!

Giving Information:Sending a Tweet

Click to Tweet

How Many Characters YouHave Left

Giving Information:Composing/Sending a Tweet

• Be Brief• Grammar/Spelling Optional (within Reason)• Use URL Shorteners for Links

• Be Descriptive• Describe the Weather, not the Products

• Be Searchable• Use Appropriate Hashtags

• Not All State Hashtags Appropriate for Every Tweet, especially for Multi-State CWAs

Giving Information:Replying and Retweeting

Mouseover Tweet

Twitter Tips and Best Practices

A few things to keep in mind

Don't #OverHashtag•Hashtags are most powerful when they are

creative and used judiciously

•There does not need to be a hashtag in each tweet

•Too many can look like spam

•People will most commonly search for a hashtag for things like events and interaction

•Random hashtags are rarely useful

•Try not to have more than 1-2 per tweet

#HashtagTips

•Establishing hashtags for your local area can be useful

•Best to settle on one or two, rather than "spraying"

•Ask yourself: "Will it be understood? Is there a point?"

•Can jump on state hashtags (example: #ALwx) -BUT-

•State wx hashtags are getting overrun with bots#dfwwx

#LAweather

#AskXYZ #ImPrepared

Which Is Better?#Rain and #snow may create a #wintrymix for #London

this afternoon. #UKwx #England #winter #SlipperyRoads

Rain and snow may create a wintry mix for London this afternoon. Use caution if driving. #UKwx

•What is the use of some of those hashtags?

•Don't hashtag just to hashtag!

•People generally don't look at random hashtags like #weather or #rain

Shoot For 120 Characters

•You CAN use as many as 140 characters.

•Less (100-120) allows room for quoted tweets and manual retweets:

"@usNWSgov: [original tweet] "RT @usNWSgov: [original tweet]

Don't Be Afraid To Retweet

•Not everything we tweet has to be directly from us

•Feel free to retweet a local TV meteorologist, one of your spotters, etc.

•Can respond to questions this way too:

•Keeps people connected and involved - think social

[your answer] RT @AskerName: [original tweet]

Mentions•Does the city or county you are tweeting about

have a Twitter account?

•Are you tweeting an image from an external website? Does that organization have a Twitter account?

•Mentioning them in a tweet can get them involved!

•Example: A storm will approach @CityOfAlbanyGA around 2 pm. Seek shelter indoors. #GAwx

Think Social!•23 WFOs that averaged at least 0.20 mentions

per tweet had, on average, 2063 followers (almost double the NWS WFO average).

•96 of the 117 WFOs we looked at (82%) had less than 4% of their tweets come from retweeted information from others - area we can really improve!

• Involve your followers early and often, and then they will be more likely to help when you need them.

Try Quotes•Rather than linking to a long text product and

assuming people will get out of it what you intended...

•Try quoting important sections.

•Updated discussion: "conditions will become more favorable for severe storms after 4pm"

•Quotes are simple and easy to understand. YOU get to choose the most important message.

•Can also try quoting on the fly... Forecaster just now: "this is one of the more favorable setups I've seen for severe weather all year"

Simple & Straightforward

Can be just as effective!

Time Sensitive Information

•For things like a tornado approaching a city, consider including a time in the tweet.

•Otherwise, people may retweet old information hours after it was originally intended to be used.

[6:00pm] Confirmed tornado approaching Anytown, State. This is a Tornado Emergency!

Behind-The-Scenes Looks

•Can provide a neat look at things we do to people who are interested in it

•Can convey a message without you explicitly saying it

EXAMPLES

•Tweeting a picture of a forecaster setting up his radar screens and WarnGen. (we could see severe storms)

•Preparing the radiosonde or balloon

•Measuring the snow depth

Careful Linking Facebook

• Linking Facebook posts to go directly to Twitter can create truncated statuses.

• [Start of message] ... [link]

• People should be able to look at your tweet and be able to understand right away.

• Following a link on a truncated tweet on a mobile app can create screen like this (extra step)

Automated Postings

•People are more inclined to tune out automated, bot, or repetitive postings, even on Twitter.

•Avoid making your Twitter feed a dumping ground for links to text products and Graphicasts.

•Can be more confusing than plainly stating it

Non-automated WFOs: 63% more followers, are retweeted about 1.5 times

more often, and average more numbers of retweets.

Offices That Get The Most Engaged Users...•Avoid automated postings

•Mention or reply to their followers

•Retweet others

•Stay active and tweet 3 times per day or more

•Keep tweets simple and in plain language

•Don't excessively hashtag

A Few Real ExamplesRecent NWS Tweets

NWS Norman

conducts a "social media

tornado drill"

NWS Mobile

illustrates how to RT

to give person credit

NWS Tampa Bay tweets out a photo

of a waterspout

near Downtown

Tampa

NWS Tallahassee retweets a follower and TV meteorologist

to show a historical snow photo

NWS Chicago directly retweets some interesting

info from a local TV meteorologist

Twitter #FailTwitter and other Social Media Fakes, Forgeries and Frauds (and how to avoid them)

If it were only this easy…

Or this one…

But what about this one…

Or this one…

Or this one…

What about this one…

A little more recently…

A little more recently…

Ways an image can be fake

Different location

Different time Manipulated by software (photoshop)

Photoshop

Photoshop

Photoshop

Real photo wrong time

Real photo wrong time

Real photo wrong time

Real photo wrong place

Real photo wrong place

Not: Yazoo City, MS

Not: Georgia Tornado

Not: Harrisburg Illinois

Not: Dallas Texas

It is: Orchard Iowa

What to do

• Think first before you hit retweet

• Try and trace the image back to its source

• Does it make sense and/or look right

• Are the photos topographic details correct

• Building

• Shadows

• Sun angle

• Time of day

• Weather

What to do• Drop the image into Google image search

• http://images.google.com

• Do a Tineye image search

• http://tineye.com

• Look at the images meta data

• http://regex.info/exif.cgi or http://fotoforensics.com/

• Look for Photoshop tags• http://pskiller.com

• Look for lists of fake photos• http://owl.li/f6Hk3 (collection of Sandy related photos)

• When in doubt don't pass it along

So how does this work

So how does this work

Fake Tweets and Status updates

From the New Yorker Magazine by Peter Steiner

Fake Tweets and Status updates In the last few months it has been tweeted:

The death of actor Morgan Freeman. Teen sensation Justin Bieber’s cancer diagnosis (and

encouragement of head shaving in unity). Toy Story 4 coming in 2015. Tom Kenny (voice of Sponge Bob) has died (again) Sharks swimming in the New York subway system. Samsung paying the patent infringement damages to Apple

in change. The death of Bill Nye

From the Next Web by Lauren HockensonFrom http://wafflesatnoon.com

Hurricane Sandy and Twitter

Before the weather happens Use Twitter regularly Monitor multiple platforms

Twitter for breaking news YouTube for videos Facebook/Google+ for more in depth discussions

Establish your place on the platforms Create a community Learn who you can trust

When a tweet of interest comes in

• Examine the twitter account profileo Egg = bad (new account)o Check how long they have been on Twittero Look over the older tweets

• Check the time of the tweet• Check for photos (if available)• Check for location (if available)• Look for confirming tweets (not simply RT's)• Check other Social Media platforms• Contact directly

o Ask questionso Ask for a photo

• What does your gut say (is it too good to be true)

Twitter Resources• What to Tweet about

o http://owl.li/jrPOG

• NWS Top Tweetso http://owl.li/jrPR1

• Twitter Analyticso http://twitonomy.como http://tweetreach.como http://rowfeeder.como http://crowdbooster.como http://twittercounter.com

Can't get to the SR SM Google Sites Page? Log into your NOAA email via Gmail. Then click on "Sites" at the top of the page. Then on the left hand side of the page click on "Browse Sites". In the word cloud that appears click on "Social Media". Now you can see both the SR and CR's SM Sites.

Questions?

Tim Brice NWS – EPZ tim.brice@noaa.gov @timbrice17 575-589-4088

Karen Hatfield NWS – TSA karen.hatfield@noaa.gov @kahatfield 918-838-7838

Alex Lamers NWS – TLH alex.lamers@noaa.gov @alexjlamers 850-942-8833

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