The Texas Section has set up a Twitter account, and all officials are invited to follow their tweets.
What is Twitter?
A micro-blogging tool that lets you update your world of followers as to what you’re up to or what’s on your mind, 140 characters at a time.
How it works
Twitter allows you to send a message via your account that can be seen by people in your network (called “followers”) or by anyone if you select that your messages (called “tweets”) are public (and we suggest that they should be). Your tweets are limited to 140 characters, roughly the allowable length of a text message on most cell phone carriers.
Why Twitter?
Bruce Sampley and Nick Arnold have set up an account named @OfficialsUSTATX. We will be using this as a way to get out information and alerts regularly concerning officials schools, schedules, and anything else pertaining to our Texas officials.
Setting it up
Go to: http://twitter.com. The process is very self-explanatory and follows a step-by-step format. Accounts are free and all that is required is a valid email address to get started.
Name
Enter your name.
Username
The next step is to pick your username. This is what will appear after Twitter.com in the web address. We suggest using something very basic.
Completing Registration
After you set up your username and password, a confirmation email will be sent to the email address you provided during registration. To complete registration, you MUST log into the email account you provided and click “confirm” in the body of the email to confirm your account.
“How to follow @OfficialsUSTATX”
After completing your registration, log into your account and at the top toolbar of the homepage you will see a blank space to search for a name. In this space, type OfficialsUSTATX and click the search button. You will then see the OfficialsUSTATX profile/account show up. Click on the “OfficialsUSTATX” and then click “Follow” on the right side. You will now be able to read every “tweet” that is sent from this account. These tweets will show up on your timeline which is explained on the following page.
Timeline (List of Tweets from a user)
This is what you will see when you log on either by mobile device or on your computer. We call this the “timeline” which will show every “tweet” sent out by @OfficialsUSTATX in order, with the most recent “tweet” at the top. Below is an example of what you would see when following a user.
The Art of the Retweet
One of the great benefits of Twitter is the “Retweet”. This is a way to reiterate something you find important said by someone you follow to all of your followers. Simply copy and paste the original tweet and send it out. To give credit to the original person, users usually put “RT” plus the originator’s username at the beginning of the tweet. Here’s an example:
- The Twitter user @OfficialsUSTATX tweets: The following certification school will be held at (date/time/location)
- You retweet by posting RT @OfficialsUSTATX I will be at the school!