Personalising Twitter

So, without too much difficulty my new Twitter account was set up. As I said earlier, it was a relatively easy process. I have listed below some of the steps I followed to personalise my account.

First of all, I decided that I would use this new Twitter account, not for personal, but purely for research purposes. I wanted to create a profile for myself on the internet, so that others would know of my PhD research.

I began with the 'profile' section and I added a short biography that, as simply as possible, describes my research. I then added a link to this blog, so that visitors to my Twitter account could see what I am writing on the blog. I also plan to add a link on this blog to my Twitter account, if that is possible, to create another connection. For a number of weeks I didn't have any photo in the photo section of my profile, and the default symbol of the 'egg' came up instead. I decided that a personal picture would add to my profile, so I added an unusual picture so as to grab the attention of Twitter users (it's pictured at the top of this post)

Who to Follow?

I searched websites that I use frequently in my research to see if they have a Twitter account. This included media organisations, such as newspapers and magazines and radio and television stations. I also decided to follow local, national and international libraries - so that I could be kept up to date with any new developments in my research area. I am also following universities and colleges to see what's happening in terms of research trends in my area.

45 - that is the number of people and organisations that I am following at the moment. They are mainly based in Ireland and others are in the UK, USA and France.

When I signed up to 'follow' a particular Twitter account, I was advised of similar users and urged to 'follow' them too. In some cases I did, and sometimes I decided not to, as it was not necessary, because the user that I signed up with initially was sufficient to keep me up to date in that area.

Who's Following me?

At this stage there are some 8 people following me. I have not figured out how they found me, or why some of them are following me. Some have similar research interests to me, so I can understand that they would 'follow' me, but some are in no way related the area that I am studying.

First Tweeets

The first tweet I sent out was very short. I was letting people know that the Toastmasters conference was taking place. It has nothing to do with my research, but I am a member of the organisation and wanted to help get the message out there and promote them.

I'm in the middle of researching a French journalist who visited Ireland in the early 1920's. I need to be able to understand what was happening at that time to fully appreciate what she wrote at that time. So my second tweet asked the question: 'What is the best book on Irish history 1900-1922?' I included the hash tag Twitterstorians on my tweet, so that I could catch the attention of historians on Twitter.

My third tweet asked the same question, but this time I used the @ symbol to send my tweet to specific people.

In my next post I will examine the responses that I got to my tweets.