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Friday, May 12, 2017

Twitter 101 for Professional Development

Thinking of joining Twitter? It is one of my favorite places for professional development. Today, we're going to highlight five ways to get the most out of your Twitter account.



1. Twitter Chats


Every day of the week, there are library chats that you can participate! Easy Bib has a great list, so I will link to that here (https://magic.piktochart.com/output/2617218-library-twitter-chats-2) but you can find any chat from YA Librarianship (#readYAlit) to the Public Librarian Chat (#publibchat) to I Need a Librarian Job Chat (#INALJchat).

2. Connect via Hashtags


One great way to find other librarians is to use and search on the common hashtags:
#Librarylife
#FridayReads
#Saturdaylibrarian
#Sundaylibrarian
#NightLibrarian
#RefDesk
#LibrarianProblems
#CollectionDevelopment
#WeNeedDiverseBooks
#ReadAdv


3. Learn More from Conferences


Many conferences these days will have a hashtag (i.e., #ALAAC17). You can use that hashtag to share the great tidbits you are learning in your session and you can find what is going on in other sessions. It is a fun way to get more out of a conference, especially if you were unable to attend.

4. Follow Organizations, Publishers, Authors

What resources does your library use? See if they are on Twitter and follow them for news and updates. For example, Overdrive will share lots of content that you can reshare on your library account. Publishers will share arcs and exciting author news. If any of these are cluttering up your newsfeed with information you don't find relevant, unfollow them but add them to a Twitter List that you can check when you want updates.

Great places to follow:

5. Follow Your Favorite Bloggers

Don't forget to check out your favorite bloggers, too. One of the hardest things for me, when I first started on Twitter, was to respond to strangers I never met face-to-face. But to get the most out of your account, don't be afraid to like and comment. People want to connect -- that's why we're all tweeting.

A few bloggers we highly recommend following:
TeenLibrarianToolbox @TLT16
Naomi Bates @yabooksandmore
Becky Spratford @RAforAll
J Burke-TheInfoHound @theinfohound
Angela Hursh @webmastergirl

And we love following our readers, so don't forget to check us out, too: @5minlib


Have any additional tips? Please share in the comments!

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