Ramp Up Your Social Media with DGI, Part Two: Twitter

By Alison Raab Labonte, The RAND Corporation

As Cole Porter might say, the Library of Congress does it.  Obama does it.  SLA conferences do it.

And now DGI does it.  DGI uses Twitter.

Twitter is a micro-blogging service that lets users send and read brief messages -- no more than 140 characters long -- known as "tweets."  Tweets are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who follow them (known as followers).  Started in 2006, Twitter now draws approximately 23 million users in the U.S. alone every month, according to Quantcast.

Rest assured, though, that this is not a case of keeping up with the Joneses (or the Obamas).  Twitter is a powerful tool for reaching out to interested people, reinforcing professional relationships, and engaging in conversations with the Government Information community.  DGI's Twitter presence helps the group reach out to existing members who may prefer Twitter, as well as draw in potential members on Twitter who may not know what DGI is all about.

It will reinforce DGI's relationships with other information professionals' groups, both within SLA and beyond, and build on those relationships.  Already DGI has "followed" and is being followed by various SLA groups, such as Transportation, Information Technology, and Knowledge Management, as well as non-SLA groups involved in government information, such as Utah Hive, GovLoop, and GovDigest.

As a conversation tool, DGI's Twitter will engage with others through reTweeting with @ signs and hashtags.  Retweeting with the @ sign (example: @govloop) lets users respond to a specific Twitterers -- these @ messages can be read by anyone, but are treated as direct replies to the user in question.  Hashtags -- that is, a word or phrase prefixed with a #, such as #sla2009 -- allows tweets on a specific subject to be found by simply searching for their common hashtag.  Be sure to look for SLADGI tweets reposted to the SLA2009 Twitter feed this month.

If you're on Twitter, be sure to follow DGI.  If you're not on Twitter, and are not interested in joining, you still can read DGI's Twitter feeds by subscribing via RSS.  Also, please make recommendations on Twitter feeds you think DGI should follow.