New to the world of Twitter and Twitter chats? Don’t let that stop you from participating in #AgBookClub! We’ll walk you through the process in this blog post.
Twitter “chats” are live discussions about a particular topic, in this case the featured book we’re reading for AgBookClub, at a designated time (we meet at 9pm ET). All tweets in the chat use the chat’s hashtag, #AgBookClub, so that all users can see the tweets and interact with one another during the specified time frame. Your host/moderator for the AgBookClub chat is @AgBookClub.
Our Twitter chats are structured with Qs and As. In other words, @AgBookClub will ask the questions (Q) and participants can answer those questions with a tweet that starts with “A”. All tweets will include our hashtag, #AgBookClub. Here’s an example of a question:
And here’s an example of how you’ll structure your answer:
Notice that each tweet starts with the Q (for the moderator) or the A (for participant’s answer) with the number following it. The number represents the question number, so that we can keep the chat organized. These chats will ask around 7 questions during our hour-long discussion. Each example tweet also includes the hashtag (#AgBookClub) so that all participants can see and follow the conversation.
Keep in mind that all questions for our discussions come from the moderator (@AgBookClub). If you have a question to submit, please feel free to message @AgBookClub before the chat, but please do not disrupt the chat by asking formal “Q”s of your own. However, you are more than welcome to respond and interact with other’s tweets, using general statements or questions–just don’t use the official “Q” in front of it. 🙂
To discuss someone’s comments, simply click the comment/reply button on the original tweet. You don’t have to include the “A#” if you’re responding to someone else, but be sure to use the hashtag!
To participate in the chat, we suggest that you do one of three things:
- Log into Twitter and search “#AgBookClub” and click on “latest tweets”. This will allow you to see all tweets using the hashtag.
- Log into TweetChat using your Twitter username and password. You’ll then use “#AgBookClub” in the hashtag search. You can also tweet from here during the discussion. TweetChat is very similar to Twitter, but it will help keep you organized and focused on the chat during our discussion time.
- Log into HootSuite using your Twitter username and password. HootSuite allows you to see multiple feeds at once, such as the @AgBookClub profile so you don’t miss a Q, a feed with the #AgBookClub hashtag, and then a feed with your notifications so you don’t miss a response to one of your tweets.
You are free to pick whichever method works best for you! All will enable you to participate in the Twitter chat.
Now, there is some homework required for our #AgBookClub chats. We ask that you read each week’s assigned reading selection before participating (we are trying out this whole ‘online book club’ thing, after all). We know everyone is busy, so if you happen to miss a chat, we will post a recap on our blog following the chat so that you can catch up for next week.
And that’s it! We look forward to meeting you during our next chat on Wednesday at 9pm ET. Be sure to give @AgBookClub a follow so you don’t miss a tweet. You can also subscribe to our blog for the latest updates.
Still have questions on how to participate? Feel free to comment below, tweet us (@AgBookClub), or direct message @AgBookClub with questions and we’ll get those answered for you. 🙂
AgBookClub 