Thread by @IndSciComm

⏰ Monday morning and time to discuss more about threads, discussions, dashboards and images! This thread is the third part of a series on how science organizations can best use Twitter. @PrinSciAdvGoI
Thread 1 👉🏽 bit.ly/2KTX4nN
Thread 2 👉🏽 bit.ly/2wT1dQH

Lets start with threads - Even though twitter is known for brevity and wit, some replies are hard to contain within a single tweet. In such cases, it is useful to make a chain of tweets known as a tweet thread. Depending on the interface, there are two major ways to make threads-

1. If using the phone/mobile interface, the easiest way to make a thread is to reply to your own previous tweet. This automatically chains multiple replies. One can also add “n/n” at the end of tweets for more clarity. For example first tweet is "1/n" and the last is "n/n"

2. If using the browser interface, use the “+” symbol to thread multiple tweets while writing and publish them all at once. This is useful when putting out stand-alone tweet threads on single topics like - details of a fellowship, announcements of newly published papers etc.,

Discussions - To join discussions that may contain tweet threads, it is important to understand where to join or add a reply. It is wise to double check whether your reply tweet is at the correct point on a discussion thread. There are two general cases -

1. Direct answers to simple questions can go as replies to single/individual tweets in a thread.
2. Overall impressions and general responses to the thread topic, are better either as replies to the first or last tweet of the thread .

Dashboards - A regular twitter interface can be vastly improved by the use of dashboard applications such as @TweetDeck and @hootsuite These allow greater control over managing multiple accounts, scheduling tweets and even monitoring real time feeds of specific hashtags!

Here are two links with quick start guides on using the two dashboards -
Tweetdeck - help.twitter.com/en/using-twitt…
Hootsuite - help.hootsuite.com/hc/en-us/artic…

We highly recommend using at least one of the two for effective management of tweets and twitter activity by organizations.

And finally, images and tweets - Attaching images to tweets is a good way to increase interaction with target audiences. Here are some basic rules -
1. Uploaded Images should be sufficiently hi res.
2. If they are pictures of people, make sure you tag them in tweet or image

3. If the pictures are of science/research work, make sure you have the scientists’ consent to post them on social media
4. Be sensitive about discussing or posting screenshots, unpublished or embargoed work
5. For more information - louisem.com/217438/twitter… @Louise_Myers

Thats it for this week! As always, please feel free to discuss and add your own tips, tricks and opinions. 🎙️📢🗣️

Next week we will discuss about URLs/Hyperlinks and Mentions in tweets.