Hopefully you’re able to join us today for our Twitter party!  But you may be wondering what it’s all about or what you need to do.

Twitter parties allow for a conversation around a single hashtag.  Without the hashtag, there’s no way to follow the conversation.  Think of the hashtag like a keyword that you’re searching for…and the hashtag we’re using is #nextgenext.

There’s different ways Twitter parties are designed.  Most I’ve been a part of have one person moderating who sets the ground rules and asks the primary questions around a certain topic discussed during the party.  It’s helpful to follow the moderator on Twitter to be aware of other Twitter party opportunities down the road.

Because Twitter is such an open space and because one goal of a Twitter party is to have as many attendees as are willing to join, the moderator usually provides an opportunity at the beginning for everyone to introduce themselves.

Then the party proceeds with the moderator asking questions around a specific topic.  Our topic today will be around “Using Twitter for Extension Programming”.

The moderator will ask a question like:

Q1:  Please introduce yourself! #nextgenext

Attendees would then respond like:

Q1:  Hi!  I’m Jenny Rees, Nebraska Extension Educator working with crops & #4h #nextgenext

Notice that in this case, you respond to the question by using the Q and number of the question along with the hashtag.  (Sometimes moderators ask that you reply with A for answer and the number).  Regardless if Q or A is used for the answers, it’s important to include the letter (Q or A) and the number so that all answers can be archived together around each question.  The hashtag is important because otherwise, the rest of the party can’t see your tweets as easily!

We will be showing everything via the url:  https://connect.unl.edu/nextgenerationextension.

However, if you wish to join the Twitter party by actually tweeting during it, and if you are new to this whole idea of Twitter parties, I would recommend you follow the hashtag #nextgenext by either using:  Twubs or TChat.io (shown below).

Tchat.io and Twubs allow you to view one hashtag at a time. At the page, enter the hashtag #nextgenext. Then, so you can tweet directly in the box on the page without a pop-up box appearing, sign-in to your Twitter account in the upper, right-hand corner. You will then be able to tweet and the hashtag #nextgenext is automatically added to the end of your tweets for you! Notice that you can see all the tweets appearing below the box where you can tweet. You can reply, retweet, quote, or favorite any of those tweets directly by clicking on those buttons next to the specific tweet. Twitter parties can get overwhelming at times with so many tweeting at once. So, if you’d like to pause the conversation at any period of time so you can read the tweets, simply push the pause button and new tweets will stop appearing until you hit the play button again.

Hopefully this helps and looking forward to our #nextgenext Twitter party about Twitter for Extension Programming! :)