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Thursday, August 23, 2012

Tweet Chats for Historians

Clip art courtesy of Hubspot Blog.
My last post was all about twitter, and as promised this post is all about tweet chats. So what is a tweet chat?  A tweet chat is an online discussion that occurs at a predetermined time using a specific hashtag to link the tweeters together in a virtual conversation.  Tweet chats are a great way to meet professionals in your field, and are excellent opportunities for (digital) networking. Whatever your field happens to be, whatever hobby you enjoy, there's a tweet chat for that!

Tweet chats can be hard to follow on twitter, so the easiest thing to do is probably to go to TweetChat, log in using your twitter handle and password, and then type in the pre-arranged tweet chat hashtag for the tweet chat you're wanting to participate in.  It's as easy as that!

Now that you're ready to chat, I guess you probably need a tweet chat to participate in.  There are a few good tweet chats for public historians out there, but not as many as I'd like to see.  Here are some chats to get you started:

Historic Preservation
#builtheritage :  This chat is sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and covers a wide variety of preservation related topics. To find out the date search twitter for #builtheritage and look at the recent tweets (you can also use these tweet chat hashtags to talk about preservation topics when there isn't a tweet chat going on).  The next chat is September 5th at 4 PM EDT.

Museums and Social Media
#musesocial :  This chat is all about how museums can use technology, especially social media, to their advantage.  The next chat is actually today from 3-5 PM.



 Non History/Museum Chats That Are Useful for Public Historians
#assnchat :  The Association Chat is a chat for all different kinds of associations, and they discuss a lot of topics that are relevant for non-profit organizations.  This chat takes place every Tuesday at 2 PM.

#citytalk :  City Talk is a monthly tweet chat about urban issues and cities.  I'm not sure when the next one is, but if you search it regularly they are bound to post a new date soon.

#eventprofs : This chat is for event planning professionals, and if you've ever worked for a Public History organization then you know you have to plan events sometimes.  Many of their topics could prove useful for your next event.  Check out the EventProfs website for the schedule of upcoming chats.

*If you moderate a history, public history, preservation, historic site or museum related tweet chat and your chat isn't on my list then please leave me a comment so I can add it.  Thanks so much!

3 comments:

Sarah H. said...

Thanks so much for including the National Trust's #builtheritage chat on your list. One small note, though - the next chat is September 5 at 4:00 EDT, not 3:00. Hope to "see" you and your readers there!

- Sarah, National Trust for Historic Preservation

Unknown said...

Sarah,

Thank you so much for letting me know the correct time for the next #builtheritage chat. I corrected it on the blog post, and I look forward to chatting with you on the 5th at 4:00!

Jennifer

Author Sean Whittaker said...

Thanks Jennifer! That is some really good info and something I had no idea existed. I knew about hash tags, but not that people scheduled time to go back and forth.