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How to… use Twitter better

Festival management expert Dr. Louise Platt isn’t afraid of posting a dog pic or two – and you shouldn't be either.

Louise Platt
5 min read

Find the key people to follow

When you first join Twitter it can be a little overwhelming. It is fast-paced and finding the right people to follow can take a bit of trial and error. Start by looking up professionals you respect or organisations whose work you enjoy or admire. Look at whom they follow or are engaging with regularly and use this to build up the list of people you follow.
Check out specific hashtags that relate to your areas of interest and note who is using them. Hashtags are often used around conferences, during festivals or to engage with specific themes (for example #IETMAmsterdam, #OutdoorArts and #ArtsJobs).

You will have to curate your following list every now and then. Or, if you are more organised than me, use the ‘lists’ feature. You can assign people to specific lists such as ‘Museums’, ‘Festivals’, ‘News’ etc. If you want to do this, I recommend you set lists up as soon as you join Twitter and keep on top of them!

Don’t be afraid to show your personality

People will tell you that you can’t erase your digital footprint and be careful what you post online. Yes, this is true, but common sense should prevail. You need to reflect who you are and give your followers a sense of your personality. I see Twitter as a great networking tool and part of this is about who you are and what you can offer.

Being too formal can be a barrier to conversation and engagement. You want to encourage people to interact with you, identify with you and actually want to follow your updates. Occasionally, you might see me tweet something hilarious that my dog did, but this says something about me as a person. And my dog then becomes a conversation point when I meet people in ‘real life’, helping to break the ice.

I have met some of my favourite mentors and sources of support via Twitter. It is easy to be critical of social media for creating a world in which we are physically disconnected, but it has introduced me to new ideas and people. When you are starting out in your career it can feel daunting, but Twitter can be a surprisingly supportive place.

Tweet often, but not too often

You will build up a steady following if you engage regularly. People will unfollow you or just forget about you, if you don’t bring something to the conversation. Equally, they will get annoyed if you tweet too often, especially in a ranting style! I personally get bored if someone does too much self-promotion. A little is good, but everything in moderation.

I tend to use Facebook to interact with family and friends about the general mundanity of life, while Twitter is reserved for interactions based on work and career. I have just over 1,000 followers and this is due to a slow and steady stream of mildly interesting and relevant tweets.

If you have an image to go with your tweet, that will attract more engagement. A picture, as they say, speaks a thousand words. That’s a valuable thing when you only have 140 characters. For some good examples, see @ISANOutdoorArts or @WildRumpus.

Have something to say

One of my personal pet hates is people who just retweet. The odd retweet is fine, but try to offer an opinion around that retweet. You can ‘quote tweet’ or add a comment to a retweet depending on the Twitter platform you are using. You are then adding your voice to the conversation rather than just adding to the echo chamber that Twitter can sometimes feel like.

For example, if you see a festival tweeting about a new initiative, you might want to retweet this and make a comment to say what a great idea you think that is. Don’t be afraid to disagree or argue a point, but don’t @ people into a rant – Twitter might seem detached from real life but there are real people behind those @s!

Be brave and have a go

My ultimate advice is to just get stuck in! Twitter is a giant conversation and you will find that you’ll ‘meet’ a whole bunch of like-minded, passionate and generally support creatives!

Dr. Louise Platt is Senior Lecturer in Festival and Event Management at Manchester Metropolitan University, Subject lead on MA Cultural Arts and Festival Management.
Tw: @Lu_knit