11.Twitter

To complete Thing 11 on using Twitter I chose to work my way through the Intermediate level as I have been accessing this platform using my personal account for a few years.

I have had a twitter account for many years although I don't access it on a regular basis. I follow actors, music and local events on it. I didn't use it for any work related matters. I was however aware that it can be used for this and I knew that lots of schools and establishments have accounts to promote what they are about.

 My workplace have their own account that can be found here :https://twitter.com/Craighalbert this is a relatively new account and it is being used to promote the fundraising for the centre and to let others see what happens within the centre.

So as I have previously said I didn't use it for any work related matters however since exploring the features that twitter offer such as creating a list (something I didn't know about till starting this badge)I have explored twitters uses a little more. I created a list of sites that I could use to develop my skills whilst keeping myself updated in what is happening in social care through networking with other establishments.
My list can be found here https://twitter.com/maryanne0290/lists/work-related?s=03. By creating a list to view work related material  it means that I wont miss any posts and my newsfeed wont be overloaded with just work matters. Previously I also thought that you had to follow each account to add them to your list and just by using it more I now realise that is not the case.
The favourite twitter users that I found were Makaton with Lucinda who tweets a new sign in Makaton each day with her children which is helpful ,fun and nice to watch. The other one I liked was the twitter page Talking Mats which I am going to talk more in depth about in the next SSSC learning badge,12:Apps#1.

The next part of completing this badge was to use the  twitter analytics tool. This tool tells me what tweets people are seeing and engaging in. As I have said I don't really use my twitter a lot and its really for me to keep updated with people and not about what I am sharing. The results were not news to me as I have said I don't use twitter to its full capacity.

The tweet that had the most engagement was this one so I guess Outlander has a big following 😉

 Lastly I was to use the management tool tweetDeck. My first thought on this was why would anyone need this only having one account, surely its easy to navigate through one account but I was pleasantly surprised when I began using it. I liked that I was able to personalise it for my own requirements such as messages, what was trending, my notifications and what I had already liked. I was able to personalise it exactly to see all of this information on one page rather than have to click my way through lots of pages. This is easy to do on a desktop computer but mostly when I use any apps I am on my mobile phone so something like this on a handheld would be very beneficial .

How I use twitter probably wont change,its not a platform that interests me but I would say that when I now use twitter I can see a bigger picture. If I am asked to contribute to my work twitter account I will definitely share the knowledge I have gained through learning about lists and I would recommend using tweetDeck so that the establishment where I work can see what is happening in the care sector in real time.