Twitter Part I: Getting Excited About New Orleans
February 11th, 2010Shelley
While there are lots of things you can do to prepare for your upcoming New Orleans trip, I’m focusing on Twitter. Why? Two reasons. First, it’s a fun, cool, hip way to find out what’s happening in NOLA. (Yeah, that’s right, I said hip – even though it totally embarrasses my 15-year old son when I say it.)
Second, more and more school districts are using Twitter to communicate with the public. In Twitter Part II, I’ll focus on one district in particular – Hays Consolidated (TX) – and how Solutions Summit featured speaker, Tricia Griffith, is using Twitter to communicate with her substitutes.
Twitter 101. So, what exactly is Twitter? According to their website, it’s a way for people to share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world. If you’re not on Twitter, you’ll need to create an account. It’s super simple, so let’s get started.
- Go to Twitter.com
- Click on the “Get Started Now” button
- Enter your name, email address and select a username (it’s recommended that you use your own name – if you can still get it); then click “Create my account.” You will automatically be taken to your home page.
That’s it! Easy, right? Now comes the fun part. Following tweeters. There are some great NOLA resources that I recommend. Here’s how you find and follow them.
- Select “Find People” (located on the upper right side of the navigation bar)
- Then, using the “Find on Twitter” tab, search for the following: VisitNewOrleans (this is my personal favorite); now, click on the link to get to its Tweetstream
- Once there, click the “follow” button
- Click the “Home” button (located on the upper right side of the navigation bar) to watch/follow your favorites
That’s all there is to it! Here are some other NOLA Tweetstreams I follow:
- NewOrleans (another good general info site)
- NOLAnews (from www.nola.com)
- PresHall (I’m a music junkie, so I follow Preservation Hall; see Shelley’s Picks for more info)
- MyMardiGras (follow this year’s Mardi Gras festivities real-time; totally cool!)
- jazzfest (I go every year!)
Well, what about this, fellow tweeters? I know you’re out there. Are there any other resources you’d recommend we follow on Twitter – to inspire our NOLA trip? To add your recommendations, simply comment on this post.
