Dear WordCount: How do I join a Twitter chat?

[Editor’s Note: Dear WordCount is an occasional advice column that answers your questions about freelance writing, blogging and working as a self-employed writer. During May, I’m answering questions posed by writers in the 2012 WordCount Blogathon, which ends today. A question about the blogathon wrap party that takes place tomorrow, June 1, on Twitter at 10 a.m. PDT, inspired today’s post. Use #blog2012 to join us. — MVR]

Dear WordCount:

I’m in the blogathon and want to come to the end-of-the-blogathon Twitter chat on June 1. But I just started using Twitter and I’ve never been to a Twitter chat before. How does it work?

— Puzzled

Dear Puzzled:

Congratulations on making it through the blogathon, that’s quite an accomplishment!

Twitter chats are a lot of fun – the trick is getting comfortable with the mechanics of Twitter ahead of time so when the tweets are flying you’ll be able to keep up.

Twitter Basics

Before joining a chat, you need to be familiar with how Twitter works. Here are some basics to get you started:

1. Join Twitter. To participate in a Twitter chat, you have to be on Twitter. If you don’t already have an account go to Twitter.com and sign up. It’s free and all you need is a user name and password.  Once you sign up, the most important thing you can do is tell people who you are. Do that by filling out your profile, adding a picture, linking to your blog or website. People decide who to follow based on what they see in a profile, so give them plenty of information to work with. For more on getting started on Twitter read this how-to story I did for SecondAct: 10 Steps to Getting Started on Twitter.

2. Learn to tweet. Twitter messages or “tweets” are 140-characters long. Enter them into the small box found on Twitter’s left-hand column that says “Compose a Tweet.” What to say? That’s the easy part: promote a blog post, talk about what you’re working on or doing, or share a link to something interesting you read.

3. Follow people. Use Twitter’s Find Friends feature to track down people you already know who are on Twitter. Or follow Twitter users who share your areas of interest. If you write about gardening, follow gardening experts. Use Twitter’s Search function to type in keywords related to your interests and see what pops up. You can also use the Browse Categories to find people who like the same things you do. Once you connect with people you know, see who they’re following and follow anyone who seems interesting. If you were in the blogathon or are interested in following bloggers, you can subscribe to the Blogathon 2012 list I created to follow more than 125 fellow bloggers. Here’s a tutorial from Twitter on how to find people to follow.

4. Learn how to @reply and RT. An @reply is a message you send to a specific person that everyone else on Twitter can see too. It’s like talking to one person in a crowded room so other people can eavesdrop on your conversation, and possibly cut in if they’re interested – which in many cases you want them to do.When you see RT in someone’s Twitter post it means Retweet. Use it to share something someone else tweeted with your own Twitter network. When you RT someone it’s like paying them a compliment because you’re basically telling the world they’ve said something interesting. RTs are good, and the general Twitter rule of thumb is if you RT what other people say often, people will RT you in return, and that will build up your exposure, Twitter followers, people who visit your blog or Website, etc. Here’s more from Twitter on how to post @replies and how to retweet.

5. Send a DM. A direct message or DM is a private tweet that only the person you’re sending to can see. You can only DM someone who’s following you and can only receive DMs from people you follow.

Joining a Twitter chat

Now that you’ve got the basics down, here’s what you need to know to join a Twitter chat:

6. Understand what a chat is. Chats are conversations on Twitter on a pre-determined topic that happen at a designated time and day or date. Twitter chats are like the old chat rooms on AOL – lots of people congregating at the same time to talk about something, only since this is Twitter, you can see their avatar (picture), and do a lot more. Chats are based on the same 140-character tweets you use for other Twitter communications.

7. Use a hashtag. The big difference between regular tweets and a Twitter chat is that all the tweets you share in a chat are identified by the hashtag that corresponds to the chat. A Twitter hashtag is this symbol – # – added to whatever word or abbreviation is being used to signify that specific chat. Tomorrow’s blogathon chat will use the hashtag #blog2012 (if you click on that link before or after the chat, you’ll see all of the tweets that people have shared on Twitter with that hashtag, which I’ve been encouraging them to use throughout this month to flag anything they share about the blogathon). The hashtag for the writer chat I do on the last Wednesday of the month is #wcls (for WordCount Last Wednesday). Read more about using Twitter hashtags.

8. Find a chat. Twitter chats can be weekly or monthly, one-time affairs, or annual events like the once-a-year blogathon wrap party. Here’s a editable Google Doc that lists hundreds of Twitter chats. Here’s a Wikipedia-style list of chats by day of the week.

9. Follow the chat’s rules. Many chats have a moderator or host who announces the start of the chat, poses questions, makes announcements and acts as a troubleshooter. Many chats have a preset list of questions that serve to guide the conversation. It’s perfectly acceptable, and even encouraged, to RT other people’s tweets during a chat, and to share links to information that’s relevant to the point that’s being discussed.

10. Use a chat tool. It’s possible to use the standard Twitter interface for the chat, but you might find it easier to follow along with an add-on application such as TweetGrid, TweetChat or HootSuite. Of those three, my favorite is TweetChat, which you can log into using your Twitter account. You might want to alert followers that you’ll be tweeting more than usual during the chat, and suggest they use Muuter.com to temporarily mute you if they don’t want to tune into the conversation.

Now that you’re familiar with Twitter chats, I hope to see everyone at the #blog2012 wrap party chat tomorrow, June 1, at 10 a.m. PDT. The chat will last approx. one hour. At 10:55 a.m. PDT, we’ll announce the winners of a raffle prize drawing from the bloggers who successfully posted 31 days straight.

See you at the chat.