Twitter chat - making it work for you

24/10/11

Twitter. It’s the ‘marmite’ social medium. We seem to either love it or hate it. As with any communication tool there are right ways and wrong ways to use it. But perhaps more importantly than trying to follow the rules, you need to discover how to make it work for you. There’s a lot of white noise on twitter. Fight your way through the football banter between Lord Sugar and Piers Morgan, the style tips offered by celebrities known more for their clothes than their talent and the general moans of people that use twitter as an outlet for their daily frustrations, and you find genuine people having interesting and informative discussions.

This week Mango used twitter to facilitate the second #BETTChat, a weekly discussion platform for BETT exhibitors, visitors and anybody interested in the role that technology has in enhancing learning. The first week was a learning curve for everyone involved. We wanted it to be for debate and discussion and whilst many were keen to share information related to the products and services they offer it quickly became an interesting conversation on how we can most effectively share best practice globally. In this week’s #BETTChat we got straight into a debate on how important it is for schools to engage with parents and the role that technology has in facilitating this relationship.

We averaged more than one tweet a minute during the hour of #BETTChat with a variety of people contributing to the discussion and keen to continue the debate the following week. If you’d like to join in the discussion yourselves, or merely act as a spectator to see how this format could work for you, feel free to join us on twitter between 4pm – 5pm (GMT) every Tuesday afternoon. Simply search for #BETTChat to find out what’s being discussed and to get involved ensure you add #BETTChat to your tweet.