Twitter Guidelines
Twitter is a social network made of messages using 140 characters. It is a good tool to discover news that is happening instantly as it is constantly updated with different stories from around the world in real time. Once you follow a person or organization their posts called tweets display on your timeline. Your timeline is the place where you can read tweets and respond to tweets from people you follow. Organizations and brands use twitter in a number of ways; to share announcements and news, promote upcoming events or respond to feedback from customers or clients.
Creating an Account
To create a twitter account, visit https://twitter.com/signup.
Choosing a Username and Graphics
Username: can contain up to 15 characters. Please include uw or uwinnipeg in your username.
Name: can be 20 characters long.
Note: You are able to change your username multiple times on twitter. This is good in case your department name changes. You can easily change your username.
Profile Picture
Please use our crest with the red patterned background. Please contact Marketing and Communications atcommunications@uwinnipeg.ca
Header Photo
Choose a photo that reflects your department. Do not use the same header photo as the main UWinnipeg account. Header photo dimensions are 1500 x 500 pixels.
Getting Started
To start tweeting, simply type the content you want to share in 140 characters or less. You can share departmental news, upcoming lectures and events or articles that are relevant to your department. People who are interested in your tweets can follow you and they will be able to see and share your tweet. Promote your account with students and faculty. Post it on your website, other social media accounts, and use it on your promotional materials.
To spread your message to a wider audience, follow and mention other accounts that share the same interests as you. If you see a tweet that you think may be an interest to your followers, retweet (RT) it. Retweeting is sharing someone’s tweet with your followers. Putting an @ sign followed by the username means you are replying to that user and they will be able to see your reply to their tweet.
You can also include a hashtag in your tweet. A hashtag is a word or phrase with a # sign before the word. A hashtag is used when you want to be part of a conversation. Hashtags organize specific tweets in a central location. When you use it, all the other tweets with the same hashtag will be displayed in twitter’s search engine. Your tweet will be more likely to be retweeted and spread when a hashtag is used.
During an emergency on campus such as a power outage, campus closure, fire or threat of any kind, UWinnipeg will post the most current information on twitter and our website. We urge all students to follow us at twitter.com/uwinnipeg and check uwinnipeg.ca regularly.
Twitter Glossary of Terms
Tweet - A post to your Twitter account.
Retweet (RT) - Taking a tweet that someone else created and sharing that message with your followers.
Hashtag - A hashtag is a word or phrase with a # sign before the word. Ex. #uwinnipeg. A hashtag is used when you want to be part of a conversation. Hashtags organize specific tweets in a central location. When you use it, all the other tweets with the same hashtag will show up in twitter’s search engine. Your tweet will be more likely to be retweeted and spread when a hashtag is used.
Direct message (DM) - Is a message you can send to another user privately.
Modified tweet (MT) - When someone changes your tweet when they retweet it. Users do this to make the message fit within Twitter’s character limits.