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As well as this website and regular email communications with members, ATL uses social media to help organise action and keep people informed about what's going on.
The ATL website makes it simple for you to share pages of interest on Facebook and Twitter with a simple click, using icons at the top of every page (see the graphic on the right if you can't find it). This is a great way to spread the word about campaign updates and breaking news.
If you're here because of our Conference social media postcard, why not have a look at this page about social media during Conference after you've checked out the basics.
Connecting with ATL on Twitter
Twitter is an information network made up of 140-character messages called Tweets.
People write short updates, often called "Tweets" of 140 characters or fewer. These messages are posted to your profile, sent to your followers, and are searchable on Twitter search. It's an easy way to discover the latest news related to subjects you care about and share your views.
Here's how to create an account and follow ATL:
- Find ATL on Twitter by going to http://twitter.com/atlunion
- Click the follow button under our logo – if you don't have an account, you'll be prompted to sign up by entering your name, email address, and a new password.
- Say hello: send us a message by including @atlunion in your tweet.
Tweets can contain a combination of words, URLs and certain characters or character combinations that have a specific functionality:
- @ followed by a twitter username (@atlunion, @maryboustedatl etc) is a mention. These tweets will appear in that users '@ Connect feed', they will be notified about them, and they don't have to be following us to see them – in effect, this is how you get someone's attention on twitter. When you click 'reply' on someone else's tweet in your feed, Twitter automatically starts your tweet with '@username'.
- # followed by a word (#atlconf13, #education) is a hashtag. This makes it easier to search for content on Twitter. You can also search by keyword, but using a specific hashtag means that a tweet will definitely by visible to anyone who searches for that hashtag, whether or not they are following you.
- RT is retweet. If you click 'retweet' on a tweet, Twitter automates this for you. MT is modified retweet – if you retweet content but add your own comment, you should start the tweet with this.
- DM is direct message. Tweets that start with this and contain a username / usernames will ONLY be visible to that person. This is automated in the Twitter web page / app using the envelope icon which can be found on the profile page.
- Links are automatically shortened by Twitter to be 20 characters in length (and shorter links will be lengthened to 20 characters).
For much more detail, see the 'Twitter basics' section of the really useful guide at http://support.twitter.com.
Connecting with ATL on Facebook:
In the context of ATL's social media presence, this means Facebook can be thought first and foremost as a way of engaging with existing members.
There's space for debate, and the format of post and comments makes it easy to follow that debate and contribute, over time. This also makes Facebook a great candidate for competitions and give-aways, and surveys or less formal opinion measuring.We know that those who see our posts on Facebook have already, in some small measure, bought in to ATL.Here's how you create an account and follow ATL on Facebook:
- Find ATL on Facebook by going to http://facebook.com/atlunion
- Click the 'like' button under our cover picture, on the right of the page – if you don't have an account, you'll be prompted to sign up by entering your name, email address, and a new password.
- Post a message, or a picture or a link - or comment on one of the regular debate threads.
Facebook provides a really useful guide to the service: http://www.facebook.com/help/
