Twitter
You might also want to consider Twitter when you are weighing up your options for social media. When it comes to sharing content, Twitter is unlike either Facebook or Instagram. The value of Twitter is its brevity: the length of each tweet is capped at 280 characters.
If you are considering using Twitter, think about the audience you want to engage and the type of content you want to share. Because of its brevity and fast-pace, Twitter is likely not suitable to host your project, but it can be a really good tool to promote it, by attracting users to your website / blog, YouTube channel or podcast, and to remind your audience of project updates or top-line research findings. If you’re new to Twitter, you’ll need to build your followers for greatest impact. You can do this by identifying key influencers in your project topic area (e.g. heritage experts or other project organisers) and following them; following your target audience; retweeting relevant users’ content; sharing compelling content (including images and video), and using hashtags to create a following.
A hashtag is a word or phrase with a # at the start e.g. #HeritageWeek. They are used on social media to identify messages on a specific topic and, as they’re searchable, they act like a compass to help us to navigate social media content so that we can find the type of posts we are interested in. It is worth thinking about your audience and others interested in your topic and the hashtags they might use to look for your project. Do you need to create a new hashtag that is unique for your heritage project? Should you use existing hashtags already popular in your heritage area e.g. #Genealogy? Or, could you use both? Whatever your strategy, make sure you add your hashtags to each piece you post on social media to ensure maximum exposure. If you’re planning on using a ‘unique’ hashtag, always check what has previously been shared under that hashtag to ensure your project in not associated with another campaign.
To join the online community of project organisers for National Heritage Week 2020, include some of our existing hashtags or use them to search other projects being organised.
Popular hashtags across all social media channels for National Heritage Week 2020 are: #NationalHeritageWeek #HeritageWeek2020 #HeritageAndEducation #HeritageOnYourDoorstep #RelearningSkillsFromOurHeritage.
Check out www.twitter.com for more details.