How to Join Twitter Chats to Network and Learn

August 13th, 2011

Summer is over, and it’s time to head back to class. You might even feel a bit of withdrawal from the excitement of interacting with other enthusiastic public relations professionals every day at your summer internship. You want to stay in contact with your PRSSA friends and interact with professionals, too. How can you do this? Through #PRSSA Twitter chats!

Every month #PRSSA chats focus on topics that appeal to students from all Chapters — large and small, new and established. Share advice and ask questions during the Twitter chats!

Here’s how:

1. Log in to Twitter.

2. Go to http://www.tweetchat.com around 9 p.m. EST when you’re ready to join the conversation (you don’t have to leave the Twitter web page up).

3. Enter “PRSSA” in the search box at the top (that’s the hashtag we use).

4. The Twitter feed will pop up with all the #PRSSA tweets. You officially become part of the chat — all you have to do is write your thoughts in the box at the top of the feed (don’t worry about adding #PRSSA at the end, Tweetchat does it for you automatically).

Above is an example of what you’ll see during a PRSSA Twitter chat using Tweetchat.

If you can’t see the box, but can see the feed, then click “sign in” at the top right corner and click “allow” to allow Tweetchat to connect to Twitter. Tweets will take a minute to show up once you click “tweet” but will appear to other members — don’t worry if you can’t see it right away.

Be sure to mark these future Twitter chat dates on your calendar:

August 30

September 20

October 25

November 14

January 23

All chats will begin at 9 p.m. EST, and the Twitter chat topics will be announced soon. For now, you can follow @PRSSANational on Twitter to get updates about PRSSA news and use the #PRSSA in your tweets to receive advice from other Chapter members.

What topics would you like to see covered in upcoming Twitter chats? How could professionals contribute to the chats in a helpful way?

This is a guest post from FORUM Editor in Chief, Amy Bishop.