INSTRUCTIONS FOR SETTING UP TWITTER FAST FOLLOW AT YOUR SCHOOL
- Setup a twitter account. Go to twitter.com and follow the prompts. When it asks you for your name, you can use your real first and last name or the name of your school. Type in your e-mail address and create a password.
- In the next step, it will ask you to select a username. This is what you will give to your kids. Choose a username that will be easy enough and short enough for kids to remember and type in. LasColinasMiddleSchoolASB might be a little excessive. Maybe try for just LasColinasASB or LCASB or LCMSASB. Something like that. As you progress through the sign-up process, it's going to ask you to find your interests, look for your friends, find people to follow. You can skip all that nonsense since this account is going to be used for school and not for your personal interests.
- Figure out how you are going to tweet. If this is going to be the only twitter account you use, you can connect your cell phone to your twitter account by going into the mobile settings (after you have your account all set up). Follow the prompts to connect your cell phone text messaging to your twitter account. Once connected, you can send out your tweets (which then, of course, will become your text message blasts) directly from your phone. This works from ANY phone (not just iPhone or Blackberry). Any phone, that is, that has text messaging. If you have a smartphone, there are twitter apps available for free to download. The reason I mention tweeting from your phone is because most school districts block direct access to twitter from a school computer.
- Get your kids to start following you. Guide your kids through this process in class. That way, kids who catch on faster can help those who may need a little extra assistance. Plus it's cool to demonstrate it in class so all the kids' phones light up and buzz at the same time. Also helps to make sure everyone's phones are working properly. Have them send a text message to phone number 40404 (this is the universal twitter text messaging number) with TWO words (it's always just two words). The first word is FOLLOW and the second word is whatever your username is. For example, if you want to get updates from the ASB at my high school you would text the words FOLLOW WESTRANCHASB to 40404. Upper case or lower case doesn't matter. What DOES matter is they need to make sure it's only those two words, and they can't have subject lines or signatures in their text messages (you may not understand what this means, but they do). Again, emphasize to them that they do not need a smartphone, but they do need text messaging and standard text messaging rates apply. Most families nowadays have unlimited texting, but not all, so be aware of that.
- Start tweeting!
Hope that helps. Give me a holler if you have any questions at rippolito@gmail.com.
