Using Twitter as a Pro-Migrant Tool

by: juansaaa

Mon Jan 18, 2010 at 14:42:09 PM EST

In this day in age communication has bridged all gaps. Well, most of them, but if you want to know about a specific issue is very easy to get plugged in and be flooded with information about it.

People often compliment me for how well read I am on current issues, especially on the immigration system and its issues in this country, but the reality of it is that all it takes is a couple of tweaks here and there in your routine within the internet in order to get as much information as possible. Moreover, you can be on the move and have a basic cell-phone with a text message plan and still be kept up to date on recent developments in the news.

What I am trying to say is that we should all be a little be a little more open and receptive to the information available to us, the more we know the more tools we have to combat the misinformation that is out there, or spread the accomplishment we have compiled so far. Within this post I will be covering Twitter and how to use it as a pro-migrant tool, not only to get direct updates from on the trenches activists to publications from various forms of media, but also to help spread awareness about immigration system in the United States. For all intents and purposes we will focus on covering the DREAM Act and help promote it within the Twitterverse (common term to depict the universe within Twitter).

So lets treat this as the Twitter guide to the DREAM Act, I will be answering many FAQs and if you have any remaining questions or points that I missed or did not cover you can always drop me a comment. So here we go:

Why is Twitter so important to the DREAM Act and its movement?

In a world that seems to be clogged up with blogs, editorials, news articles, and spam it seems almost impossible to read every single piece or at least go on the hunt for it across the vast depths of the internet.

Twitter takes care of this by using asking the question “What are you doing?” in which users may reply in a variety of ways. To the average Joe, Twitter is nothing more of a Facebook status updater, where they will often type “Im eating a slice of pizza yum…”, but us here at the DREAM Activist team and in the pro-migrant movement use Twitter as a may to publicize everything we do, from our blogs to what others are doing, in order to spread awareness in a quick, short, and easy way for others to see.

Often you’ll see things like this coming from our Twitter account” “@DreamAct: “New Blog Post ‘Post Name Here’”. Upon reading this, our friends (followers as denoted by Twitter) will continue to re-post this over to their accounts so their ‘followers’ can see what they are reading as well. In turn this creates a huge chain of what are known as ‘RTs’ or “re-tweets” that give credit to the original source in which the article came from.

However, we are not the only ones Tweeting about the DREAM Act. There are articles published every day covering the story of a DREAM Act student, one of our actions, or an organization that is promoting the DREAM Act. By “re-tweeting” and organizing the tweets we can create a network of pro-migrant advocates that keep us informed of news being published within their communities, or actions that they are conducting.

How often do we update our Twitter?

Often. Our DREAM Act account tweets at least once per day, but there are other accounts that are active in certain parts of the country which Tweet about happening s about the DREAM Act in their state. Im located in Florida, so I tend to follow journalists and organizations within my state and look for events across my state in order to help them spread across the Twitterverse (not that other people can’t follow the same people I do). As I type this guide I have already tweeted the following:

RT @tnimmigrant: Amazing article about Tennessee #DREAMAct student activists in Nashville Scene! http://bit.ly/8JBtqh#immigration #ri4a

Just like me there are people in other states From California to Tennessee that also Tweet about Dream Act happenings around them!

What is with all the symbols, special characters, and random letters within the Tweets?

I our simplistic and to  the point  Twitter has its own language. Since we can only use 140 characters per update, people have come up with nifty ways to simplify what they have to say, and in the same way organize it.

Hashtags: Hashtags are keywords highlighted by a pound symbol (#) which organize all your tweets by that word. When you post a hashtag (#dreamact for example) you are able to see EVERYTHING in the Twitterverse that contains the specific hashtag, meaning anything from news articles to blog posts and everything in between will be right there in for of you to read.

Example: I love the #dreamact

Re-Tweets (RT): Re-tweets are depicted by and RT: at the beginning of the update. It only means that somebody went right ahead and liked what I tweeted enough to Re-tweeted to his/her followers. IN this case my good friend @raylab re-tweeted the following:

RT @JuanSaaa: I love the #dreamact

So now her followers can see that she and I love the DREAM Act, and if any of them want more information about the Dream Act they can click on my profile and follow me to get more updates. Can you see how we build a network?

The good thing about RTs is that if a “big shot” Tweep goes and re-tweets what I say (let’s say The New York Times) then their followers which is a couple thousands can learn more about the DREAM Act and cosequently follow me, making my list a lot bigger (again the network grows).

So as you can see, there is always an influx of communication pouring in, you just know who to follow and what hash-tags to click on.

DM’s and @ replies:

DM is short for Direct Message and these are private messages that you can send to your followers ONLY. To write one simply write DM in your update bar and follow it by @nameofthetweep and your message and off it goes!

@ replies are more direct and you can actually carry a conversation that way. Lets say you want to let us know about your event about the DREAM Act all you have to type to us is:

@DreamAct: Hey Im having an event (details here)

This way we receive it and we can email you or contact you quickly.

bit.ly: This is a website that shortens your URLs in order to save up room within your updates.

Pretty much that covers all the basics, I would recommend you look into Hootsuite (Web-based) or TweetDeck (desktop application) rather than using the Twitter.com website since its very limited on its capabilities. The services mentioned above let you do a variety of things right from their platform (bit.ly is incorporated, keep track of your followers).

For mobile phones you can either forward your tweets to your phone (must have unlimited TXT plan and have any carrier that is not MetroPCS) by going to your followers profile and clicking on the mobile option, and you can reply to the tweets/DM?and RT directly from your phone as long as you have a basic knowledge of the commands discussed above. If you have a smart phone (I carry a Blackberry) you can download apps that have Twitter capabilities and give you an interface that is more friendly and interactive (you can see your whole timeline of updates, rather than just get specific updates from certain followers).

Just imagine, if you could get all the DREAM Act related headlines delivered straight to your phone!

Our DreamActivist Account is @DreamAct, but if you want to follow me personally you can go and look me up under @Juansaaa. Some hashtags you maybe interested in checking out would be the following #immigration #ri4a #dreamact #immyouth #todreams

Hope you guys get a handle of this, since we need as many pro-migrant voices as we can out there! Hope to see you around the Twitterverse. It is important for all of us to stay connected, by all means necessary and this is a great way for all of you to get direct news from everyone involved in the pro-migrant movement

Have questions? Drop me a comment!