PandemicFlu.gov is on Twitter

More Information about Twitter and How We Plan to Use It

What is Twitter?
Twitter is a free social messaging utility that helps users communicate in real-time. Each message is 140 characters or less in length, and is called a “tweet.” Tweets can be sent and received using computers and mobile devices. Twitter lets you control how many messages you receive by allowing you to choose the users you want to “follow.” Other people can “follow” you to receive your updates. Twitter in Plain English is an excellent, short (2:25 min.) video that provides more on the basics of Twitter.

How does PandemicFlu.gov plan to use Twitter?
Our presence on Twitter is an experiment in progress. We plan to provide updates when information is posted to the PandemicFlu.gov Web site and when there are credible reports about Bird Flu in the mainstream media. There are many other potential uses of the medium and we encourage anyone with ideas to make a suggestion by sending us a tweet.

Will we follow you back?
We recognize that new tools like Twitter derive much of their value from the two-way conversations that they enable. However, participating in these new forums adds additional responsibilities without the benefit of additional resources. To help us manage our workload while experimenting with these new tools, our current approach is to only follow users who have sent meaningful and pertinent replies directly to our Twitter account.

What about Hashtags?
Hashtags (#) help organize tweets on Twitter into user-defined groupings around one general topic, making threaded conversation easy to follow. Individuals from the PanFlu community have suggested that we use the #prep and #panflu hashtags on our Twitter account. For the time being, our intention is to use #planfirst in conjunction with our PlanFirst Webcast series. To see how this would work, try searching for #planfirst on Twitter .