4 ways I use Twitter to do my research

I am a college pastor, worship pastor, and husband. Yet, I also blog and tweet my face off. As some of you may have experienced, it can be hard to find the time, let alone the content to broadcast when you sit behind your computer on a Saturday night. Here are four social media functions I have found to be invaluable when researching content to tweet or blog. In fact, when I use these regularly, I almost always end up with too much content on a Sunday night.

Hashtags.

You know when you see a word, or a one-word phrase with a “#” right before it? That’s a hashtag. A hashtag is just simple metadata; a quick way of categorizing a topic so that it is easy to track. For example, if you want to follow everything that can be said about the upcoming explosion of shark festivities next week, just do a search of #SharkWeek. It’s an easy way to sift through all the information and uncover the content you’re after. In fact, it was by using Twitter hashtags that I learned about the earthquake in Chile and Haiti, and the death of Osama and MJ before any major news station. Information travels in a millisecond, and hashtags instantly funnel them to your device.

Lists.

You ever get lost in all the informational noise? After you follow a certain amount of people, your timeline will be overwhelmed by many people’s tweets. You can unfollow them, or you can assign them to different lists. For example, I have lists for missiologists, lists for worship leaders, and lists for college students at Adorn. There are some Twitter clients that emphasize lists, making it functional, and readily accessible (TweetList and TweetBot come to mind). Instead of trying to look for gold in the middle of hundreds of tweets about bowel movements and Justin Bieber, you can just focus on the Tweeps you know will send good content your way.

Favorites.

This is easily one of the most neglected functions on Twitter. Those who do click on it use it as a way to pat someone else on the back. I suggest favoriting articles and resources that you plan on coming back to later. It’s like having Instapaper in your Twitter client. You’ll slowly begin to archive useful information.

Google reeder.

I know this isn’t a Twitter function, but I would be remiss to ignore it. As a pastor, I find blogs as vital as books. They are a constant flow of daily information, and when you follow blogs that are within your interest, e.g. college ministry, college life, short-term missions, etc., you will always have good information at you fingertips. If you want to get crazy, download a reeder app on your phone, tablet, or computer.

I have to share one last thing. You have to have a niche. Meaning, you have to focus your blog on something that matters to you. If your blog is about “theological ramblings” or “my random thoughts” it will be so broad that hashtags, lists, favorites, and reeders will simply add to the noise, causing you to be more overwhelmed with how much is out there that you don’t care about. Further, you will fail to get the short attention span of internet junkies who are looking for something focused.

For example, instead of focusing my blog on “Theology, Worship, and Saving the Whole World for Jesus” I decided to go with something more focused, like “dispersing communities of Christ-like millennials back into the city.” Now anyone who has the same niche can count on my blog to meet that standard, and vice-versa. It becomes reliable. Then in order to post content that meets that standard, I start saving blog posts in my Reeder, and researching hashtags like #missional, #millennial, etc in order to focus the stream. I focus on other Tweeps who have an interest in college ministry, by looking through my missional-ministry list. I archive everything I may find useful, by favoriting them all for later use. Then I start blogging in my niche.

At the end of the week I end up flooding your timeline. And that’s what separates me from the Lazo of two years ago who just “doesn’t get twitter.”

Do you have any Twitter tips that have helped you study, research, or learn?