There are a variety of tools that you can use to participate in a tweet chat. Here are the more popular options; we have sorted them based on technology comfort level:

Beginners

The easiest way to participate is to log into your Twitter account, enter #AskEoC into the search at the top of the page and it will display the #AskEoC Twitter conversation. From here, hover over the tweet for tools to reply, retweet (RT) or favorite. As new tweets arrive, you’ll see an alert at the top center of the page, just click it to refresh the page. To send an original tweet of your own, just click on the blue pen in the menu bar on the upper right hand corner.  Be sure to add the hashtag #AskEoC to your tweet.

Novice

TweetChat at http://tweetchat.com/room/AskEoC. You’ll be asked to enter your Twitter account username and password, followed by granting your permission for Tweetchat to pull in your tweets (authorize app). Doing so allows you to not only see the conversation thread but to also participate in it.

TweetChat offers its users the benefit of:

• Tweeting to the chat without having to type the hashtag (“#AskEoC” will automatically be inserted into your tweet for you – ensuring that your tweet is included in the conversation)
• Refreshing your screen with new tweets (You can adjust your refresh speed – 5 seconds is the minimum available)
• Filtering out retweets so that you may remove clutter from your twitter feed.

Experts

If your comfortable with Tweet Grid, TweetDeck, Hootsuite or any of your preferred tools, you can certainly use them to follow and participate in the conversation. Just be sure you remember to add “#AskEoC” to your tweets.

As with all Twitter Chats, anyone on Twitter will be able to see your posts whether they are attending the session or not.  Take a look at the Tips and Etiquette that provide the structure for our #AskEoC.