A Twitter guide for academics and researchers

(Nanowerk News) Don't use Twitter yet to share information about your research? Here is a guide from the folks at LSE Public Policy Group to get you started: "Using Twitter in university research, teaching and impact activities" (pdf).
Twitter is a form of free micro-blogging which allows users to send and receive short public messages called tweets. Tweets are limited to no more than 140 characters, and can include links to blogs, web pages, images, videos and all other material online. You can start tweeting in 10 minutes, anytime, from your computer, smart phone or tablet.
By following other people and sources you are able to build up an instant, personalized Twitter feed that meets your full range of interests, both academic and personal. Thousands of academics and researchers at all levels of experience and across all disciplines already use Twitter daily, alongside more than 200 million other users.
Yet how can such a brief medium have any relevance to universities and academia, where journal articles are 3,000 to 8,000 words long, and where books contain 80,000 words? Can anything of academic value ever be said in just 140 characters?
This guide answers these questions, showing you how to get started on Twitter and showing you how Twitter can be used as a resource for research, teaching and impact activities.
And when you are all set up with your brandnew Twitter account, follow our Nanowerk Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/nanowerk
Source: LSE Public Policy Group