Twitter at the House of Delegates
●First, try to download a 3rd party client for Twitter like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite. It is easier to do constant updates on Twitter with it particularly on a “guest” account.
●Second, enter in the ABA House Twitter account Username and Password.
●Third, with EVERY tweet, make sure you add the “hashtag” (or phrase) of “#abamidyear”. This will allow other people to follow it. Feel free to add your initials to the end of a tweet with the following designation “^ds” That way people know who the author is.
●Next, try to keep your tweets at about 120 characters (or about 20 characters remaining). Why? That way others can “retweet” your tweet and have room for the username on the RT.
●When referring to the “ABA” try to use the term “@abaesq” which is the official ABA tweet ID.
●Feel free to introduce yourself: “Now tweeting: Connecticut Delegate Dan Schwartz (ds)
●Tweets should convey, in a person-on-the-scene format, what is going on at that moment at the ABA House of Delegates meeting. What is being debated? Did something funny or notable happen? Did a speaker say something noteworthy? Is a vote going to be contested? What was the result? Are people going to the pro bono lunch?
○Sample tweets: “Next up: Resolution 102 which looks at whether the criminal rules should be amended to cover witness ID”
○“ABA Prez Zack calls for emergency resolution to support the Rule of Law in Egypt”
○“Zack: We cannot stand by where we see the Rule of Law being harmed”
●Try not to add your opinion on the ABA account.
○Sample of what not to say: “Speakers don’t seem to be carrying the interest of members” or “I can’t understand why we’re arguing about Egypt”
○If noteworthy, be factual - “Speaker X objects to the motion of Speaker Y, stating that such a motion is ‘out of order’”
●Add a link to relevant material. Both Tweetdeck and Hootsuite have a shortening service that will take a long link and shorten it into something like “bit.ly/5f6sd”. Very helpful. (Tweetdeck does it automatically, Hootsuite you have to paste into a section that will shorten it) Just cut and paste the page that you want to reference. What types of things? Resolutions (which can be found here: or news articles, or a link to the meeting, or the rules, or anything else that is available on the internet.
●Feel free to retweet others, particular the main ABA site or the ABA Journal or other delegate members, when they have interesting tweets.
●Try to make sure you don’t have typos and obviously, remember that you are representing the ABA. Be professional. But you can also connect with viewers with anecdotes. Be helpful and, if possible, respond to any readers that respond to you. Don’t tweet every minute, but try to tweet on something significant. It could be 5 tweets in an hour or 10.
●Most of all, have fun.