1. Share an article with the group via our Twitter feed.

• First, you need a Twitter account.  They are easy to set up, and if you don’t feel comfortable using your real identity, create a fake one.
• Next, compose a tweet. You’ve got 140 characters, and they can be pure text, or you can add hyperlinks, images, and/or hashtags.
• To share an article link, I suggest reducing the size of the URL to something small — that way you’ll have more space to add your own short intro or comment.  Try bitly or  tinyurl to shorten a link.  Then, simply paste the link into your tweet.
• Add the hashtag for our group – #stedbc    This will allow anyone searching for this hashtag to pull up your tweet.  Since our web page is pulling in all tweets with this hashtag, your tweet will automatically appear on our web site.
• Next . . . find a few people to follow!  I suggest looking for people in your field, or colleagues at SEU who you think might have interesting information to share with you about your profession.
• A word to the wise:  don’t knock Twitter until you’ve given it a thorough try.  Nope, 140 characters isn’t space enough for a deep, robust discussion.  But that’s not really what Twitter is about.  It’s really a networking site that enables sharing of resources and information, as well as snapshots of what people are thinking or doing.  And . . . in our case . . . it can provide a way to keep a conversation going even when all of us are away from our group.

2. Subscribe to web site updates (posts and comments) using an RSS feed.

How will you know if someone has added material or a comment to our web site?  Do you have to keep checking back every few days?  Nope!  That’s what RSS was invented to do for you.  You can “subscribe” to our web site via RSS, and it will send you any new updates posted to the site — either blog posts, or your colleagues’ comments.

• First, you’ll need to decide on where you want your RSS feed to appear.  You can go with a basic RSS reader — such as Google Reader.  You can simply pull them into your St. Ed’s Zimbra email account.  Or you can use a more fancy schmancy reader, like Feedly (my favorite).
• For more information about subscribing to RSS, visit the FRC’s help page on RSS.

3. Post your personal profile to our “Who We Are” page.

We’ve posted instructions directly on the “Who We Are” page.  If they don’t make sense, feel free to call or email Julie or Cousett Ruelas for additional help.