#560chat: Tuesdays 12p.m. EST

#560chat is a new initiative, taken on by @ProfGretchen, Gretchen Harnick, Assistant Professor of Fashion Marketing at Parsons The New School for Design. Along with her two Research Assistants, Erik Freer @Er_Fr and Stephanie Kornblum @StephKornblum, in response to students comments on the annual Social Media Research survey, #560chat will address questions on using social media for fashion students and the fashion community at large. New topics are always welcome and a calendar including topics and guest hosts will be updated regularly.

WHEN:  Every Tuesday, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. EST log in to Twitter, and follow the #560chat hashtag. A calendar of topics will be published shortly.

Tuesday, 4/10 Topic: Multi-lingual, Global SM Profiles
Tuesday, 4/3 Topic:  Social Media Privacy and Employment
Tuesday, 3/27 Topic:  Networking, How To Guide
Tuesday, 3/20 Topic:  Building Online Professional Relationships
Tuesday, 3/13 Topic:  Blogging Tips and Networking. HOST:  Julia DiNardo @fashionpulse
Tuesday, 3/6 Topic:  Pinterest
Tuesday, 2/28 Topic:  How to use LinkedIn. HOST: Dana Leavy of @aspyrebusiness
Tuesday 2/21 Topic:  Intro to building your personal digital brand

What is a Tweet Chat?  Thank you to Mack Collier for these tips from his blog:

1. If you’ve spent any amount of time on Twitter, you know that there are a lot of conversations happening at any one time, and it can sometimes seem like a jumbled mess.  But when we add a hashtag, like #560chat to our tweets, then it becomes much easier for us to track and keep up with the conversation that’s happening. Think of the #560chat hashtag as a ‘mark’ that we add to our tweets, then if you are searching for the term ‘#560chat’, you can quickly and easily see all the tweets that are related to our discussion. Without that #560chat hashtag included in the tweets, then they would be scattered all over the place, and you’d miss a LOT of the conversation!
2. If you use a Twitter client like Tweetdeck or Seesmic Desktop, create a search column for the term ‘#560chat’.  Then as we leave new tweets with the #560chat hashtag, they will show up in your column.  Or if you want to follow #560chat on another site, click here to view #560chat on TweetChat

Use the button “Refresh Speed” and you can adjust how quickly the updates come in, from every 5 seconds to every 60 seconds. This will help on your first few #560chats monitor, and reply to participants without having their conversation get buried too quickly.

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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS:
So is there a structure to #560chat?  Do you ask us questions, or how does it work?

The format of #560chat is very simple: We start with a general topic, and the conversation flows from there.  The “host” will pose questions about every 10 minutes, or topics if the conversation is lagging or needs to move on.  Generally each week, the topic will be posted and introduced by the #560chat host.

So are there any guidelines or ‘rules’ to using #560chat?

No real ‘rules’, but we do have a few ‘common sense’ guidelines:

1 – Stay on topic. #560chat is conversational in nature, and the host will guide it back around to ask new questions surrounding the weekly topic. We’re pretty open, but do appreciate it if you stay on topic.  If you want to discuss a different topic than the one we are for that #560chat, please send me a reply @ProfGretchen on Twitter and let me know, as I am always looking for new topics.

2 – Please link to your articles or related content posts and add the #560chat hashtag to your tweets but ONLY if your post is relevant to that week’s discussion, and ONLY before or AFTER 12p.m. – 1p.m. EST on the Tuesday of that week’s #560chat. For example, if you just wrote an article which supports the weekly topic, then ABSOLUTELY share that link with the #560chat community.  But, if you appear to be promoting your post on some irrelevant, and you add the #560chat hashtag, then it comes across as ‘spam’ to the #560chat community. This is not good for your business or participation on the chat..

3 – Please do NOT posts links to outside blogs or articles DURING #560chat.  This is a courtesy to other #560chat participants.  There are SO many tweets coming in that if you link to your post, we probably won’t click it anyway.  During the chat, we are there to talk, not to click a link.  #560chat moves so fast that people aren’t going to click your link to open a page.  By the time your page comes up, 100 new tweets from #560chat have come in and your links will be passed by.

If you want to link to a post that you think is relevant to that night’s #560chat topic, then please wait till AFTER the chat is over, and then you can point out your post to participants.

4 – Keep RTs to a minimum during #560chat.  Think carefully before you RT a #560chat tweet, certainly your followers will benefit, but note that you will be resending it to #560chat participants who probably saw it the first time.  If you really want to RT you can also always delete the #560chat hashtag when you send it.  Remember, your followers can also follow #560chat to search for all of the posts from our conversation.

Thank you and see you on Tuesdays in #560chat!