I thought I had loads of time to plan my chatty week as the curator of the @PeopleofLimk Twitter account for mid June. It turned out though that there was a last minute drop out on a Saturday night in May. When the call went out for someone to jump in the following Monday of course I said yes. I had a busy week ahead anyway and everyone knows that busy weeks are the best weeks to get anything done – right?

The aim of the @PeopleofLimk account is to let people around the city know about what is happening in their city, and to give different voices an opportunity to be heard. My interests are culture, the arts, media, my kids, my community, education, being active and nature so I wanted to represent these interests in my tweets. I was hoping to attract some new followers to the account and to stimulate some discussion and spike some interest in what the city has to offer residents and visitors.

1. PLANNING

The first thing I learned was the importance of planning. I knew I had a busy week ahead so on Sunday night I cleared off the kitchen table and sat down with TweetDeck for a few hours.

I put together a daily schedule that started with a song lyric around 7am. Where possible I used a song lyric of an artist that was playing in the city that day. I made sure to reach out to the artist and the venue with their Twitter handle. I tweeted at least 2 events that were happening in the city each day and closed each night around 11pm with a lame joke. Here’s what the general daily schedule looked like:

7:15am – good morning songline of the day + retweets

8am – Tweet about something trending

9am – something I see in the news + retweets

10am – Tweet about an event / happening

11am – Miscellaneous

12pm – Food tweet (link to a recipe)

1pm – Something in the news

2pm – Miscellaneous

3pm – personal tweet

4pm – Tweet about an event / happening

5pm – Sporting activity to try in Limerick

6pm – Link to a video I like

7pm – Tweet about something trending

8pm – Something in the news

9pm – Retweets

10pm – Link to radio show / tv show / box set / movie to watch

11pm – Goodnight – lame joke

The schedule pretty much reflected the rhythm of my day. As you can see I tweeted a lot each day, however using TweetDeck I scheduled in all the tweets I could in advance (lyrics, food, events, sporting activities, box sets, lame joke) which meant that even if the day got away with me and I didn’t have an opportunity to meet all the other Tweet deadlines I at least had my scheduled tweets to fall back on!

2. PEOPLE POWER

I researched people who were connected to or interested in what I was tweeting about. So for example when I was tweeting about trying out kettle bells or kayaking I rearched out to people who were professionals or passionate about these interests and included them in the tweet. This helped the tweets spread outside of existing followers and also built up new followers for the account. I also tweeted to active twitter users in the city that I know personally and knew would help me out in my week as curator. And help me out they did with lots of likes, retweets and replies – you know who you are – thanks for your help!

3. THE PERSONAL TOUCH

Probably one of the most successful tweets I posted in terms of genuine interaction and shares was when I put up a picture of my son on a bike enjoying a relatively new woodland track in an old wooded estate just 15 minutes walk from the city centre. The woodland walk had not been widely publicised and lots of people were interested to learn about it. People were looking for directions, commenting on the history of the estate, sharing pictures and newspaper articles relating to the land, and one person even sought out the track for the first time herself that afternoon and tweeted an image. Yes!

4. BUSY WEEKS ARE GREAT

I was involved in two big projects that week, the launch of the Limerick2020 identity and video as the city bid to become European Capital of Culture in 2020, and the painting of a large street mural for the Tiger Tom Cat Street Festival in a central city location. These two events gave me lots of content to share on Twitter. I was able to generate photographs, link to relevant websites and interact online with other people and organisations relating to the events.

5. TWITTER TAKES TIME

But I guess we all know that… Social media does take time but with planning and the help of TweetDeck, I definitely managed to efficiently connect and interact during my week as curator of @PeopleofLimk

6. TWEETING IS FUN

Thank you Sharon for your comment (see below in comments section) and reminding me that yes I had a lot of fun in my week on @PeopleofLimk If you have a chance to tweet for your city or community I would definitely recommend it 🙂

FANCY BEING THE @PEOPLEOFLIMK YOURSELF????

The @PeopleofLimk account are always on the look out for people living/working or from Limerick to take ownership of the account for a week. This is a very rewarding experience and a great way to connect with more people and organisations around Limerick. If you would like to try it for yourself then follow this link to the @PeopleofLimk website for more details Click here for @PeopleofLimk website