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A Cloth Diapering Mom’s Guide to Twitter
June 15, 2009 10:02 am | by

It seems like everywhere I go, I hear someone talking about Twitter – from the news world, to celebrities, to sports…and now even cloth diapers. Did you know that there is a huge cloth diapering community forming on Twitter?

So I thought we could do a quick crash course on Twitter and give you the scoop on how to connect with the tons of other cloth diaper moms who are tweeting.

In short, Twitter is a way to communicate something in only 140 characters – like a blog, but much shorter. You can keep up with friends, family and coworkers throughout their day. You can also communicate with celebrities and CEOs that you may never have the chance to meet on the street.

Here are a few other definitions to get you started on Twitter:

Tweet – a noun and a verb. As a noun it is the the 140 character message that you put on Twitter (if you use Facebook, think of it like a status update). As a verb, it is the action of updating your Twitter status (“I tweeted about cloth diapers today”).

Followers – like “friends” on other social networks, these are the people that see your Twitter updates as you post them. You can “follow” users and then will see their updates on the homepage of your Twitter account when you log in.

@ (a.k.a. mentions or replies) – use @ when you want to communicate with someone specifically. Using @username tells the person that you want their attention or that you are talking to or about them personally.

DM (aka Direct Message) – you can send a direct message to someone that will be sent to only them, no one else can view your direct messages.

RT (a.k.a. ReTweet) – use RT in combination with @username when quoting someone else’s tweet. Here is a great blog all about the art of RT.

#Hashtags – a way to participate in a conversation on a specific topic. Putting #clothdiapers in your tweet makes it readily viewable to anyone who is searching the clothdiapers topic or participating in that conversation. Here is a great blog about using hashtags.

Here is an example of a post from last week using RT and #hashtags: RT @cottonbabies: Just a reminder, our next big #clothdiapers sale will be tweeted first. Follow @cottonbabies to be first in line. (The sale happened last week and the diapers flew off the shelves, Twitter followers had the first crack at it…just one more reason to jump on the Twitter bandwagon!)

So how can this relate to the cloth diapering world? Well, search the term “clothdiapers” – you are guaranteed to get a TON of responses. Have a question about cloth diapers – buying them, using them, selling them, winning them – tweet it, add #clothdiapers (all one word) and watch the responses come in! It is such a great way to join together the cloth diapering community and be a resource for each other!

It gets better – for the past several Monday nights, there has been a cloth diapering chat going on. Cloth diaper moms, retailers and manufacturers get together to talk cloth diapering by putting #clothdiapers (one word) in their tweets – answering questions, posing their own and sharing experiences.

The easiest way to participate in the chat – join us at 8pm in your time zone (the chat gets going around 8pm EST and continues until later into the evening…so jump in any time!):
1. Go to tweetgrid.com
2. Click on the “search” button at the top of the page.
3. Type clothdiapers (all one word) into the search

The chat will automatically update so you can stay up-to-date on what is being talked about! And, please, join in conversation! We want to hear what you have to say!

A couple of weeks ago the term “clothdiapers” even became the #3 most popular term being “tweeted” – this is called trending. It was so much fun! We had people who knew didn’t even know that cloth diapers like bumGenius existed – they were asking all kinds of questions about “modern cloth diapering” and wondering why in the world clothdiapers was trending on Twitter! What a fun way to get even more people talking about how to save money and the environment all in one place. We definitely took them off guard!

So…join us – especially on Monday nights (8pm in your time zone)! Ask questions, learn new tricks and tips on cloth diapering, get in touch with other cloth diapering moms and share your pictures and experiences with all of us! (Just remember to add #clothdiapers (all one word) in your tweet so we can find each other)

*Jenn tweets as @bumgenius and @cottonbabies – so be sure to follow her. She personally updates it, so you are hearing from the source herself!

About the Author

Jenn is the founder of Cotton Babies & creator of bumGenius, Flip, and Econobum, worldwide leading cloth diaper brands. She has four children (Andrew, Oscar, Elsie and Louis) and holds an MBA from Washington University. When she's not working full time, she enjoys teaching business leaders how to implement sustainable economic & social change.

Comments

2 Comments

  • Lindsey said...
    November 7, 2011 at 9:06 pm

    Great job staying relevant, Jenn. 🙂

  • James, Andrea, and Clara Smith said...
    July 19, 2009 at 3:04 am

    Thank you, thank you! I’ve been so confused! I didn’t want to break all the twitter politeness rules, but I had no idea what I was doing half the time. This really helps. I’m @JosieAK 🙂