Auntie Kate The Resale Expert

Thinking that both attendees of NARTS Conference 2010 in Palm Beach FL and those who cannot attend this year would like to Tweet about all the events, let’s start a hashtag we can all use to share our experiences. (All about starting hashtags.)

#NARTS

What’s a hashtag? (by the way, this blog is an excellent one for our NFP consignment and thrift shops to follow!)

Twitter Slang FAQ if you’re a bit foggy on what OH and @ and the like means…(this site has some pretty cool merchandise on it too)

Why do this? Not fond of the whole Twitter thing, wondering why bother? Here’s some thoughts about it.

We can use, on Twitter, #NARTS to discuss Conference before we can get there, and we can also live-Tweet while there.

What could you Tweet about, beforehand? Questions, what to pack, which workshops who’s choosing, arrival times to share transportation…

What to live-Tweet about once there? Meet-up times/ places (how to send a private message) , your impressions of the shops on the Bus Tour, the best nibble at the cocktail party, even lost-and-found!

How to Tweet during Conference if you aren’t there? Just as easy. If you’re stuck at home, simply Tweet using the hashtag #NARTS and everyone following the stream of #NARTS will get your message. Like gee, dabble your feet in the Atlantic for me or buy Kate’s stuff for me at Sourcemart I’ll pay you back

All you have to do is include #NARTS in your Tweet and it’ll be easily-accessible to all.

What NOT to do: Don’t Tweet during a presentation or workshop. You’ll lose the thread of the education you came for…and it might distract both presenter and audience. Tweet before, tweet after, just not during, to be polite to your co-attendees. Just as you turn your cell off to pay attention, so you shouldn’t tweet or text in a class or speech.

How to find everyone’s #NARTS tweets? Simply search in Twitter. Even if you are not a Twitter participant, you can read them. (For today, use the search term #consignment to see how it gathers up all the tweets with that tag. We don’t have a lot of #NARTS Tweets up yet, especially since Twitter never seems to give you results more than a week old: their “Older tweets are temporarily unavailable.” message seems to be permanent)

PS Let me know in the comments if I’ve mis-explained or if you have a link to a better explanation…I’m new to this too and welcome further knowledge!