I remember being told a long time ago in Karate that a Black Belt was merely someone who had become a master of the only the basics. Once the Black Belt had been achieved, your mission was to become a master of the advanced which meant to never stop learning.
While I by no means consider myself a master of anything, I do believe that on the road of learning anything, you have to remember the basics and use them to help become a master.
A few things led me to this subject tonight.
- I mentioned a basic functionality tool last week and I was surprised at how many people had never heard of it before.
- I asked people what they would like help with on Twitter this week and a surprising number of requests were basic things.
- I did an interview with a newspaper and one of the things we discussed was a basic fact of social media.
So tonight on #CopChat, we’re going to go back to the basics and talk about the little things that we did to become better. The tips that are second nature and the things that maybe we overlook because they seem basic.
I want to become a master. I need to re-visit the basics and remind myself how to use the tools of my trade.
I see some police officers do amazing things on Twitter everyday and it reminds me how great this platform can be for being above average and reaching your community in a huge way!
For our community that joins us on #CopChat, you always come up with great information, advice and you tell our police what you would like to see and what you think works. It’s a great team effort!
So, I really hope to see you tonight at 9pm ET, 6pm PT.
What are the #CopChat “rules”?
There are no ‘rules’ but we want this to be a good experience for everyone so here are some ideas to help.
- The first rule of #CopChat is that we talk about #CopChat.
This isn’t FightClub.
- If you have a blog, website or social channel that you want to share, please do so at the beginning…but we’ll ask that you don’t do any selling of products or services. This chat is for discussion not sales. If you would like to sponsor a chat or promote your product, email me. ( timburrows1266@gmail.com )
- There is no insulting, bullying or swearing. If someone says something that you don’t agree with, respectfully say so and have a discussion. That is what this is all about…learning and sharing.
- If a subject presents itself that you may have written a piece for feel free to share at the end of the chat using the hashtag. Depending on the speed of the chat it could get lost in the stream during the middle of it and you’re less likely to get clicks during the chat.
- If someone tweets something that you feel compelled to RT, do it! But, make it even better by adding your own flavour to it, or conversely, if you disagree, say so and provide the reason why.
- If someone disagrees with your position take the criticism professionally…no twitter fights. It won’t serve anyone with any value. Take it out of the chat and have your fight without the hashtag. No one wants to see children fight…we want to see adults chat.
- Finally…no tweet longer apps. Keep it under 140, no one wants to be clicking links to see the rest of your tweet. It will take people out of the conversation and probably get ignored anyways.
- Abuse – if you choose to abuse the forum you will be blocked / muted and really what will that accomplish. We are all here to learn from each other. If you don’t like the police then say so respectfully…who knows, you might have a valid point but if it’s expressed poorly, no one will ever learn from it.
How to follow along.
Naturally, the easiest way is by using the hashtag… #CopChat
Using a dashboard platform like You will want to use TweetDeck / Hootsuite / TweetChat / Twubs etc, to follow the #CopChat. You may also want create streams to follow @t_burrows and who ever may be co-hosting. Make sure you watch your own mentions stream so you don’t miss anything someone says to you.
