Introducing the BlogPaws Village Square!
Welcome to the BlogPaws Village Square where all pets and people pawty like it's 2099!
First things first: How to pawticipate in BlogPaws 1st annual #BlogPawty
Note: If you are unfamiliar with the terms used for Twitter you can familiarize yourself with them by reading the Terms section our latest newsletter. Twitter virgins can also check out @CokieTheCat’s Twitter Tips for Beginners here.
If you have pawtied on Twitter before then you can hop into BlogPaws’ #BlogPawty and feel right at home. Our barktenders will be serving yummy noms and drinks, DJs will keep the party alive with great tunes, Paw-Leece will look out for attendees and help first time Twitter pawtiers (& watch for spammers!) and BlogPaws will ensure everyone has a good time. It promises to be a fantabulous event!
If you’re not on Twitter yet, signing up is step one! It’s easy to create an account. Head on over to the Twitter page and register. Be sure you create a Twitter handle that is relevant. Once you have your Twitter handle (ours is @BlogPaws), start following us and our community members. If you are not sure who to start following, visit our Twitter page and check out all the anipals we follow!
You’ll get the most out of the event if you create a Twitter stream with the pawty hashtag: #BlogPawty. This hashtag will be used by everyone at the pawty. This is how you see all the #BlogPawty tweets in in one place. Create a #BlogPawty stream by doing a search for #BlogPawty right in Twitter. We recommend using either Hootsuite, TweetDeck or TweetGrid. Using any of those, create separate stream columns – one for #BlogPawty (all the tweets about the pawty), one for just the tweets that we put out @BlogPaws, one for your @mentions (people directly addressing you) and one for your DMs (direct, private messages), and you will still be able to send your own tweets while following all of that! It does mean creating an account in one of those platforms. If you are feeling confused and overwhelmed, email us. We'll do our best to help you out.
Introduce yourself when you arrive at the #BlogPawty. Tweet something simple like, “Hi #BlogPawty pals!” (or even “Halp! I don’t know what I’m doing!” LOL). Between the pawtiers and the BlogPaws hosts someone will engage you! If they don’t, try again. There will be a lot of tweets so it’s not that they’ll be ignoring you, but they might miss your tweet. Be sure to always use the hashtag #BlogPawty so all the other pawtiers see your tweets in the #BlogPawty stream.
Watch for the prize giveaways! BlogPaws has some great prizes to give away including free passes to BlogPaws 2012 in Salt Lake City and donations made to the pet focused charity of your choice! In order to pawticipate in the prize giveaways you will need to be ‘following’ the quiz masters on Twitter. They’ll announce themselves at the pawty and you’ll see tweets about being sure to follow them. They’ll tweet quiz questions, along with links where the answers can be found. You’ll need to send them a DM (Twitter Direct Message/private message) with the answer to be in the running for the prize. Be sure to order a drink or noms from the barktender and tune in the DJ's great music (by clicking on their music links).
The complete schedule of events and the staff who you should follow can be found here.
It's not as complicated as it sounds. Worse case scenario: Be on Twitter this Saturday at 5:00 p.m. ET. You'll find us! Come ready to pawty and invite all your friends. See you there!
