TV Tweeting: A Must Or A Bust? (Tarleton Tip Thursday #7)

Welcome to Tarleton Tip Thursdays, where we help you harness the power of social media every week. Today we'll discuss how to monitor and share tweets about your favorite TV shows.

"Oh no she didn't!"
"Unbelievable."
"NO WAY."

The statements above have all been hurled (along with many, many others) at the television during tense moments. Have you ever wondered how people across the miles are reacting to your favorite TV show?  Find out.

Monitor your show's hash tag(s)
One way to monitor and share reactions to your favorite shows is by checking Twitter. You can do this without signing up for a Twitter account.  Here's how:

•  Go to www.twitter.com/search.
  
• Type in the hash tag of your favorite TV show.  This will usually be the name of the TV show in all (or mostly) lowercase letters preceded by the pound sign (#).  Examples:  "The Good Wife" can be found using #thegoodwife or #goodwife (or even #TheGoodWife).
  
• By default, your search results will show the top (or most popular) tweets for the hash tag you entered.  To see all the tweets for that hash tag, click "All."

This search will only show tweets with that hash tag.  Others tweets may have another hash tag or even (gasp!)  no hash tag at all. For a complete search, you can try alternate hash tags or the name of your show in quotes.  If you do this, you may see irrelevant tweets in your search results.

Recent tweets using the #AmericanIdol hashtag

TV Tweeting Tips
Perhaps you're tired of reading other people's tweets and want to dispense *your* pearls of wisdom concerning American Idol, Revenge, or Hoarders.  (Give the people what they want!).
Check out our tips below:

• Wait until the commercial breaks  so you don't miss crucial plot points while tweeting or reading other people's tweets.
  
• Feel free to re-tweet other people's tweets, but refrain from making negative comments. If you tweet someone else regarding a comment, they may or may not reply.  Not every (or any) "lol!" merits a response. 
  
• Avoid monitoring hash tags if you haven't seen the show yet.  You may come across a spoiler.  And please...don't tweet spoilers.

Do you tweet while you watch TV? What are your favorite shows? Let us know in the comments below!

P.S.  Missed your favorite TV show and want to experience the tweets "as they happened" when you do watch?  Check out this blog post by "The Next Web" on Rewinder, an app that lets you do just that.