One of the biggest support systems for me while learning to code has been other people learning to code. Initially that happened through Learn’s great Slack community and Ask a Question feature, but lately I’ve found myself getting back into Twitter for “extracurricular” resources and socializing.

I got my professional start in the nonprofit sector doing marketing and outreach for an organization called the Foundation Center, which tracks money given all over the world by private and public foundations. It also has a ton of free general resources for nonprofit fundraising and operations.

Part of my job was to run our local office’s Twitter account. Up to that point (2010), Twitter was new territory for me, but I quickly fell in love with it for a number of reasons:

  • Genuine expertise abounds, and many people are happy to answer questions and give advice if asked
  • The level playing field makes it easy to talk to people you have a professional crush on
  • It’s a great way to connect with like-minded peers
  • You’ve got tons of content at your fingertips once you’re following the people and companies that interest you
  • It’s easy to stay on top of news and trends in your field because the most pressing issues get a lot of attention
  • Professional development is constant

Later as I got my footing, it also became an important channel for establishing our office as a source of knowledge for other people in the nonprofit sector

Now, 6 years later, everything old is new again: I’m discovering that all of the things I loved about twitter when I started my nonprofit career are true again as I’m learning to code. So, in the holiday spirit of shraring, I wanted to write up a quick guide to my favorite part of Twitter for my Learn.co crew and anyone else learning to code: Twitter chats!

TWITTER CHAT BASICS

Calling a Twitter chat a “chat” can be somewhat misleading, especially if you grew up with chatrooms and group messages, but they’re functionally very similar.

In the simplest terms, a Twitter chat happens when a group of people come together on Twitter at a predetermined time to tweet with one another about a specific topic. Most importantly, every person participating in the chat uses a given hashtag for each of their tweets, which then organizes the “chat” into a conversation that can be followed in the same way you would follow the conversation in a chat app or in a group text.

The only thing that really differentiates a Twitter chat from something like Slack or a big ol’ Facebook thread is that unless you have a private Twitter account, everything tweeted in the tweet chat is public and searchable by the chat’s hashtag. What’s nice is that if you don’t have an account or don’t feel like actively participating, you can check out any chat just by searching the hashtag on Twitter.

How do I follow a Twitter chat? Just head to Twitter.com at the designated time, enter the hashtag (with the #) into the search bar, and switch the search tab from “Top” to “Latest” like so:

The number of tweets coming in usually outpaces Twitter’s natural refresh rate, so you’ll probably have to regularly refresh the page to keep up.

Who can start/run a Twitter chat? Anyone can start a Twitter chat, since all it really involves is an agreed-upon meeting time, participants, and a hashtag for organizing. I’ve seen companies host twitter chats, as well as professional associations, bloggers, podcast hosts, journalists, and informal groups of folks on Twitter with shared interests.

Who can participate in a Twitter chat? Literally anyone, thanks to the mechanics of Twitter. If you’re using the hashtag to tweet during the chat, you are participating! That said, with great power comes great responsibility, so you definitely want to make sure your contributions are relevant and help further the conversation.

How long does a Twitter chat last? Most Twitter chats are officially “active” for an hour, though the conversation can (and often does) continue between participants afterward.

How will I know what to discuss? Most twitter chats I’ve participated in operate in one of two general ways:

Predetermined topic, freeform conversation: a topic is set ahead of time, and participants just go back and forth discussing the topic, often with questions sprinkled in by whoever is hosting/leading the chat. I find that these tend to work better with fewer participants, as it’s pretty easy for the number of side “conversations” to get out of hand

Predetermined topic, set questions: In this case, the host/lead of the chat will pose specific questions at set intervals throughout the period of the chat. In an hour long chat, I’ve commonly seen 4 questions, each posed at 15 minute intervals to keep the conversation moving. These chats usually work best when each question is numbered Q1, Q2, Q3, etc. and answering tweets all start with A1, A2, A3 etc. in addition to using the hashtag. I definitely prefer this system because it’s generally easier to follow.

You can see a great example of the flow of a chat in the transcripts of the weekly #CodeNewbie chats. Here’s the transcript from the November 23 chat.

How do I find out about regular Twitter chats? Honestly this is still tougher than I feel like it should be in 2016, but I’ve been finding mine through a combination of Google, podcasts, following dev-related hashtags on twitter, and getting recommendations from others learning to code.

Two chats I’ve really enjoyed participating in are:

Code Newbie

Code Newbie is a superb podcast and support group started by Saron Yitbarek that bills itself as “the most supportive community of programmers and people learning to code.” (it’s true). Each week’s chat generally corresponds with the most recent podcast; tonight’s chat is about diversity in tech and follows on a great conversation with Ashe Dryden, programmer, organizer and diversity consultant.

Dev Discuss

While Dev Discuss isn’t necessarily billed for new coders, I’ve found it to be a great group of really helpful devs who get together to talk about a wide variety of coding topics. Recent chats have covered Impostor Syndrome, personal projects, an education paths. I’ve met some really nice people and gotten great resources from this chat.

HOW TO KEEP UP WITH YOUR FIRST TWITTER CHAT

Similarly to a group text or in a chat app, the greater the number of people in the conversation, the more difficult it gets to follow all the different threads and side-conversations emerging. In the next post, which I’m planning to finish before the end of the week, I’ll cover strategies and tools to stay afloat and contribute meaningfully to the conversation.