Just like you build community offline with your organizers, make sure you're creating and sustaining relationships online with your Twitter followers and community.

Live-tweeting an event sounds pretty daunting, but it’s actually pretty simple and fun, and a great way to stay relevant and maintain a strong presence on your followers’ feeds.

It's Friday! If you're on Twitter, you know that means #FF (Follow Friday) tweets are popping up all over the place. #FF is more than just a way to give shout-outs; it's one of the best ways to build connections and community on Twitter. Here are a few of the ways I like to think about, and use, #FF:

If you really want to get the most out of Twitter, you need to cut down on the noise so you can focus on making connections that will move you toward your goals. The best way to do this is by creating lists. Don't be fooled by the name; Twitter Lists aren't just static listings of names, but rather curated Twitter streams from a specified set of individuals.

If you're on Twitter, you've probably seen a few tweets that look something like this: ".@neworganizing, what time does tonight's event start?" Recently, I've gotten questions about the dot (.) at the beginning of a tweet. It all comes down to how Twitter determines what to show people. When your tweet starts with the handle of a person or organization, Twitter assumes it's a reply. So why does that matter?

Last week, Melissa Foley encouraged you to get to know your Twitter followers. Here's a little followup tip: Pay attention to your community, and respond accordingly. Not paying attention can cause real problems. A few weeks back, while progressives the world over were tweeting about #TroyDavis during the leadup to his execution, Senator McCaskill was tweeting about her home-town baseball team.

Headed to NYC to #OccupyWallStreet or to a local #Occupy event near you? Don't just attend, tweet. Twitter has become a key source for information for millions of people, organizations, and even the news media, and your tweets can help drive attention and debate.

Twitter, Inc. occasionally hardcodes informal norms into official features. One community practice they've recently upgraded to an official feature is the Retweet (RT). Here are 4 reasons you should use the official Retweet feature: You don't have to edit or abbreviate the original tweet. With the official Retweet feature, you no longer need to squeeze "RT @username: " into the message, saving you precious characters. Your followers don't want to see the same tweet twenty times.

Twitter's great for lots of stuff, but one of the best things is updating people in real-time.Whenever you think to yourself, "Gosh, I wish my readers/members/friends could be here," you're likely experiencing a tweetable moment. With practice, recognizing those moments can become second nature. Here are a few things to think about and keep your eye out for, both before and during events. Quotable Moments: Are you going to any conferences, hearings or events that might yield good

I love being retweeted. I love retweeting my favorite campaigns and friends. But if you make it hard for me to do so, then I'm less likely to do so and we both lose out. So, in the spirit of Twitter, I'm keeping today's tip short and sweet (67 characters to be exact)Leave enough space in your tweet for someone to RT you in one clickMany of the newest Twitter apps let you retweet without using any additional characters, but lots of people still do it the old way, by adding "RT @

More often than not, some people at an organization are using twitter but their co-workers haven't found a use for it yet. Worse, you might convince doubtful coworkers to sign up for Twitter and start following a few people, but they get the mistaken impression that they're just following inane messages from a few people.

You may be alarmed to find that Twitter's search feature doesn't retain an archive of hashtags more than a week or so. As a result, you'll have trouble finding all of the great conversation that happened on the backchannel of your event.