NPS Twitter usage--161 & counting!

It didn't take long to realize the best way to compile and track NPS usage of Twitter would be to create a separate Twitter account devoted to nothing but NPS Twitter accounts. Initially, we were going to copy and paste the links onto a separate page here on this blog. The first approach would have been very time consuming and tedious. Twitter itself makes it very easy to simply follow as many NPS Twitter accounts as we can find.

As of 8 am (MST) 11/12/10 we have compiled 161 NPS Twitter accounts. See note at end of this post for our "criteria" for identifying an NPS Twitter account.

We doubt that we will originate very many Tweets on the account ourselves. It also remains to be seen if we will Re-Tweet posts on this account. "We shall see," as they say. In the meantime, if you know of one or more NPS Twitter accounts that are not included in the "follow" list, please send them to the email embedded above.

As we have begun researching NPS social media usage, we haven't yet found a single "one-stop-shopping" compilation of NPS Twitter (or any other social media) usage. We continue to believe that this would be a very valid official project for national level NPS administrators to consider.

Here is the new Twitter we created this morning: http://twitter.com/npstweeters
-------------------------------
Addendum #1: We quickly realized we would need some informal criteria to identify an "NPS Twitter Account." We used these three criteria:

1) The account's photo is the NPS logo
2) The website listed in the profile is an official NPS website
3) The photo shows someone wearing a regulation NPS uniform.

A few NPS Twitter accounts clearly represent an official unit of the NPS but we had to dig pretty deep to determine that relationship. We did include the National Parks Foundation and a couple of USDOI Twitters in our list.

We will periodically review our list to cull out those that don't quite fit. Please let us know of accounts we have missed. Thank You.