On the fourth day of Christmas...

my true love sent to me...four social media forums. 

LHSA on Twitter

February 2012 saw the creation of a Twitter account to complement the three existing LHSA social media forums (a blog, Facebook and Flickr accounts). The format lends itself to quick updates, with a maximum of 140 characters, and has allowed us to open up our collections and services to an even wider online audience.
We’ve picked up over 180 followers in less than 10 months, and enjoyed making links with our users, other archives and libraries, history organisations and those who are just interested in what we have to say! Popular topics have included tweets about our volunteers and their work (also known as ‘Volunteerwatch’!), images of new accessions as they arrive , and of course the invalid fruit tart which trended on Twitter following its appearance on The Great British Bake Off! 

Image of Accession 12/030 which appeared on Twitter when it arrived

Twitter allows us to direct followers to our website, blog, Flickr and Facebook pages, and is a great way to advertise events and projects. It’s also been an opportunity to link with the wider heritage sector: we can publicise events held by other archives to our followers, and through participating in the #archday12 event, in which archives from across the world tweeted using this hashtag, to highlight items from their collections to a global audience.

On Twitter? Follow us @lhsaeul