I think Twitter is a great and fun way to keep up with current news and ideas. By following the right people you can keep up on what’s happening on subjects that interest you. And because Twitter is so restricted (tweets are limited to a maximum of 140 characters) that it takes only a few moments to use.

Twitter is all about quick reads, not about extended discussion. You can check in to twitter on your phone or tablet during a TV commercial or while you are standing in line at the grocery.

Twitter is filled with serious posters who provide links to other content on the web. When you follow someone, their posts appear in your twitter stream. If you follow the right people, you will get a continuous stream of news and links about current developments and ideas in elder law (or whatever other subjects interest you).

To start, see Getting Started with Twitter. And check out: 10 Things to Do When Getting Started on Twitter. 

If you follow me – @ElderLawGuy you can see who I am following. This includes journalists, other lawyers, associations, agencies, legislators, courts, and advocates who post on elder law subjects. Choose a few who interest you, click on them, and then click on “follow.” Once every day or two take a look at the tweets of the people you are following. See what links they are providing – and what posts they are re-tweeting – this will lead you to other people to follow.

If you follow more than 25 people, consider setting up twitter “lists” to keep them organized into categories.

You don’t have to worry about tweeting yourself. If you want you can just “retweet” interesting things that have been posted by other users (it takes about 5 seconds to do a retweet). When you “retweet” another user’s message, their message is shared to all of the people who follow your account. It also pings the original user to let them know that you shared their message. (They appreciate that.)

In my opinion, the best part of twitter is the information you are receiving from it, not what you are posting. You benefit most from the information provided by the people you follow, not from the information you post.

While Twitter only takes a few moments, you do have to check it from time to time. If you set up an account, but never look at it, why bother.

Here are examples of some elder law related Posters you might want to follow:

@CQHealthTweet (Congressional Quarterly’s Health Beat tweets)

@KaiserFamFound (Kaiser Family Foundation)

@RetirementRsrch (The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College)

@hillhealthwatch (The Hill Healthwatch)

@CMSGov (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)).

@AARPpolicy (Research and analysis from the AARP Public Policy Institute)

@jrovner (Julie Rover of Kaiser Health News)

@ConsumerVoices (Advocacy Group for Quality Long-Term Care)

@NCOAging (The National Council on Aging)