Historians have been live-tweeting our annual conference using the conference hashtag since the 2012 conference in Adelaide. Each year people from around world who are passionate about history follow these tweets and learn about the exciting new work and debates emerging from historians working in or on Australia. 

These guidelines draw on our experience from the tweeting of past conferences. We provide them to help conference attendees share informative tweets and to create a productive and respectful environment in sessions. 

The basics

• The conference hashtag is #OzHA2018. Add this to all the tweets you want to be seen by those following the conference twitter.
• Identify the speaker in your tweets – attribution is important on social media too.
• Please demonstrate the high standards of professionalism, collegiality and courtesy that characterise history as a discipline – if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. 
• Remember to ask permission before posting photographs of people at the conference.
• Please make sure your device is on silent!

Speakers and chairs of sessions

• As Kristina Kalfic wrote in the 2012 conference program, ‘[w]e consider this conference to be a (relatively) public forum, and as such assume each speaker gives consent to have their presentations live-tweeted’. We reiterate this but also respect our speakers’ wishes. If you would prefer that your paper is not tweeted please let the chair know before the start of the session. It is the responsibility of the chair to request people not to tweet your paper. 
• If you have a Twitter handle mention it at the beginning of your presentation. If you are using Powerpoint slides, add your Twitter handle to the bottom of each slide.
• At the beginning of each session the chair should ask attendees to make their devices silent. Attendees should not be asked to turn devices off unless the presenters have requested this.

Attendees

• Do some research before the session: find out if the speaker has a twitter handle and use that while tweeting their paper; find out if the speaker has a blog or has shared their work elsewhere online and tweet this.
• Listen closely and quote carefully. Remember that the goal of live-tweeting a paper is for somebody who isn’t in the room to be able to follow the speaker’s argument. 
• If anyone following along on Twitter asks a question, please feel free to ask that question of the speaker and report the answer back. Be aware, however, that questions from people in the room take precedence, and ask accordingly.
• You may find that sitting at the back of a room makes you feel less self-conscious about tweeting and it is less obtrusive for other attendees. It is also where the power outlets tend to be.
• This article on live-tweeting conferences may be helpful: http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2012/oct/03/eth...

Tweeting history year-round

Historians benefit from the discussion and publicity of their work on social media platforms. We encourage you to keep tweeting about history after the conference using the #OzHist hashtag and follow the Australian Historical Association @AustHistAssoc.

AHA member Yvonne Perkins has an excellent guide for conference tweeting on her blog.