Twitter chats use a hashtag - like #publibchat - so people can follow and participate in the chat. Every tweet in the chat should have that hashtag somewhere in it, so people following the chat can see it. You can use Twitter's website for following a chat hashtag, but it can be unwieldy. There are two websites designed specifically for Twitter chats, however! They're extremely similar in function, so whichever you use is a matter of personal taste:
To use these sites, you sign in using your Twitter account, enter the hashtag for the chat you're joining, and the site streams the chat for you, and automatically adds the hashtag to your tweets so you don't have to remember to do it manually each time.
The first few minutes of the chat are a chance for introductions: if you like, you can tweet your name and where you work, or something about yourself. It's OK to just lurk, or be anonymous!
After introductions, moderators will tweet a question, such as: "Q1. Do you like cats? #publibchat" You would then reply with: "A1. Of course I like cats. #publibchat" And of course, you can reply to others in the chat - just be sure to include the #publibchat hashtag if you want it to be part of the overall twitter chat conversation.
When the chat is over, all tweets with the #publibchat hashtag will be gathered together in a Storify, which provides a digital archive of the conversation.
Another thing about Twitter chats is that they can move very quickly! One thing that can help is being familiar with the questions ahead of time, and we do post them here on publibchat.org at least a few days before the chat. But don't feel like you have to read every tweet and respond in real time.
You might want to look at the transcripts for our previous chats to get a sense of how they go - you can see them here: https://storify.com/publibchat
We hope this helps!
(Thanks to #critlib for use of some of their verbiage.)
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