Join me for our new College Cash Chat LIVE on Thursday nights!

Hi Everyone!

I am so excited to host a live chat on twitter just for you! The College Cash Chat will be held every Thursday from 10:00 -11:00 pm EST beginning September 1.

Each Thursday we will come together and talk about financial aid tips and have live discussions focused on how you can easily navigate the financial aid process. As your Financial Aid Expert I have much to offer as do the many industry leaders I will bring to our chat as special guests!

This is an exciting way to engage and learn, while we build a community of education and support for all of us. Our chat will be open forum and you do not need to commit or rsvp. Simply observe only or observe and engage. Either way, I am sure you will enjoy the experience and take away valuable information!

In addition to our weekly live chat, you will find that conversation in our special stream found on Twitter under #CollegeCash will take place throughout the week as many people including industry professionals, students, parents and teachers will begin posting valuable information. I will monitor the conversations daily, so please feel free to post questions, concerns or a hello in our special stream at anytime as you are always invited to chat with me.

Our fist topic for September 1, we will discuss Getting Ready for the Financial Aid Process.

I understand Social Media is new for some of you and the thought of a live Twitter Chat may sound foreign, so I below you will find information on how to attend a Twitter Chat suggested by Dabney Porte, who specializes in online relationships and community building.

Here is some information about Use a “Twitter Aggregator” Program, or Free software

• If you do not have a basic platform outside of Twitter that you use to manage your twitter stream, you can download one of the free applications like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite. I prefer Tweetdeck, but others simply love Hootsuite

• Both applications will help you to organize your tweets in a variety of ways. For the purpose of attending twitter chats, while engaging with others at the same time, they are invaluable www.tweetdeck.com www.hootsuite.com
  

• Once you have one of the above applications up and running, simply do a search for #collegecash. This will automatically produce a column of all tweets that mention #collegecash only.

• The hashtag or # symbol is the key to engaging in any twitter chat event. By including #collegecash in your tweet, your message will be added to the single stream called #collegecash. Without adding the hashtag, your tweet won’t be recognized as being part of our chat event.

• To add yourself to the #collegecash stream, all you need to do is be certain that you mention (type) #collegecash somewhere within your tweet. Most people add it to the end of what they have to say.

If you want to keep things simple while you attend our College Cash Chat, we strongly recommend starting with Tweet Chat, which is easy to use and keeps your entire focus on the chat via a single column format. All tweets made within our event will be listed.

When you reply to a tweet, the hashtag will automatically be added to your tweets, ensuring that you are actively participating. The greatest aspect of this site is you can slow the chat down with the pause button. Conversations move quickly in most twitter chats, and having the ability to go at your speed is beyond helpful.

Please keep in mind, you can run this stream 24/7 as we build our community. If you have information related to our area of interest, please feel free to post links to such! However, please do not use our community to promote subject outside of topics!

Remember, Find us in the stream or simply go to the link below anytime you wish to easily see what our community is talking about or to attend the live chat on Thursday evenings. Be sure to log in so that you will be able to participate.

http://tweetchat.com/room/CollegeCash

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me directly or post them here. I would love to hear your thoughts on what topics you would like discussed in our chats and suggestions for guests. I am beyond thrilled to build our online community together and look forward to experience! I look forward to hearing from you on Twitter and remember you can find me by using @JodiOkun.