Info Pack

Welcome to People of Leeds 

 Hello! Thanks so much for showing interest in taking part in People of Leeds. We like to get all sorts of people tweeting about all different aspects of Leeds, so we’re grateful for your support. This might look like a lot of writing, but I promise it won’t take long to read, and it should contain anything you need to know about taking part. If you have any questions, please email us on peopleofleeds@gmail.com 

  What is People of Leeds? 

We are the People of Leeds. All kinds of people, from all over Leeds, coming together on one Twitter account. Based on the now defunct but amazing @sweden Twitter account, we're handing the reins of our Twitter account over to the people of Leeds. Each Monday a new person will take the account for a week, bringing you a unique snapshot of living, working and playing in Leeds. If you’d like to see what we’re hoping to achieve, do check out the @peopleofleeds account for those who have gone before. We started on January 16th 2012 and we’re hoping to continue for as long as we can get people to sign up! 

  Sounds good. How do I get involved? 

 You need to live, work or play in Leeds. You need to be an individual, not a group or organisation. You need to commit to a week (Monday-Sunday). You need to be willing to get involved and happy to tweet. You need to be able to use Twitter. You need to be following the @peopleofleeds account in order to get a feel for how the account works (and so we can contact you!). 

  Okay, I’m in. What are the rules? 

We’ll be giving you control over the account for the week, and we really want you to be yourself, but we’d ask that you follow a couple of golden rules. Please tweet! A silent account is a boring one – we’d ask for a minimum of two tweets a day, but obviously the more you do the more interesting it is for people reading it. Feel free to include photos/links/retweets. Also the more you interact with people, the more we promote Leeds – if people show an interest in what you’re saying, feel free to have a conversation. Please treat it as a PG account. Remember that people following might not be expecting *you* and could be children/easily offended. If you normally swear/pass round pictures of the inside of your pants, please do it on your own account. Please tweet in easy to understand language. Remember that all sorts of people will be reading the tweets, some of whom might not use English as a first language. Use localisms, but maybe explain what they mean, and please don’t use textspeak. We can’t understand it. Please don’t use the account to spam or incessantly pitch your own twitter/blog/business. Please do tell everyone about things you’re involved in, but don’t use it as a week long marketing platform. Also please don’t change anything on the account i.e. photo/name etc. (except the cover photo, that’s fine to change). We have to put a lot of trust in the people that are doing this, please don’t let us down (and basically if you do we’ll have to shut down the account and that would be sad). Please be local! The aim of the project is to show off Leeds, so talk about things going on in Leeds, places in Leeds, people of Leeds. Remember that people will be following who aren’t from Leeds, so don’t assume everyone knows where you are – show/tell us! But don’t feel you have to be relentlessly positive – if something annoys you about Leeds, tell the world. You never know who will be reading, and something might get done about it! Finally be yourself. If you love that cat at the bus stop, tell us about it. If your passion is Leeds United, tweet from a match. If you hate the corn exchange, tell us about when it was amazing. We want to see all sides of Leeds, and what makes this project exciting is YOU! 

  That sounds fair. What do I do now?

Send us an email to peopleofleeds@gmail.com telling us briefly who you are (if you’re on twitter include your @name) and if there are any weeks that are particularly good/bad for you. We’ll email back with a date (be patient, we book in blocks so we may not reply right away, but we will reply). Also please make sure you’re following the account – we can’t hand it over to you without being able to DM you! 

  Great, now what happens on my week?

On Sunday night at around 8pm we’ll DM you with the login details for that week. Please do not change these details. If you haven’t received the login details by 9pm please tweet @gazpachodragon so we can follow up with any problems. Please make sure you’re following the account so we can DM you – we can’t pass the account over if you’re not following! When you get the login details, we’d appreciate if you’d log in at your earliest convenience and tweet something, so we know you’re all set. Then it’s all yours until 8pm on the following Sunday. Feel free to change the cover photo, but please do not change the profile picture (we’ve polled followers of the account and they prefer an easy-to-spot-in-their-timeline logo). If you need to change anything else (the name etc.) please contact @gazpachodragon first. If you have any problems during the week (either technical or with people on twitter), please contact @gazpachodragon on twitter. If during your week we need to tweet anything (like an appeal for someone to do the following week etc), we’ll preface it with ADMIN so people know it’s us and not you. We’ll never tweet without the ADMIN preface. If you notice a tweet that’s not you, or us, let us know! If you break any of the rules (mainly the no naked pictures/no spamming thing) we’ll give you a warning, then we’ll block you out of the account. Sorry, but we have to be strict to make sure that we don’t get into trouble with anyone. On Sunday please sign off by 8pm (feel free to tell people about your usual twitter account/blog so they can continue to follow you if they’ve liked your style). We’ll then take the account over again, do any necessary updates and announce the next person, ready for Monday. If you’ve not said goodbye by 8pm, the password will be changed anyway. 

  Still reading? 

Great! You’re exactly the kind of enthusiastic, committed person we want. Well done. Now get involved!