My interest in technology stems back to the days of “cd\wolf3d,” ranging from hardware to software but I’ve recently been interested in all the Web 2.0 activity. I’ve been trying to get an understanding of how these online tools can be used in the world of martial arts and below are my suggestions.

An obvious channel are the schools as they need a way to communicate and interact with students. Many of today’s web based applications can help save time and money. In Part 1 of this series I’ll provide references and examples of how to use Twitter as a tool to help save time and ultimately you can decide how much money your time is worth. I realize that there are other web based applications that provide similar services but for the sake of example, I will stick to using Twitter (its the one I’ve also been using).

There are endless sites on the Internet that will explain what “social media” is and what “Twitter” is and quite frankly, many can explain it better than I can. There are easy to follow videos to understand the basic concept behind these web based applications. If you need references on where to find this type of information, send me a tweet!

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How to apply Twitter to a martial arts school?

Here are three ideas to get the gears turning.

1) If I want to make announcements about a canceled class, I type it into the text field on the home page and it will be sent to all my “Followers.” Imagine that an emergency came up for me as the day’s instructor. From my cell phone (with the proper data plan), I can access my Twitter account, type in that “Class is canceled for 5:30PM” but will continue with Sensei Joe at 7:30PM.” The student receives that as a text message on their phone while they are at their day school (during break of course) and they now know not to come to the 5:30PM session. Easy as that.

I personally use Twitter on my cell phone and the website will actually keep me logged in so I don’t have to deal with the pain of logging in each time I want to send an update.

2) To promote a sign-up special I might consider offering the public, I can post that on Twitter. Lets present a more difficult scenario. Let’s say the only people who subscribe to my “tweets” are students only. How does this help me promote my special to people I DON’T know? If your students are using Twitter, they can post it on their account as well and anyone who is “following” them will receive that announcement. For example, if tomorrow were the first of June, I can go to my account on Twitter and type in, “During the entire month of June the New York Judo Club will waive the sign-up fee. Help spread the word and post.” The idea is to leverage the community you are directly related to already (students, fellow instructors, dojo staff)

Note - Twitter has a 140 character limit on each update you provide but this example fits within that constraint

3) Twitter can provide micro-interactions with my community. For example, If I wanted to add another layer of learning for my students, perhaps at the end of the week or during the days there are no classes, I can send out facts about my art form. The 140 character limit actually helps me from trying to produce an essay from every fact I provide. Here’s the scenario. I’m a Judo instructor and I hold classes every Monday - Friday but not weekends. On Sunday night to start the week off with my students thinking about Judo, I’ll type into my update, “Sambo is a different form of Judo developed in the Soviet Union and is recognized as an official sport.” This not only provides the student with facts about the very art they are dedicated to, but also shows them I am knowledgeable and willing to share that.

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In Part 2 of this series, I’ll show you how you can expand using Twitter and integrate it into an interface like Facebook or MySpace. This is beneficial if you are trying to provide your students with a central location for various types of information and not just the micro data that can be done in Twitter. This opens you up to having a platform to post events on a calendar, blogs for regular information you publish, etc. Look for that in the near future!

You can find my Twitter feed on the right side of the my website or go to this link: http://twitter.com/ben10dough

More Zen time for all the minutes you’ll be saving using Twitter!