Sharing is caring, and here at TED we do a lot of both — especially on social media. You can like our Facebook page, catch us on Instagram and follow us on 19 active Twitter handles. That’s a lot, we know, but sometimes good sharing means not oversharing. In other words, we want to make sure you get the information that’s meaningful to you and aren’t overwhelmed by updates from TED’s many initiatives and projects and occasional bouts of livetweeting. (See: This spring’s epic Twitter fail, in which we blew up our feed during TED2012 with livetweets from, of course, Sherry Turkle’s talk on digital communication.) Feel like you need a map? Below, a taxonomy of TED on Twitter.
For general info:
@TEDNews: Our main Twitter account. Follow @TEDNews to get the daily TED Talk plus links to new TED Blog posts, news and announcements from TED initiatives, and top-line coverage of our conferences and events. We livetweet from here on occasion.
@TEDTalks: For minimalists who only want one update a day, this Twitter account is exclusively for the daily TED Talk, posted every morning at 11am Eastern.
For information on TED Conferences:
@TEDActive: Coverage of the happenings at TEDActive and TEDYou. Follow it now to meet the TEDActive community; the conference happens February 25–March 1, 2013, in Palm Springs, California.
@TEDGlobal: Complete conference coverage from TEDGlobal, happening June 10-14, 2013, in Edinburgh, Scotland.
@TEDLiveHQ: News about our TEDLive program, which lets you watch the TED conference feed live in your home, school or office.
@TEDYouth: Speaker-by-speaker tweets from TEDYouth, which takes place every fall in New York City. Check it out now for great quotes from the most recent event.
For info from TED.com:
@TEDConversation: Find out about great conversations happening each day on TED.com — and when to join in.
@TEDHelp: The place to go for help with problems or questions about TED.com, the conferences or our mobile apps.
@TEDQuote: Get great quotes daily from our TED Talks quotes archive.
@TEDTranslations: The hub for the Open Translation Project. Find out which talks are ready to be translated, and communicate with those translating talks into 90+ languages.
For information on TED initiatives:
@TEDBooks: Hear about the new TEDBooks and their authors, as well as great links about digital publishing.
@TED_Ed: Updates from TED’s education initiative, TED-Ed, including new lessons four times a week.
@TEDFellow: News about past and present TED Fellows.
@TEDpartners: Tweets for and about TED’s global partnerships.
@TEDAds: News about the annual Ads Worth Spreading contest, devoted to finding inspiring and inventive ads.
@TEDPrize: Updates about the TED Prize, wishes and winners. The 2013 winner of the $1 million prize will be announced at the TED Conference, February 25-March 1, 2013.
@TheCity2_0: Progress on the 2012 TED Prize winner, the City 2.0.
@TEDx: News about TEDx events and initiatives, like TEDxCity2.0 and TEDxYouthDay.
@TEDxTalks: Find out about the daily TEDxTalk, from the deep TEDxTalks library.
And some accounts that are commonly mistaken for TED channels, though they aren’t:
@Ted: The personal and professional Twitter account for video editor Ted Severson, who’s been really nice about the occasional confusion.
@TED_Tweets: This channel looks legit, but it is updated by a fan rather than the TED staff.
@TED_Talks: Is this hand-updated by a fan or a robot? We don’t know.
@ted_com: Another account that looks official, but isn’t.
@RandomTEDTalks: TED-esque talk titles, generated by an algorithm from real TED Talks (with a few handcrafted headlines thrown in). Absolutely worth a follow.
@WhatTedSaid: The official Twitter account for the Seth MacFarlane film Ted. Sigh.