I’ve mentioned before that it is helpful to conduct recognizance on the other side’s social networks. You can learn interesting information. Last Tuesday morning Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas posted this notice on its Facebook page:

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Texan pro-lifer Andy Moore spotted the notice and immediately began contacting friends. A coalition quickly formed, including (among others) Bryan Kemper, Students for Life of America, and Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust.

When 3p came, pro-lifers were ready, totally overwhelming a Twitter conversation Planned Parenthood had intended to pressure the State of Texas into reinstating funding to one about Planned Parenthood itself. Afterward Bryan reported:

The hash tag was the number #1 trending topic on Twitter and it was BY FAR dominated by pro-life tweets. The conversation they hoped to have was flooded with the truth.

The Austin Chronicle even took note:

Not least of all, the chat moderators spent a good bit of energy trying to explain what this discussion was not about: abortion….

If tagwatchers made it through the deluge of anti-abortion and pro-life tweets, though, they could find a wealth of statistics on the state of women’s health care in Texas….

In the end, followers might have been left with more questions than answers, but that’s par for the course in this arena.

Ta da, mission accomplished. A Planned Parenthood supporter on Facebook dismally noted:

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Actually, I’m sure Planned Parenthood and their pro-abortion buddies were mortified and embarrassed by all the great points pro-lifers made. Scroll through the #TXwomenshealth hashtag on February 5 to see.

After the dust settled, I noted many pro-life commenters on Facebook said they didn’t have a Twitter account or know how to set one up. My friend Andrew at @TexasProLife suggested I give a brief tutorial.

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PCMag.com has a good brief overview of Twitter.

Simply think of a name for yourself (even your own name, like I use), and a brief description, and sign up here.

You don’t have to tweet anything at first. You can just read tweets to start catching on and to pick up typical Twitter shorthand, since you have to say what you want to say in only 140 characters. There are little tricks, like shortening links.

So the first thing you do is “follow” people whose tweets you want to read. For pro-lifers I would suggest, to get started: @LifeSite, @LiveAction_News, @operation rescue, @StevenErtelt, and me, of course.

I also follow pro-abortion people and groups. And I follow friends, news organizations, and people I admire.

After awhile you may want to start using a Twitter dashboard like Hootsuite to separate the people you follow into groups. That’s what I do.

As this post demonstrates, Twitter can be an important online tool for pro-lifers. And the more of us who participate, the better.

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