Whether you’re hosting an event or attending an event, one of the quickest ways to get information to your audience is to live tweet. Twitter is the perfect platform because it’s easy to join conversations and interact in real time. To help you make the most of your live tweeting endeavors, we’ve compiled a list of tips.
Be Prepared
It’s hard to prepare for something that hasn’t happened yet, and especially for a live event, but there are somethings you can do to make the process a little easier for yourself. It all begins with doing your homework in advance. Following are some items you’ll want to know and consider in advance of the event.
- Know the names and Twitter handles of anyone that will be speaking at the event, and tag them when you share any of their talking points with your audience. Attribution is important!
- Do your best to familiarize yourself with the topic(s). A little reading on the topic right before the event can help you more accurately refer to the speakers and/or topics while tweeting in the moment.
- Consider who you are tweeting as. If you’re tweeting as yourself, you can add in touches of your personality and expertise. If you’re tweeting on behalf of your organization, keep your tweets factual and consider tweeting less often.
- Think about your audience. If your tweets are targeted toward event attendees, you may want to include reactions to what the speaker has to say over quotes and paraphrases of their content. If your audience is individuals that can’t be at the event, you’ll want to stick to sharing what the speaker is saying, and perhaps include some of your own reactions.
Hashtags Are Everything!
If there’s one thing to know about Twitter, it’s that hashtags help add your content to current conversations on a given topic. Furthermore, tweets with one or more hashtags are 55% more likely to be retweeted. With that in mind, be sure to do the following:
- Know the official event #hashtag. For example, there were multiple hashtags in use surrounding the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, but the official hashtag was #Rio2016. Follow the event’s Twitter account and you’ll quickly find the appropriate hashtag to use.
- Use the hashtag consistently as you’re live tweeting. That means using it in each post and keeping a close eye on your character count to ensure you have enough space to include the hashtag with each post.
- Use the event hashtag to see what others are posting about. This will allow you to see what is resonating with others in attendance that might be of interest to your audience and worth retweeting.
- Also use hashtags related to the topic or industry when appropriate. This can help other people interested in these topics or industry join the conversation. Be sure do a little research on the current trending hashtags so you can make your tweets count by incorporating them.
Another added benefit of using hashtags is that you’ll maximize your 140 characters. Just remember to only use hashtags that are relevant and make sense. If you use too many hashtags, your content may be viewed as “hashtag spamming.”
A few other tips to keep in mind include:
- Add pictures or videos to your tweets when you can. Tweets with pictures have a 35% increase in retweets, while those with video have a 28% increase in retweets.
- Make sure your tweets will be valuable to followers that aren’t at the event. For example, when you do post a photo, make sure your tweet has some context to it, such as a quote or a link for more info, instead of just the speaker’s name and event hashtag. Tweets should include a mix of information that is educational, entertaining (when appropriate), and useful.
- Tweet quotes and key points or “takeaways” from the speakers and tag them so they are given proper credit.
- Don’t use the event hashtag with non-conference related tweets. It looks spammy and is too self-promotional.
- Don’t tweet everything! You don’t want to overwhelm your followers, and you also don’t want to tweet something that wouldn’t be of interest.
- Follow up after the event! Use the tweets with key points or quotes to write a summary blog post, reach out to new connections and share their recap posts if you think it will be of value to your audience, and continue the conversations – there’s a good chance the main event hashtag will stick around for a few weeks after the event.
- Don’t tweet information that shouldn’t be shared with the public. If you aren’t sure, err on the side of caution and don’t tweet it.
Hopefully these tips will help you feel more confident when the opportunity for live tweeting comes up. As always, we welcome your questions so feel free to reach out to us!
