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Today’s post comes from Jenni Izzo, a Drexel University graduate turned PR Account Coordinator with a social media obsession. You can follow Jenni at @jenniizzo.
Whether large or small, Twitter can enhance your event in a number of ways. Take a hint from MTV, who recently used a live Twitter Tracker for their 2010 Movie Awards. They encouraged those in the audience, as well as those at home, to get in on the action by tweeting their thoughts, reactions and questions. Throughout the night, tweets containing “MTV” hit over 400 per minute. But, even if you aren’t planning a star-studded event, you can still use the following tips to create a tweet-worthy event.
Establish an event hashtag.
Long before you start promoting the event, create a hashtag. It should be easy to remember, short and relevant. This will be key in incorporating Twitter into your event. Include the hashtag on everything from the Evite to the Facebook page to signage at the event. Other creative ideas include: event t-shirts, business cards and centerpieces.
Create buzz before the event.
Now that you’ve established the event hashtag, get out and there use it. Tweet about sponsors, ticket sales, guest appearances and topics. Get people excited before the event and it will ensure that the enthusiasm carries over to the day-of.
Encourage attendees to tweet during the event.
Using the previously mentioned tips, make sure the hashtag is visible at the event. If you have a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation, make sure it is included on the title slide. If you will be taking planned breaks, display slide encouraging attendees to tweet — or better yet…
Host a live stream.
During scheduled downtime, replace your presentation with a live stream. A live stream should also be incorporated at all times on a projection screen. If you are announcing winners or honorees, use Twitter to share the big news. Also keep your audience actively engaged by tweeting trivia questions and giving an award to the first to tweet the correct answer.
Take advantage of post-event insight.
Twitter gives event coordinators a valuable opportunity to look back attendees’ candid thoughts. Review tweets marked with your hashtag to see what worked and what didn’t. Use this as an opportunity to improve your next event or connect with people who had further questions.
When it comes to using Twitter to enhance your event, the possibilities are endless. Feel free to add to this list and share some of your favorites in the comments.
@callmedisko
Jenni Izzo is the smartest peson in the business when it comes to social media. Her ideas are creative, yet simple!
@twitfools
Great recommendations. These are some of the very same strategies we uncovered for in our post covering how the NC State Fair busted attendance records last fall using twitter. See that post here: http://www.twitterfools.com/news/raleigh-tweetup-helps-state-fair-break-attendance-record/
@dorait
There are couple of additional things you can do.
1. Host a pre-event (or during the event) tweetup
2. Create a list (on Listorious) of people who want to tweet (and may even have a BOF of tweeters)
3. Have a couple of people from the show organization tweet logistics and other details
4. Have an ask-event twitter address for people to send event related questions
5. Create hash tags for sessions too (that may help very specific session related tweets)
6. Include Tweeters and Bloggers in the Credits page for the event (recognition helps a lot)
7. Have an informal Tweeter’s lunch table or breakfast on the first day of the event or as pre-event.
@mattlawton
@inbloome has done fabulous work in this area. Check her tweet of 15 May 2010 for details.
@mediafunnel
Another great way is to let fans post to your stream via a ‘guest post’ widget, or via SMS or email. Media Funnel can make that happen.
Thanks!
@Giuliano84
Another cool thing to do is to have a way to display on a big screen a website like visibletweets.com. It nicely displays tweets following an hashtag and it’s a great way for people to interact in real time with the event and get introduced to other people in the same building!
@idiary1
Interesting post about using twitter to make your event successful. All the tips are practical and are worth giving it a try.
@nyjetsetter
Great tips Laura! Depending on your audience, it might be worthwhile to reconsider hosting a LIVE stream of tweets during a presentation.
Some attendees may find the tweets distracting. However, if you are engaging with your audience, adding value and increasing participation, go for it! (I’ve seen some inappropriate tweets revealed during a LIVE stream, which may be embarrassing for the presenter)
@twitblend
One more thing you can do after events is make a collection of tweets that talk about your event and send it out so people can get the overall picture of your event. You can use our service http://twitblend.com to do this.
Hope this helps.
@BallySocial27
Twitter is by far an important integration , All events that we have done in the past have followed these guidelines and have shown success. Since we do virtual events attendee engagement before the event is the key to generate buzz and also having he attendees participate for this hash tags are the key.
I am a strong believer of providing the best social media tools via our events platform and let attendees do all the magic of making an event successful . Key is you should have enough time in advance to spread out the word.
Cheers
Bally
Social27.com
@lustfulgraces
K, please don’t laugh but… what’s a hashtag?
Grace. It is a word prefixed by the hash sign #. It is used as a short cut to refer to an event, a book, a topic etc. You can search twitter using the hashtag and get a stream of posts marked with the hashtag.
Dorai
@maybolles
SlideRocket’s twitter plugin embeds right in your preso – great way to engage your audience while presenting. Here’s an example (on the last slide): http://app.sliderocket.com:80/app/FullPlayer.aspx?id=C7C3BD30-3D24-503B-68AF-D2BD2356BB7D
@kriscolvin
We do all of this with our Intefy product: http://intefy.com, which aggregates a livestream, slideshare, flickr pool or open chat plus tweets/hashtags on one custom branded page. We can bring in other types of RSS feeds using the nifty service dlvr.it, and will be adding Facebook feeds and RSS feeds in the next few months also. We manage them remotely (tweeting, answering questions, making sure the page feeds are all working) or on-site (video recording and setup for virtual audience.) We also do pre-event promotion and post-event analytics for clients we manage events for.
The last two events we did, they showed the page on large screen in the room, and actually used the comments being made on Twitter, including virtual participants in the conversations in a very real way and blending the online/physical together seamlessly.
These live online events are a ton of fun, and people get to attend from anywhere and learn despite not being there in person. I’m addicted to doing this – I can watch a conference in my jammies!
@KBIRI
We are based in the Netherlands and focus ourselves on high-end social media integration in public areas. With a focus on events.
We have experienced that our system is one of the best available. The events that used it saw a high rise of social media usage during the event.
You can view a demo we made for an 7 x 12 meter screen in a big soccer stadium here: http://metro.socialstitch.nl/wall (see picture of it here http://kbiri.nl/wp-content/uploads/socialwall_breed.jpg )
@tweetwallpro
Great post. I’m sure that sooner or later, it won’t be conceivable to plan an event without a good Twitter Wall. It’s the reason why, at TweetWall Pro, we’re doing our best to provide the greatest web based platform where you can set up your own Twitter Wall with all the moderation and visualization options you could need. Find us on http://www.tweetwallpro.com !