I guess it wouldn’t be nice of me to point out all the issues with event Twitter streams without giving you a few tips on improving them. There are a few things that you can do to help ensure that your feed is well utilized to inform both in-person and virtual attendees.
1. Keep everyone informed.
Event streams only work if everyone knows what hashtag you are using and what information you want shared on the stream. Relaying this information on signage throughout the event is not enough. Take the initiative to clearly communicate with all attendees, exhibitors and speakers in advance. Share with them the reasons why you’re integrating Twitter and how you’d like them to use it. You can even include sample tweets so that people can copy and paste. Or, better yet, show them easy ways to filter their stream so that they can hone in on your content and interact with other attendees.
2. Monitor the stream.
I always suggest having a designated team member to monitor the stream. This person can reply to questions and encourage communication by retweeting quality content. In addition, this person will have their hand on the pulse of the stream and will be able to give you good feedback about whether the stream was successful or not. They might be able to share trends on what times of day or sessions drew the most activity. Most importantly, perhaps, they will be able to catch any criticisms early on.
3. Hire help.
Let’s face it. Most people don’t have a large staff. Running an event stretches your staff to the limits so I suggest that you hire social media help. Organizations that don’t make use of these tools are greatly missing out on content sharing and branding that can make all the difference in the success of the event. It’s important to have people on site who can help to tweet about sessions and exhibitors and will help steer the conversation in a good way. You may only need a few people depending on the size of your event, but they are critical to your success with Twitter at an event.
Consider some of these ideas the next time you run a Twitter feed at an event. As with any other aspect of an event, a good amount of pre-planning and strategy makes all the difference between success and failure. People use social networks more and more to communicate and it’s your job as an event planner to use those social networks to your advantage.
