f you are an event manager, sooner or later you might decide to try your luck live tweeting from one of your events.
Perhaps you’ve already tried it out, saw some results and are now looking for pointers to help you improve your live tweeting strategy?
Whatever the reason you are here, you’re in the right place to learn all you need to know about live tweeting. By the time you finish reading this article you will know all about:
- Why you should be live tweeting in the first place
- How to prepare for a live tweeting event
- What to do during the event
- How to make the most of your live tweeting session after the event
This article is aimed at event planners, event organizers, business owners and community managers, but if you are an event attendee planning to live tweet an event and are in need of some pointers, be sure to check out our article written especially for you! “Event live Tweeting: a guide for event guests” You are going to find it very useful.
The benefits of live tweeting
There are so many reasons to live tweet, it would perhaps be easier and quicker to think of a couple of reasons not to. Except there is really no good reason not to live tweet from your event.
Live tweeting will help you engage and educate the audiences that couldn’t make it to your event. You will keep them in the loop – and they will thank you for it! It will also help you connect with people in your industry and make it easier for you to establish yourself as an influencer in your niche. Businesses and brands who live tweet from their events are often perceived as more approachable and more involved with their audiences.
While live tweeting, you will get to know new people and start interesting conversations with them, all of this organically and without having to try too hard. Who knows, perhaps the people you’ve engaged with while live tweeting will show up at your next event to say hi in person!
Live tweeting can also help your event hashtag become trending on Twitter, which will expose your event and your brand to an even wider audience.
Before the event
There are a couple of things you can do before the start of your event in order to maximize the success of your live tweeting efforts. Some of the tips we will share with you are vitally important, others not as much. Following all of them will, however, ensure you get the most out of your efforts.
Choose your event hashtag and get down to promoting it
You should be doing this early on, preferably a couple of weeks before the start date of your event.
If you haven’t already, make sure to check out our previous article, “How to craft a perfect event hashtag”. It will help you pick out the perfect, memorable hashtag for your event and set you off on the right track for all the tasks that are yet to come!
Once you’ve chosen the hashtag for your event it is time to promote it. You will want your social media followers, as well as your event guests and speakers, to know which hashtag they can monitor and use in their social media conversations about your upcoming event.
Make sure you include your event hashtag on your event landing page, in your newsletter, the event program, the goodie bags, pamphlets and on the tickets.
Create the visuals
Visual content has the power to catch the attention of your followers much better than mere words ever could. An often quoted statistic states that content with relevant images attached will receive 94% more views than content without any images.
So, to maximize your social media marketing efforts and to create more buzz for your event, make sure you advertise your event with appropriate visuals.
Consider creating videos and images to share on your social media sites and count down the days leading up to the event. Likewise, don’t skip out on making visuals you will share with your audience as the event takes place.
As soon as you know who your speakers are going to be, create visuals to promote their lectures and talks. In most cases, you will have a copy of their lecture weeks in advance. Use key points and most striking ideas from these talks to create engaging visual content.
Using a tool such as Buffer or Hootsuite you can put these types of content into the cue and have them shared across your social media as the event takes place, or post it yourself when the time is right.
Continue hyping up your audience in the days leading up to the event
But do so carefully. You don’t want to come off as “spammy” and desperate.
The best way to hype up the audience without causing any pain to your followers is to provide value rather than to merely broadcast.
Show them behind-the-scenes of preparing for your event. Let them know who the speakers are going to be and tell them as much as you can about the program. Ask them if they are attending, what they are most looking forward to and preferably, engage them in conversation.
You could also ask them what they would prefer to see in their swag bags, but only if you have the power and resources to really deliver based on this last minute input.
Connect with the speakers and guests
Tweet to your speakers and start a conversation with them. Retweet their content related to their talks and help them gain extra exposure. You are likely to inspire them to share your upcoming event with their followers which will keep the conversation rolling.
Journalists and bloggers are also among your event attendees. Connect with them and make their job easier by answering their questions and linking them to the content you’ve created that might be of use to them. The list of speakers and the topics they will be covering, your own articles or even visuals related to the event you’re promoting will help them as they write up an article or a blog post detailing your event!
Don’t forget to strike up conversations with “regular” attendees as well! They are just as important as your keynote speaker. In the days leading up to your event, your attendees will tweet to let everyone know how excited they are about your upcoming event. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to talk to them and let them know how much you’re looking forward to seeing them at your venue.
Let your followers know you will be live tweeting
It is only polite to let your fans and followers know you will be live tweeting an event. Some of them will be glad for a heads-up and the opportunity to mark their calendars, while others might silence you for the duration of the event in case they feel the need to.
Either way, it is always a good idea to let everyone know what you will be up to.
During the event
There is a lot to do on the day of the event and you might be feeling a bit overwhelmed as everything kicks into gear. Don’t panic, though, and try to relax! Live tweeting should feel less like a chore and more like a fun opportunity to share your thoughts and everything that is going on around you with your fans and followers.
Take a deep breath and continue down our checklist. And above all else, have fun!
Temporarily change your Twitter bio
This one isn’t a must, but it is a good idea nonetheless! On the day of the event, consider temporarily changing your Twitter bio to let your Twitter profile visitors know you are live tweeting from the venue.
Don’t forget to also include the event hashtag in your bio in order to help everyone checking out your page become a part of the conversation! You can adjust the Twitter bio of your personal, as well as your business account.
Use your event hashtag
This one might seem painfully obvious, but many still forget to do it so let’s learn from their mistakes. We get it, events are very busy and somewhat stressful – but try not to forget to use your official event hashtag with each tweet you send out.
Interact with your audience
A good live tweeting strategy is to present your followers with a bit of everything. Tweet your thoughts and experiences from the venue, share behind-the-scenes of the event and absolutely remember to tweet about the most important parts of lectures from your speakers.
But go beyond that, as well.
Whenever you find the time, interact with your audiences on Twitter. It can be other live tweeters, event attendees and guests, or the people following your event from home. Engage with all of them, and all of them equally.
As the event rolls on, people will comment on it and ask questions. Do your best to answer any questions and feel free to ask your own! Are your guests enjoying the event? What is the atmosphere like? Tweeting lets you receive feedback in real time and gives you an opportunity to smooth out any bumps in the road as well as enjoy well-earned praise from your event attendees.
Retweet, rinse, repeat
Have you noticed a good tweet or a photo tweeted out by your event attendees or the people following the event from home?
Be sweet and retweet! Help your followers gain exposure while also showing your audiences you are not there merely to broadcast. You are there to engage and give value to everyone following you and your event hashtag.
Attach photos to your tweets
Tweets with pictures receive more engagement than those without. Up to 313% more, in fact, according to Twitter’s own research. To make the most of your live tweeting session, try and take good photos of the venue, the speakers, and even the crowd during the event and attach them to your tweets whenever it makes sense to do so.
Are you quoting your keynote speaker? Attach a photo of them on stage to your tweet and watch as your followers dash to share and like your visually interesting tweet!
Remember the visuals you’ve created prior to the event? You made some of them to promote the event as it was nearing its beginning, while some were to be shared during the event. Mix the pre-prepared visuals with live photos from the venue to drive maximum interest and engagement from your fans and followers.
After the event
The craziest and the most quick-paced part of live tweeting an event is behind you. But ending this journey here would mean missing out on wonderful opportunities to further prove yourself a valuable source of knowledge to your social media followers.
In the days after the event try and stay consistent with everything you’ve been doing thus far and wrap up your live tweeting adventure with a nice bow of some extra social media value.
Continue the interaction
The conversations on Twitter don’t end when your event venue closes its doors! Though the volume of incoming tweets will definitely go down, many people will still use your event hashtag in the days after the event in order to share their experiences and opinions of the event or to network, and you should definitely encourage this practice.
If you help your event attendees, guests and social media followers gain even more value from your event you will remain in their memory as an exceptional event planner and they will look back fondly to your event and be more likely to attend the next one.
As the things cool down with the end of your event, see how the attendees enjoyed everything. If you didn’t have the chance to do it before, now is a great time to ask them what they thought about your event.
Was the sign-in process painless? Did they enjoy the variety of lectures? How do they feel about their goodie bags? Were they happy with the transport? If you approach them with honesty and interest your event guests will give you valuable feedback you can use to improve your next event. The good, the bad and the ugly – you need to know it all in order to continue growing as an event manager or a CM.
A retweet recap
As a fun and useful overview of the event, consider retweeting the most impactful tweets sent out by your guests and followers during the event as sort of an event recap.
In case any of your followers have missed the event, this could help them get back in the loop and catch up with the speakers, guests, and with you!
Mention and thank your most active participants and influencers
Some of your followers and guests are more social media savvy than the others. The ones who enjoy Tweeting the most will also enjoy it the most if you give them a kind of a nod after the event.
Not only will being acknowledged and thanked make them feel good about participating but you will also encourage them to be just as active the next time they find themselves at one of your events!
Make sure to thank your most active event participants and influencers with a tweet, or perhaps even by creating a graphic to display the top participants along with their Twitter handles.
Spread the love by sharing content
Remember those journalists and bloggers we mentioned earlier? The ones attending your event? Of course you do!
Create a private Twitter list and add these people to your list. In the days and weeks after your event these people will most likely be publishing articles and blog posts about your event.
Share their articles and remember to thank them for their writeups! This is an easy way to provide even more value to your followers, as well as help and promote your guests’ work. They will surely thank you for it!
In conclusion
Live tweeting is a wonderful way to connect with your event guests and your social media followers, to promote your business and brand, and to gain more followers on Twitter. It can even (and often does) help your event go trending on Twitter!
It can seem a bit daunting, but after finishing this article we are confident you are now ready to tackle the beast and get down to business. Just remember, have fun with it!
