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Tweetchatting

By Lasa Information Systems Team

“Tweetchats” - pre arranged chats that take place on twitter, are an exciting aspect of social media. Here we share our top tips for running a successful tweetchat session.

Lasa took the jump into the world of tweetchats as a way of connecting people like us involved in supporting non profits to use technology, delivering technology advice via twitter, and generally raising our social media profile.

For us the two biggest selling points of Twitter that it: 

• enables people to connect with like-minded individuals who they may have never come in contact otherwise and in this way reach new audiences;
• breaks down geographic boundaries and enables people to converse in real time.
• is a great way to get questions answered from other experts and is potentially a source of questions from groups the "experts" work with.

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Lasa ICT knowledgebase, in January 2011 we hosted a successful “Tweetchat”, bringing together a panel of top experts to answer technology questions from across the sector in an 'Hour of Technology Service' via Twitter.  This was our first foray into the world of tweetchats and here’s 10 things we learned to help set you on your way to hosting your own tweetchats.   

1. One for the money, Two for the show, Three to get ready

Spread the word as widely as possible

Remember that not everyone is on Twitter and you'll need to put effort into making sure the results of your tweetchat are made available as widely as possible.  Put your tweetchat into a transcript, post it to the web, emailed the link, tweet it to your followers, etc. 

Streamlining the process

Use applications like Posterous and tumblr to aggregate content from multiple sources (email, mobiles, twitter, flickr, blogs) into one place.  you can also use Posterous and tumblr to make content accessible to those not on Twitter. Tools like coveritlive provide an interactive 'live blogging' alternative to Twitter chats.  Coveritlove also supports the posting of YouTube videos, instant polls, and pulling in Tweets. 

Early days 

It may seem like 'everyone' is doing a tweetchat, but in reality, online events are still at an early stage in the UK.  In some ways, getting people to online events rather than a face to face event with tea, coffee and opportunities to network with friends requires more careful planning and execution to get people involved.  

2. Think about why you want to do it and what you hope to achieve

Just because lots of other people are hosting tweetchats doesn’t mean you have to. Before jumping in at the deep end ask yourself some basic questions such as:

• does our audience use Twitter?
• do we have a following on Twitter?
• if not, how can we build our Twitter profile and audience?
• is there demand for this from our audience? 
• do we have the staff resource to promote and host tweetchats on a reguar basis?
• who's going to moderate the tweetchat?
• what’s the aim of the tweetchat - info sharing, promotion, topical discussion?

3. Your audience

To make a tweetchat worthwhile you will need to spend some time building up an audience (or followers) on Twitter.  Start by defining your Twitter audience:

• are you talking to your peers or service users?  Or both?  What topics will interest them?
• is your desired audience on Twitter? If not, what’s the best way of reaching them?  And how can you educate them about Twitter and encourage them to join the tweetchat?

From here you can move to engaging with people and starting to build a following.  Look for ways to add value or tell people about something new. There's an excellent knowledgebase article on getting started with Twitter. 

4. Promoting your tweetchat

In many ways, preparing for an online event is no different to the tasks and time needed to deliver a successful off-line event - you still have to get the agenda and presenters together and you still have to get people to come to your online event. 

Offline and online promotion 

Use every channel your organisation currently uses to promote the tweetchat through offline (email, press releases, newsletters, bulletins, etc) and online (Twitter, RSS, blogs, web site, etc.). 

Guest Experts

If your tweetchat features a guest expert or panel of experts, it's good form to make sure they are prominently featured in your promotional efforts via Twitter, email, blogs, etc. 

Twitter lists

Use Twitter lists as a quick and easy way of finding other Twitter users and expanding your reach.  If you want to read a user's Tweets without following them, lists allow you to do that.  Similarly, following someone else's list does not mean you follow all users in that list.  Rather, you follow the list itself. Try knowhownonprof’s lists for example. 

5. Running your tweetchat

Think about these in the same way you would for any other conference, workshop or seminar.  

Moderator

As you would with an offline event, you'll need a moderator to organise the agenda, brief guests and keep order.  Often a moderator will ask questions and expect participants to tweet in with answers, all including the hashtag assigned to the chat. 

Agenda

Sharing information, promoting a new or existing resource, building consensus on policy issues, learning from expert practitioners - will influence the tweetchat discussion format you go for:  

• Single topic discussion - this works well when you have single issue, such as responding to funding cuts, and people willing to discuss it in public on Twitter. Just as you would in a workshop event, you’ll also want to moderate the discussion and keep the chat moving with fresh questions or perspectives. @loulouk runs a weekly topical discussion for local government information officers using the #lgovsm hashtag.  

•  Expert Q&A - if you and your audience are new to Twitter, this may be the easiest format for everyone, especially if your guest expert is well known.  You can prepare some questions to start the discussion, and if you want to be really smart about keeping the discussion moving, plant questions with friends in the audience.  RNID's tweetchat with social media guru Steve Bridger is a good example of an expert Q&A.   

•  Panel Q&A - this may be the most ambitious tweetchat format in terms of recruiting, briefing and co-ordinating a panel of experts. Whether they are new or experienced Twitter users, you’ll need to schedule time for briefings and a walk-through practice. 

The list of tweetchats is increasing, but many are included on a central public Google document and in this post by Meryl.net.  People participate in chats that interest them, both personally and professionally. 

Frequency

Some tweetchats are weekly, while others are monthly or quarterly.  Finding the optimum day and time for a tweetchat can be a tricky issue and you’ll need to be guided by what works for your audience.  Hosting weekly tweetchats sounds fun, but think about think about the effort you'll need to put into promoting and moderating it.   

Timing

Many Twitter veterans think that timing a tweetchat for between 12 noon and 3pm is likely to be the most attractive time because everyone from volunteers, to part-timers and remote workers will be at a computer at some point during that time slot, even if it’s only for their lunch-break. Hosting a tweetchat from 4pm onwards may discourage UK users, but could bring in followers from the USA. 

Duration

Because tweetchats are quite intense and focussed, most last for no more than an hour, but can go on longer.   

6. Think about hashtags

The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics and to categorise messages. Try and pick a # hashtag that's unique and memorable because using the hashtag symbol # makes it easier to find messages relevant to your topic or tweetchat.  If participants don't use your hashtag, tweets will become hard to find and the chat will soon become difficult to follow. Lasa used #kbis10 to tag messages related to the tenth anniversary of the knowledgebase and the tweetchat.   

7. Taking part in a tweetchat

Bear in mind that not everyone will have taken part in a tweetchat before.  This was Lasa's first time as host and we made sure that instructions were posted on our website, emailed out, and tweeted on a regular basis.  Here's a simple list of instructions to get people started on tweetchats... 

1. On the day and time of the tweet chat, go to tweetchat.com.
2. Log in and type the hashtag you wish to follow at the top of the screen. Alternatively, you can use some of your favorite Twitter platforms (e.g. CoTweet, TweetDeck) or sites such as Twitterfall or TwitterSearch to follow the hashtag.
3. During the chat, you can participate by reading the tweets and engage with others by tweeting your answers/opinions. 

8. Twitter platforms

There are lots of different tools for accessing Twitter from a web browser or desktop,and people tend to have their favourites. Each Twitter platform has different strengths, so take the time to experiment and find out what works for you. 

Twitter - the original web-based tool, and the best way of organising lists. You may find it easier to use other tools like Tweetchat or CoTweet to sort out relevant hashtags and to follow tweetchats. 

Tweetchat - aggregates messages according to hashtag #, making it easy to follow tweetchats using the same hashtag. 

CoTweet - we used CoTweet, a free web based service which allows a team of people to tweet via one Twitter account.  

Tweetdeck - also good for team tweeting, this requires a download for Windows, Mac or Linux computers.  Tweetdeck is also available as a free download plugin for Google’s Chrome browser.  

Gwibber - is a favourite Twitter client for open source users. 

9. Keep a transcript of the tweetchat 

Twitter operates in real-time and rewinding to a tweetchat you had a month ago is likely to put off the all but the most determined. Creating a transcript allows you to impose some order on the discussion, group topics together, add in useful web links, keep a record of the discussion for posterity and provide a useful resource to those who couldn’t attend. Great websites to capture tweets from a chat are TwapperKeeper and SearchHash.

Read the transcript of knowledgebase is 10 tweetchat on the knowledgebase forums.   

10. Thank you

Make sure you thank those taking part in the tweetchat. If your tweetchat featured a guest or panel of experts, make sure you acknowledge their contribution and point your Twitter followers towards your experts. 

Happy tweetchatting… 

Want to share your experiences of participating in or running a tweetchat? Please add a comment to this article.