This is part four (final) of Twitter series: Everything You Wanted to Know About TweetChats But Were Afraid to Ask
The first post outlined the pros and cons of offering a tweetchat. In the second part we gave you details on how to prepare for your tweetchat. In the third part, we gave ideas for promoting a tweetchat.
In this final part we share how to do follow-up for your tweetchat so that it will continue working for you.
Marketing campaigns often underperform because of poor follow-up, and social media is no exception. The content and connections generated from the tweetchat event are just the beginning of the value to be mined. Look for opportunities to engage the contacts you make during your events. Find other ways to promote the content provided by various panelists and audience members.
The Content:
A good Tweetchat session’s content will provide plenty of flexibility for use in a variety of mediums.
- Post a summary: Twitter is fluid and many people jump in and out of tweetchats because they are only moderately interested. Take advantage of this fleeting interest by posting a summary of your chat within a few hours of the event’s end.
- Add some commentary: It is important that you link to a well-organized summary sorted by the question prefixes, not just a link to a Twitter search with your hashtag. Organizing the summary by aligning answers with the original question makes it easier for readers to skim. The ideal summary will include a quick blog post with some thoughts on the event or insight to what went well. Here is an example.
- Case Studies: Invariably, some data will come out that may deserve more development into a full blown case study.
- Product/Messaging Research: Within the audiences’ tweets, you are likely to find interesting perspectives, questions, confusion, focuses, etc. on the product or category you are promoting. Pay attention to this, because, no matter how it may seem to you, they are at least a part of the window into the broader audience.
The Connections:
You will invariably net a variety of people into your event. They’ll range from casual to intensely interested as well as little to highly influential. It is not always obvious which are which, but for those that are interested and influential, make hay.
- Respond immediately: Respond right away to people who ask questions and send in DMs (direct messages in Twitter) for more information, etc. Showing responsiveness to others interested in the topic goes a long way. After our first tweetchat, we connected with several people on the same day. One conversation turned into an interview with a tech blogger, the other led us to two people co-authoring a book on crowdsourcing.
- Get in Touch: Use your event as a reason to get in touch with bloggers who cover your area, specifically if they are interested in the topic being covered in that weekly session.
- Ask for feedback: Your panelists and those who attend and ask questions are your best source of feedback. Ask them for a critique – what went well, what didn’t go well. What would they change? How was the preparation document? Did they feel the pace was too slow, too fast, etc? These are also great people to ask for suggestions on topics.
- Show appreciation. Don’t stress over what to send to say thank you. The important thing is that you show appreciation to the people helping you out by providing valuable content. Everyone is busy, so make sure to appreciate the time people are taking to make your events a success.
- Plan ahead. Put together a calendar for the following month and schedule speakers and topics accordingly.
Experience is the best teacher — attend tweetchats and pay attention to things that go well and things that could be improved. Look at your overall marketing mix and decide whether a tweetchat would be a good addition based on the objective, target audience and content availability. If everything aligns, tweetchats are a great way to experiment with a new medium, develop a strong arsenal of content and make lasting connections.
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About the Author: Maria Colacurcio is the co-founder of Smartsheet, the only collaboration tool with a built-in workforce. Prior to starting Smartsheet, Maria worked in B2B marketing for 10+ years at companies including Onyx Software, NetReality and Microsoft. Join our weekly Tweetchat on crowdsourcing by following http://twitter.com/crowdwork or searching on Twitter for #crowdwork Thursdays at 9am Seattle time.
Great series, Maria. Thank you. As the moderator of a chat about learning (#lrnchat), I’m asked often about the tools we use behind the scenes because the people who are participating are curious by nature. They’re going to love this series.
If you’re interested in creating a post about Tweetchat administration, I’d be happy to contribute. For instance, we’ve had wonderful success with capturing transcripts through http://tweetgrid.com/irc and also http://wthashtag.com. The former requires you login at the beginning of the chat and the latter requires you set up an account by identifying the hashtag prior to the chat.
Thank you again. Here’s to more edu-tweeting!
– Marcia
http://twitter.com/marciamarcia
http://sn.im/lrnchat
Maria,
I have learned plenty of things regarding Tweets chat. Could you send me a reminder of your chat on Thursday?
A great ending to a great series. I have learned so much and now I feel capable of attempting my own tweetchats. Thanks for the lessons!
Organizing all the tweets by question is really valuable even for attendees. Oftentimes during a tweetchat people are answering different questions at the same time and you lose track of the thread. I’ve found additional value by reviewing summary posts and this is also material that can be indexed and help with your SEO efforts.
Swan
We are putting together a Drupal based web environment designed to support Twitter Chats. One of the key aspects of the site is how to build on the information that is shared in the chat.
Planning to launch it for the soon to be formed #KMers chat for Knowledge Management interested Tweeple in early Dec.
We expect that we will make it available to all Twitter Chats sometime in early 2010 after we have worked out the kinks.
Follow the #KMers hashtag or @swanwick for ongoing info.
Cheers, Swan
Eric
There is a Tweetchat reminder bot that will tell you when a particular tweetchat or tweetup is meeting. As long as we have the tweetchat hashtag in our database. Visit http://twitter.com/tweetmemos .
Eric Bryant, Director
Gnosis Arts Multimedia