This is part three of the Twitter series: Everything You Wanted to Know About TweetChats But Were Afraid to Ask
The first post in this series focused on the pros and cons of sponsoring a tweetchat. The second post dove deep into the details on how to start planning and preparing for your first tweetchat event. Part three is all about promotion.
At this stage, you’ve got your tweetchat set up, you have a lineup of great speakers and panelists and you’re mitigating the technical difficulties as best you can. So how do you promote the tweetchat?
Remember your objective. What was the purpose of the tweetchat? To get leads? Improve awareness? Develop relationships with bloggers? Like most other media events, focusing on the proper channels is imperative.
- Leverage other sites. Add the event to your company’s page on Facebook and any use group sites. With LinkedIn, I promoted to our customer user group and the community groups where I actively participate. I decided against blasting the information out to groups of which I am not an active member.
- Re-tweet friendly. Make your Twitter promos short, catchy and within the boundaries of the character limit for others to re-tweet.
- Use different keywords/hashtags. People are following different tags like #crowdsourcing, #startup, #web20, etc. Do a little research on your topic areas and sort out which topics are followed by the audience you’re trying to reach.
- Ask your close allies to help. I’m not suggesting you send out something that says “PLEASE RT.” Instead send the copy personally to your close friends, allies and colleagues. Ask them to re-tweet at the appropriate moment, typically the morning of the event.
- Have a non-Twitter option. Think about offering another option for participation in addition to Twitter. Another idea is to add a non-Twitter option like a conference call or video to every fourth tweetchat and tailor the content accordingly.
It’s really important to keep your target audience in mind. Sometimes it’s hard to admit that those frequenting your corporate Web site are not the best target for a Twitter-only event. For example, establishing Smartsheet as a leader in crowdsourcing meant reaching influencers and bloggers who are Twitter-savvy and that meant not posting a broad message on our Web site.
Be sure to check out the fourth and final part of this series: Follow-up for Your Tweetchat to Make it Continue Working for You.
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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 @Crowdwork on Twitter or #crowdwork Thursdays at 9am PDT.
Jill Foster
Maria – Great seeing you here and thanks for this tweetchat series. I appreciated the ‘reality check’ on who your main site visitors are (and whether or not a tweetchat would be conducive to that audience).
Anita Campbell
Hi Maria, Great insights here. I think it’s an especially interesting idea to add a conference call or non-Twitter event every so often. What’s the turnout been for those non-Twitter options compared to the Twitter-only events? Do you get more people for one or the other?
Anita
Martin Lindeskog
Maria,
Great series! I have to attend your #crowdwork at some time in the near future. I am thinking of using the crowd sourcing technique in order to gather some important business information.
Great point about making titles re-tweet possible. When titles are too long it gets very difficult to add the re-tweet and the hashtags.
I know it’s understood, but remember that before you can leverage your other networks or ask close allies to help with promotion you have put in the effort to build up those networks. Networking should be a constant task so that when you’ve got a great tweetchat all lined up you can easily call upon these resources and people.
Swan
Great post. FYI: you might want to link this resource into your post. It is a Twitter Chat Schedule: http://bit.ly/oXBBu
Also, here is a review on some of the Twitter Chat tools: http://bit.ly/mp2uF
Lastly, the next level of Twitter Chatting is to turn it into a twebevent with streaming media. Your hashtag chat can revolve around something that everyone is watching (or listening to) together. See http://twebevent.com
Swan
Thanks for the great comments.
@Anita – That’s a tough call to make at this point. So far, we’ve offered a teleconference line for one of our TweetChats, however, it was also the TweetChat which featured Jeff Howe and other expert speakers. The caliber of the panel played into the bigger audience. I will watch this and keep you posted.
@Robert – I agree 100%. Prior to starting our series of TweetChats, I attended several (and still do!)on a weekly basis. Additionally, we’ve asked some of the experts in crowdsourcing (whom we’ve met via social networking) to participate as speakers and panelists, which continues to build strong relationships.
Thanks for all of the comments and tweets!
Maria
@mcolacurcio