Live event Tweeting is brilliant for reaching out to your audience and increasing brand awareness and promoting your event as it happens. It’s fast and furious and you need to be properly set up and prepared. You also need to remember quality as you can’t edit a tweet so you need to get it right first time. You need to be as prepared as you can with your devices, hashtags, platforms and Twitter handles. Here are my tips for fast and furious live Tweeting!
Before the event – plan
- Think about your AV. Can you have a live stream of the Tweets straight to the screen?
- Use an event dedicated hashtag(s). Decide on your hashtag(s) well in advance for your event so that you can put on all your event literature that you send out to your attendees. Check that it hasn’t been used recently and doesn’t spell anything inappropriate. Keep it simple, not too many characters otherwise, you will be cursing it by the end!
- Mention to your followers that you will be live Tweeting; those that can’t attend can then tune in and follow the event and you increase your engagement and reach. It also helps to warn your followers who may not be interested so that those that want to can tune out.
- Prepare some Tweets in advance assuming you know what the panel/speaker will be talking about.
- Get yourself set up properly in a good spot at the front. Don’t forget to take photos before. If you can, use two devices phone and laptop/tablet. Make sure everything is charged up and you have a backup power source. Battery booster etc.
- Make sure you have the programme so that you have all the panel titles and timings.
- Make 3 Twitter lists – your speakers, your attendees (make sure you keep them private if they are your attendees) and one anyone else involved in the event – suppliers etc. Then you have the names and handles ready to go, and you can monitor the list and see what they are tweeting about during the event.
- Turn off your notifications for all other platforms, then you won’t get distracted by them.
During the event – get typing fast!
- Ask the compère to mention and remind the audience of the hashtag. Make sure the hashtag is on the slides or even better have a live stream of the Hashtag and Tweets to the screen and AV Feed.
- Retweet the Tweets that are coming in from the attendees. Use a platform like Hootsuite to oversee all the action and engagement that is coming through. Or have a separate tab open with the latest Tweets with your hashtag coming through, you can also keep your Twitter lists open too.
- Get some video visuals of the event as it unfolds and either live broadcast highlights or save and use for later. Share the best bits, video the applause. Try a live Periscope / Twitter / Facebook broadcast.
- As you live Tweet include Twitter handles of panel/speakers so that they can retweet and share after the event.
- Get some great soundbites that you can quote and try and get photos, visuals help people to see what is going on. Especially if people can’t be there. Questions, quotes and Twitter polls to gauge reactions and increase engagement.
- Remember quality don’t quote everything and don’t post anything that is blurry or a bad photo.
- Add context to your tweets so they don’t seem random in your Twitter feed.
- Check to see if your event hashtag is trending try @Trending-UK to check if it is. Let the audience know, it will encourage more engagement.
After the event – network
- Use your soundbites graphic visuals to illustrate your points and make reusable evergreen content. Use @canva for the graphic design.
- Follow everyone that has retweeted you, think about your promoters and suppliers too. Don’t forget it’s all about networking online as well as offline.
- Retweet your influencers posts and engage with mentions etc.
- Create a Twitter Moment visual story of your event by using the hashtag to track the Tweets. Share it on Twitter, tagging your speakers and attendees that have tweeted. Encourage them to retweet expanding your engagement and reach.
