5 tips for successful live event tweeting

Guest Blog Post By: Shane Arman

I consider myself a multi-tasker, but I can also be easily distracted. These realizations became clear after I attended the PR+SM Summit April 8 at Marquette University.

 

Having brought my laptop, I tweeted throughout the event and in the process learned how exciting participation in that dialogue can be. From my observations and conversations, here are my tips for successful live event tweeting:

 

1. Make your tweets relevant and understandable: Frame your tweets so that followers who aren’t at the event can still understand and benefit from your updates. This goes back to knowing your audience.

 

2. Diversify the type of updates: Don’t simply repeat everything a speaker is saying, word-for-word or constantly retweet. Instead, move the conversation forward by rephrasing what the speaker says or adding a fresh viewpoint. Remember that you want to spark a two-way dialogue, and unique viewpoints get people talking.

 

3. Avoid update overload: For your sake and your audiences’ don’t update every 30 seconds. Finding a balance can be difficult but if you stop actively listening to the speaker you should take a break. A few times throughout the PR+SM Summit, I found myself not listening and just browsing Twitter streams. I had to stop and remember why I came to the event in the first place.

 

4. Use correct formats: Include conference designated hashtags and try to find the speakers on Twitter and mention them in your updates. Speakers will appreciate the comments and it shows you made the extra effort to include them in the conversation.

 

5. Take time to decompress: After the event, spend time reviewing the hashtag stream and follow fellow attendees to start conversations and build relationships. Conferences often feature subject-matter experts as speakers, so take advantage of your first-hand insight by blogging or tweeting about their presentation.

 

With these tips on the table, it’s critically important to understand that you’re speaking to the audience and you are the audience. I had a chance to speak with Vice President of Communications at IBM Timothy Blair (keynote speaker at PR+SM Summit) about his thoughts on the backchannel, the live twitter conversation happening during his keynote.

 

Timothy seemed to have mixed feelings about the constant activity and he said it was sort of odd to look out and see many heads buried in their phones or laptops. He caught himself looking back at the conversation a few times, but said he lost his train of thought when he did. In any case, I’m sure he went back and looked at the Twitter conversations later.

What are your thoughts on monitoring the backchannel at conferences? Any tips for live event tweeting that I didn’t mention?

Shane Arman (armans84@uwosh.edu) is a senior at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh majoring in public relations and graduating in May. He maintains his own career development blog, on the PR path (http://ontheprpath.blogspot.com) and can be found on Twitter @ShaneArman.

The backchannel can make or break your presentation, listen to it!

Reflecting on my time at SXSW 2010 I am so thankful for what the event offered me both personally and professionally. I can’t stop thinking about the people I met, the Twitter personalities I was finally able to connect a face with and all of the great presentations I attended. To say it was an insane, crazy, mind-blowing experience is an understatement. In my last blog post I talked about the unexpected things I encountered like the SXSW culture and how it reminded me of summer camp. Since I already talked about the culture, I want to share with you the biggest lesson I learned at SXSW.

 

Pay attention to the backchannel. While this was one of the most talked about topics at SXSW, it was completely disregarded in one of the most talked about and much anticipated keynote presentations. The keynote featured the founder of Twitter, Evan Williams, and it was supposed to be the highlight of the event. The keynote presentation was a question and answer format, with the interviewer being Umair Haque of the Harvard Business Review. What started off as a sneak peek and announcement of the new @Anywhere feature for Twitter quickly turned into a monologue of Haque’s traveling mishaps, blog and his interests. It quickly became apparent that the audience was losing interest as SXSW attendees left the large exhibit hall in droves and shared their thoughts on Twitter via the hashtag #Mondaykeynote. It was quickly turning into a “fail whale.”

 

So where did this disaster of a presentation go wrong? As one attendee put it, “A train wreck it was not, that would have held my attention.” For starters, a keynote presentation should be just what it says, a presentation. The question and answer format doesn’t work well when presenting to thousands of attendees who are all there to hear the thoughts and insights of the featured presenter. The interviewer choice was also wrong. Someone like Gary Vaynerchuk, PRSarahEvans or Chris Brogan would have made a much better interviewer because they understand social media and Twitter specifically. They would have also listened to the backchannel and re-adjusted appropriately.

 

Which brings me to my last and most important take-away from the event, LISTEN TO THE BACKCHANNEL! The backchannel is the conversation that takes place about your presentation in real time as it is being given. With social media tools like Twitter, people are providing valuable feedback about how the presentation is going, what questions are un-answered and blasting their messages out to thousands.

 

What Haque or the event staff of SXSW should have done would be to monitor the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag they provided and make adjustments accordingly. Unfortunately, there were many questions left unanswered during this interview. But in true Twitter fashion and which we would expect nothing less … Evan offered to answer questions after the presentation had ended… on Twitter. Haque responded to the backlash in his blog post, Twitter, SXSW, and Building a 21st Century Business.

 

Red Shoes Speak No. 17: Customer Service

Red Shoes Speak No. 17: Customer Service from Jessica Dennis on Vimeo.

Lisa, Jess & Tommy talk about customer service and the ever changing landscape of taking care of customers. Do you want to be helped on twitter, an online chat or would you prefer a good old phone call? It should be the customers' choice on how they want to be served.

Quick and Dirty How-To Guide on Twitter

Red Shoes Speak No. 14 Kevin Smith & Soutwest Air Crisis Communication

Red Shoes Speak No. 14 Kevin Smith & Soutwest Air Crisis Communication from Jessica Dennis on Vimeo.

Kevin Smith (@thatkevinsmith) was asked to step off a Southwest Airlines (@SouthwestAir) flight on Feb. 13, 2010 due to his size. With over 1.6 million followers, Smith’s Tweets about the situation quickly hit mainstream media and blew up in social media. The Southwest Twitter account responded very quickly and appropriately with multiple apologies. As companies continue to engage in social media, how do they prevent or respond to crisis situations such as this? Join the conversation on Twitter using the hash tag #redshoesspeak.

Red Shoes Speak No 12: Positive Influences on Twitter

Red Shoes Speak No 12: Positive Influences on Twitter from Jessica Dennis on Vimeo.

Does it feel like people are too positive on twitter and social media in general? Do you gravitate to people who are positive in nature? Is your glass half empty or half full? Lisa and Tommy discuss this social media topic in this weeks Red Shoes Speak. #redshoesspeak

Don't over-complicate social media--It's based on relationships

 

 

I tweeted last week about how great it would be if all world leaders could start the day together over a cup of coffee, sitting around the table. There’s something really special about gathering people for a few moments before the day starts, chatting about nothing and everything while enjoying each other’s company. I think a lot of conflicts would be avoided if communication were built on relationships, not of necessity.

 

 

One year ago this month, we at Red Shoes PR attended our first-ever Tweet-up at the mall. To say the least it was a little overwhelming to meet our online friends in person. Fast forward 12 months later, the tweet-ups keep happening and the relationships keep growing.

 

This past Friday more than 35 of us “twitterers” met in person at www.affinityhealth.org St. Elizabeth Hospital for breakfast (full disclosure @AffinityHealth is our client.) to celebrate the one-year anniversary of our very first Tweet-up. For me, it was a celebration of relationships. It’s simply the best of all worlds—technology used to create and enhance relationships. And relationships built to make a better world.

Social media good

(photo credit: change.org)

In the past year, we have seen many major stories unfold via social media; from the Tiger Woods scandal, to the Gosselin divorce, to the balloon boy hoax. While these stories may seem trivial, last week, we saw how social media can also spread the word to make a difference.

 

After the earthquake in Haiti, Twitter was utilized to share photos and provide updates on what was happening in Haiti. Beyond sharing this information, Twitter also helped spread the word of a text message campaign hosted by the American Red Cross. People were encouraged to text 90999 to have a $10 donation added to their phone bill. As of January 17, the Red Cross reported it has raised over $22 million dollars from the campaign (New York Times).  Many people spread the word about the campaign through Twitter and Facebook.

 

Other companies and individuals have stepped up as well; Google Inc., Coca-Cola Fund, Sandra Bullock and Madonna are among the companies and individuals that have donated $1 million to Haiti.

 

As organizations, companies and celebrities have been thrown into the spotlight for their generous giving, some people may wonder whether or not it is appropriate to share what they are doing via social media or pitch their story of giving to the media. Is it bad to use such a tragedy to gain attention? While this can be a touchy subject, spreading the word about who is giving and how much people are giving may inspire others to give or to start their own giving campaign.

 

The idea of inspiring others via social media and traditional media points to an overall trend happening online—social media good. Web sites such as change.org and dothedeed.org encourage people to take action to make a positive impact. These sites go beyond just sharing information, encouraging people to take action. Dothedeed.org promotes the idea of a chain reaction of giving; you do something nice for someone, they in turn do something nice for someone else, etc.  Change.org raises awareness and gets petitions going around various issues. Sites like these are yet another way that people who otherwise had no connection can come together for a common good.

 

So, if your company is doing something good for someone or something—share it. Tweet it, blog it and pitch it. You never know who you might inspire.

Why Auto-DMs Should be Banned from Twitter

It drives me nuts to receive an auto-DM after following someone. It takes away from the transparent, honest and genuine spirit of twitter when you get the equivalent of an out-of-office reply that you know went to everyone else. As soon as I see one pop into my direct message box, my immediate urge is to un-follow that person.

The auto replies vary from the generic (but honest) "Thanks for the follow, I'll be sure to return to the favor," to those who try to veil the fact that the same message goes to everyone, "Hey, it looks like you have great things to say, be sure to check out my Web site for more information on what I do."

When someone follows you on Twitter, chances are it's because that person thinks you have interesting things to say and you would both benefit from interacting. Don't take the risk of insulting your new followers by assuming they're all following you for the same reason and would all benefit from the same message. It's time to embrace social media for the fact that it's not a one-size fits all advertising message and start interacting on a personal, one-on-one basis.

(image courtesy of @chriswallace)

Twitter & You: 360 Degrees of Social Network Giving

Red Shoes PR is excited to have another post from guest blogger tommytrc.

It’s hard to talk about the true power that Twitter has had on my life without talking about giving. Each and every day that I’m on Twitter, I learn something new. Whether it’s a new link, a witty quote or joke, or just some words of advice, my mind is always soaking up information gained from Twitter.  Now, mind you, I have been known to be an information junkie. The History, Discovery and Science Channels are my favorite cable channels for gaining new, and sometimes useless, knowledge. So the evolution to gaining knowledge via Twitter is a natural progression of my need for 411. But getting is just part of the story.

On Twitter, giving is as important as receiving. The Golden Rule my mom Sharon used to say is, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  I like to take this rule and twist it slightly. Here’s tommytrc’s version: “Do unto others before they do unto you.” How does this fit into the context of Twitter? Let me explain. One of the most sincere forms of flattery on Twitter is to retweet what someone else has posted. For those who do not understand what retweeting is, here’s the cliff notes edition… Retweeting is sending out on your network what others have sent out on theirs. Every user on Twitter has their very own network of friends. Some friends may overlap, but many do not. If I see an interesting post from someone else, I’ll retweet it so everyone on my network can learn from it also.

Now let me get back to my version of the Golden Rule. I search for interesting tweets and retweet them to start conversations. Retweeting posts from new people or friends I have not chatted with in a while is a perfect way to spread the wealth and keep friendships alive. If someone in my network only has 100 followers and I retweet their post to my network of 15,000 followers, you can see the impact. Just imagine my thrill when Guy Kawasaki retweeted my last Red Shoe PR guest blog posting to his network of over 160,000+ followers. You get the point.

With Twitter, you get what you give and the more you give the more you get. It’s a 360 degree cycle and one that builds and builds. One of my favorite quotes that hammers the point home is from the founder of the famous New York grocery store chain called Wegman’s.  In Robert Wegman’s own words: "I have never given away more than I got back."

As powerful as it is to see my own thoughts retweeted, it’s just as important to pass on the insight and information that others have shared with me.