As Twitter evolves from a casual “What are you doing?” forum to a powerful marketing and advertising tool, live tweeting is the newest strategy being used to generate buzz around events and leverage publicity.
Posting tweets while attending an event, called live tweeting, is growing more popular by the day as a way to share information to people who can’t experience it first hand.
Xani and Erin, sisters who share a blog called Black Coffee and a Donut were invited to test run a new menu recently released at RA Sushi located in Baltimore’s Harbor East and decided to tweet live for the first time for their loyal readers/followers who couldn’t be there. While both ladies admitted an immediate increase in followers and a moderate number of reply tweets, they agreed to feeling as though they were being rude to the other media guests at the table. “We’ve had good manners drilled in to us since childhood!” said the sisters. For them, ignoring what is usually second nature was a challenge.
Indeed, there are pros and cons of tweeting live. Here are the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Live Tweeters:
1. BE the Hashtag: (#) = your new best friend.
A hashtag is a code (word preceded by the (#) symbol) inserted somewhere in a tweet that makes it easy for people to find and aggregate related tweets. By using your established event hashtag with every tweet, they will all show up together in a Twitter Search organized by publish time. This is also a great tool to use to monitor others who may be tweeting about your event or in reply to your live updates.
2. Don’t go #crazy with your #hashtags: it’s #annoying.
Try to keep it to a minimum of one to two hashtags per tweet!
3. Integrate your updates: a picture is worth a thousand words.
Especially true when tweeting live, sometimes a picture can tell people what’s happening where you’re at more than you can say it in a tweet. Use applications such as Twitpic.com or UberTwitter if tweeting with a mobile device.
4. Yield to others: it’s a two way street.
Interactive live tweeting = successful live tweeting. See what others are saying in response to your updates and respond/interact accordingly. Connect with folks from the event: retweet their tweets, post updates with their @username and follow their account(s). Establish a connection and maintain semi-regular conversation even after the event is over.
5. Pick the right event.
A funeral is the wrong event.
6. Have the touch.
Make sure you tweet just enough to keep people engaged, but not so much that followers are annoyed with your hashtag. Flooding a follower’s feed with tweets is never a good thing.
7. Build anticipation: tweet the hell out of it
Tweet about the event during it’s three phases: before, during and after to keep things interesting and get people excited. Updating your followers beforehand that you’ll be tweeting live from an event will also serve as a warning for people who don’t want to see the flood of hashtagged tweets, and they’ll be able to avoid Twitter on the appropriate day/time.
Beyond the 7 Habits:
Live tweeting is an extreme multitasking challenge. You could be doing four things at once: 1. following other live tweets with the associated hashtag, 2. responding to other live tweets, 3. tweeting and proofing your own tweets, 4. engaging in discussion with those currently at the event.
Try to be respectful of others, and make sure you wear your button so people know you’re not texting/typing because you’re bored. These 7 Habits will have you well on your way to being a successful, multitasking Live Tweeter.
For more information: Subscribe to Baltimore Social Media Examiner for automated email updates, visit www.NumbersNotInvited.com or follow me on Twitter @bridgetforney. Email me at bridget.forney@gmail.com.
