Originally published in Small Business Computing, 8-29-11.
Recently, a client asked me for some tips about how to get the maximum mileage out of Twitter event hashtags. Creating Twitter hashtags for your business events is a great way to multiply conversations about what you’re doing, and there are also lots of ways to maximize the impact of the hashtag. I put a few before, during and after the event tips here together for her, and thought I’d share them with you.
Twitter Hashtag Tips: Before the Event
1. Start publicizing your Twitter event hashtag a week or so in advance of the event. Of course Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook groups are good ways to do this, as well as adding this information to any schedules, confirmations or even press releases you send out. This lets people start tweeting in advance that they are going to attend the event — “@bugsbunny can’t wait to see you at #acmeroadrunner next week!” It also lets people who can’t attend know where they can get a real-time feed of what’s happening.
2. Create a list of ready-made tweets for your internal team to get the ball rolling. When you have specific announcements slated, send your internal team several ready-made tweets that are related to the announcement. Plan to do this a day or two before the event. For instance, “Acme Co.’s Roadrunner on stage with demo of the new Wylie Coyote killer app.” Ask your team to add their own comments to the tweets to personalize them and send them out in conjunction with the live announcement.
Twitter Hashtag Tips: During the Event
3. Publicize the event hashtag on signage and check-in materials at the event. Make certain you provide the event hashtag, so that people don’t need to hunt for it when they’re ready to tweet. At too many events, it’s too hard for people to find the hashtag when they need it. You want to make it easy for people to tweet about the event.
4. Monitor the Twitter hashtag, and then identify and promote the most active tweeters. At most events, there are at least a few people documenting and/or providing a running commentary on what’s going on. Promote these tweeters to others with tweets such as “Thanks @bugsbunny @elmerfudd @sylvestercat for chronicling and commentary about #acmeroadrunner!” — or something along those lines.
Twitter Hashtag Tips: After the Event
5. Create a Twitter transcript of all the tweets from the event each day and tweet out how people can access it. Twitter chats are great for real-time information and opinion sharing at events and getting the back-story. But people can’t always participate real-time, so make it easy for them to catch up.
These transcripts are also a great resource for active press and analyst tweeters, who increasingly “take notes” in Twitter and use the tweet stream to refresh their memories to write blogs or reports later on. This article tells you how to make a Twitter chat transcript using TweetReports. There are other services out there, too; I’ve heard they all have pros and cons, so you may want to search around on Google and compare, and I’d be interested to find out what you come up with.
6. Figure out how you can analyze all the great information you’ve collected. This Social Media Today post provides information about a number of Twitter tools that can help you analyze hashtag streams. Some of the tools include MentionMap, The Archivist and Hash Tracking. A lot of these tools are free and/or available in a freemium model.
Well, for now, that’s all folks! But I’m sure that there are lots of other great tips, and I hope that you’ll send me your own to add to the list.