B&G Foods Coffee Break Moms

Twitter Parties & Chats for Brands and Organizations

January 2011 Stephanie Schwab Stephanie Schwab Consulting www.stephanieschwab.com @socialologist

What’s happening? (in 140 characters or less)

• Twitter's success lies within its simplicity and ease of use, combined with basic social networking capabilities and availability across different platforms

3 Twitter History

• March 2006: First Tweet • March 2007: Tipping Point occurs at SXSW • May 2008: Growing pains, “The Fail Whale” • April 2009: Twitter goes mainstream, Ashton Kutcher vs CNN • September 2010: New Twitter • October 2010: New CEO, Dick Costolo

4 Twitter by the Numbers

• 300,000: new users per day • 55,000,000: average number of Tweets per day • 160,000,000: registered Twitter users • 190,000,000: unique visitors per month • 600,000,000: average number of Twitter search queries per day

5 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/14/twitter-user-statistics-r_n_537992.html http://mashable.com/2010/03/18/twitter-infographic/ Twitter Community

http://www.briansolis.com/2010/05/were-the-tweets-in-america/ http://www.quantcast.com/twitter.com 6 Twitter Hashtags

• @ Reply: Messages directly to someone – Use this to have conversations with other twitter users or mention them within a tweet – Ex: @socialologist Thanks for the great presentation! • THIS WILL BE SEEN ONLY BY @SOCIALOLOGIST (and people following you and @socialologist) – Ex: I’m so excited to be in a webinar with @socialologist about Twitter Chats & Parties • THIS WILL BE SEEN BY EVERYBODY • RT (Re-tweet): repost of someone’s update/post – Use this to share a someone else’ s great Tweet – Ex: RT @MackCollier There r no shortcuts 2 creating a valuable network on Twitter. Meaningful connections take time...

Copyright 2011, Stephanie Schwab Consulting 8 What’s a Hashtag? A hashtag is a number sign (also called a pound symbol, now hash symbol) used to indicate a topic, event or group within a Twitter message #

• To indicate that you’re taking part in a Twitter meme – Follow Fridays, indicated by #FF – #fail • To categorize your tweet within a larger conversation that’s happening, as with current events – #oilspill – #MLKday • To market a brand, product or service – #HormelSpam – #iPhone • To participate in a Twitter chat or party

• Use a Hashtag to “group” together conversations for a live event • Keep up with the group by searching for that Hashtag within Twitter or a 3rd-party tool

• Hashtags are unofficial – people create them all the time • Hashtags should be as short as possible, but also as unique as possible • You can check hashtags in use at:

wthashtag.com

• For any event, online or off – Conferences – Parties – Major meetings – Online chats – Online parties • Create your hashtag early – before the event • Make sure users are aware of what it is in advance – Promote on Twitter as well as in other event communications • Encourage users to use the Hashtag for all their event- related tweets

• Twitter search is an easy way to track a Hashtag

http://tweetchat.com/room/gno

• Chats are like offline social groups (knitting club, book club) enabled via Twitter – Happen regularly – typically weekly – Use same Hashtag every time – Cover the same (general) topic each week • Parties are (generally) brand-sponsored activities – Happen one time – Use the brand Hashtag – Could also use a party organizer ‘s Hashtag – Often created and managed by a Twitter party organizer – Topics tailored to the brand

#journchat #hcsm #pr20chat #careerchat #blogchat #socpharm #latism #B2Bchat

#scribechat #runchat

Copyright 2011, Stephanie Schwab Consulting 20 Chat/Party Participants • Moderator – Often the same person from week-to week – Could be the party organizer • Panelists – Special guests each week/each party – If a chat, could be a relevant guest for that topic – If a party, could be the brand, and/or “power tweeters” on a particular subject • Participants – Anyone who tweets with the chat/party Hashtag

• Free for all – Like a cocktail party – Very hard to follow if you’re not a power user • Moderated, panel, or guest presenter – Driven by moderator/guest presentation or questions – Typically question and answer format – Much easier for a newbie to engage in

• Are you setting up something regular or is it a one-time event? • Do you have a guest, brand or topic you would like to focus on? • Is the Twitter event related to an offline event? • Are the participants Twitter- friendly or Twitter newbies?

Advance Setup

• Define your Hashtag – Promote it to event participants • Do you need to train anyone on Twitter or TweetGrid in advance? • Create a TweetChat.com or TweetGrid.com chat page • When possible, create a landing page with information about your event – Moderator/panelists/guest info – Link to chat page – Hashtag info (in case someone uses something other than your chat page) – Time and date, of course! • Tweet about and promote the event – When tweeting, keep tweets under 120 characters so people can retweet it easily

• Create your questions (in Twitter format) in advance – 5-6 questions per hour is a good rule of thumb – Consider a rough schedule for the event, such as a new question every 8 minutes • Create tweets containing links to useful resources – You’ll have them handy if people ask about them • Be sure your panelists and guests know what the questions are going to be so they can prepare answers in advance • Be sure everything fits in less than 140 characters – 120 if you want people to retweet things

Copyright 2011, Stephanie Schwab Consulting 27 Moderating a Chat • Introduce yourself, moderator, guests – using their Twitter handles • Define the event – “this will be a one-hour moderated chat, I’ll provide questions and you can answer them by tweeting with the hashtag….” • Begin the questions – You might ask panelists to RT each question so their followers see them (outside of the chat) • As the chat flows, RT interesting tweets from panelists/guests or participants • At the end, thank the guests/panelists and participants – Give them links for follow-up – Link to chat landing page, if you are going to archive the chat there

Copyright 2011, Stephanie Schwab Consulting 28 After the Event • Immediately after the event, generate a transcript or archive the chat for use on your site – WTHashtag.com has an archive feature – Hashtracking.com is a new tool for chat archive and analysis • Add your archive, summary or outcomes to your event page • Thank your guests/panelists on Twitter later that day or the next day

• Mashable: How to Start and Run a Successful Twitter Chat – http://mashable.com/2009/12/08/twitter-chat/ • Twitip: How To Participate In A Twitter Chat – http://www.twitip.com/tweeting-with-your-twitter-community-how-to- participate-in-a-twitter-chat/ • Jeanne Benedict: How to Host A Twitter Party – http://www.jeannebenedict.com/party-ideas/how-to-host-a-twitter- party/ • Comprehensive list of active Twitter chats, updated by the Twitter community – http://bit.ly/ChatSched • My posts about Twitter chats and parties – http://www.stephanieschwab.com/2010/09/14/what-are-hashtags/ – http://www.stephanieschwab.com/2010/09/15/twitter-chats-and-twitter- parties-for-brands/

Stephanie Schwab @socialologist www.stephanieschwab.com [email protected] 646-543-5511