How to Conduct a Successful Twitter Chat Carlos Chapman II, Partnerships & Outreach Coordinator CDC NPIN Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Sep 08, 2014
How to Conduct a
Successful Twitter Chat
Carlos Chapman II, Partnerships & Outreach Coordinator CDC NPIN
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Objectives
• How to research & develop content for a Twitter chat
• What to include in a Twitter chat guide
• How to measure the success of a Twitter chat
• Best practices for Twitter chat engagement
Twitter Basics
Twitter Basics
Hosting a Twitter Chat
What is a Twitter Chat?
• Public scheduled
meeting where people
gather around a certain
topic and create an
online discussion on
Twitter by using one
unique hashtag
Benefits for Hosting a Twitter Chat
• Promote awareness of and participation in your
organization’s activities
• Increase conversations about certain topics, available
resources and tools on Twitter
• Expand depth of organizational conversations in your
network and develop new relationships
• Build your own organization reach and reputation on
Pre – Planning Steps
Topic Selection
• Focus on needs of your
followers
• Listen!
• Area of expertise/ social
media goals
Creating the Hashtag
Hashtags should be
• Short
• Unique and creative
• Easy to type
• Focused around the topic
• Memorable
• Avoid double letters and symbols
Hashtag search Web sites
• www.twubs.com
• www.hashtags.org
• www.tagdef.com
• www.Twitter.com
Scheduling the Twitter Chat
• Select best day & time
• Avoid conflicts with
other pre - scheduled
chats
• Have a set schedule
• Include the time zone
Guest Selection
• Not mandatory
• Subject Matter
Experts
• Provide questions in
advance
• Offer Twitter tutorials
Script Development
• Roles/Staff
• Promotional Tweets
Scheduling tweets
• Topic Questions
• Tweet character limit is 140 (120 is ideal)
• Protocol guidelines (T1. A1. )
• Resource links
• Include hashtag in all tweets
• Script approval
Day of Chat
• Final script
• Meeting space prepared
TV Monitor
Conference phone line
• Suggested tools to run chat
www.tweetchat.com
www.twubs.com
www.hootsuite.com
www.twitter.com
After the Chat
• Follow-up on outstanding questions
• Identify influencers, potential guests for other chats
• Archive the chat
• Storify and other tools
• Evaluate and measure
• Announce the next chat
Measuring Success of a Twitter Chat
Why Evaluate?
Evaluating enables you to:
• Understand what’s working and what’s not
• Adjust and improve your chat topics
• Demonstrate the value of Twitter outreach via the Twitter
chat
• Understand your audience and influencers
Twitter Analytical Tools
• TwitterAnalyzer
• TweetStats
• Hashtracking
• Tweetreach
• TwitterCounter
• Tweriod
• PeopleBrowsr
• Socialbro
• Radian 6
Twitter Chat Measurements
• Metrics table
• Trending graph
• Top contributing participants
• Top contributing participants w/ most followers
• Geographic distribution
• River of News
Best Practices
• Prepare topic questions and content early
• Cross channel promotion
• Share questions with guests in advance
• Establish protocols at start of chat
• Greet participants
• Acknowledge mentions
• Keep tweets under 140 characters
Best Practices
• Shorten links (www.bitly.com)
o Test all your links before sending
• Include pictures/videos to increase engagement
• Include hashtags to help people follow the conversation
• Stay open to new formats
• Consider multimedia
• Take the chat beyond Twitter
#UWYKchat
Let’s practice!
Sample Tweets:
T1. Have you hosted/participated in a chat before? #UWYKchat
A1. Yes #UWYKchat
T2. Are you planning to host a chat next year? #UWYKchat
A2. Yes, we are planning to host a chat next week. #UWYKchat
Questions