Live-tweeting an event? What to do on game-day

Regardless of whether you are organizing an event or attending one, there are things you need to do while you’re live-tweeting to be successful. One of the most important? Your tweets should provide information. New information is way more likely to be retweeted or quoted – and that’s what gets you more followers.

Below is a list of things to do during the event. It’s the second in our series about how to make your live-tweeting a success. Hope you like it!

• Find a spot where you won’t distract other people. You can bet that someone will find the constant typing either rude or annoying.
• Introduce the event to your followers so they know what’s coming. Be sure to periodically post a tweet – once every few hours – that reminds people where you are and what the event is that you are writing about.

  
  

• Set up an automatically-updating search for your hashtag. This will allow you to keep track of what other people at the event are saying. Using a third-party application like Hootsuite is an easy way to search for a hashtag. Alternatively, you can use search.twitter.com or twitterfall.com to track it.
• Quote speakers or other people at the event – people love to retweet good quotes.

  
  

• Post the most useful takeaways from speakers. Your followers may not want to know exactly who is on stage, but you can relay useful information that person is providing.
  • For example, at M+R’s presentation of Benchmarks, people outside the event may not care who was speaking but would be totally happy to know the specific statistic that was mentioned.

    

• Cite your sources! When you post a quote, say who said it and identify them by their Twitter handle if possible.
• Post pictures if you see something interesting. Pictures can help break up a long stream of tweets you are sending into other people’s timelines. You can also use Hootsuite to post photos from your phone or computer without signing up for a third-party photo service account (such as Twitpic).
• Interact with other attendees on Twitter. Retweet other people’s posts and follow them if they are consistently posting good content from the event.
• Be sure to thank the organizers and other attendees via Twitter as the event is winding down.

Have a comment or a question? We’d love to hear it. Please post below!