Twitter Chats in 6 Easy Steps

Hosting Twitter Chats is an incredibly successful way to engage a large audience and present your brand as a thought leader in the industry. Twitter chats are best used as conversations around a certain idea or topic with a unique hashtag. Coupled with an influencer marketing campaign, chats can seriously deliver on the ROI factor. The best part? They’re open to the public and a fun, inviting way to spread your message!

So, how do you throw a successful Twitter Chat (also sometimes called Twitter Party)?

1. Preparation – Before you ever host a Twitter Chat, you’ll want to know what to expect. It’s incredibly beneficial to participate in a few Twitter chats prior to hosting your own. You can get accustomed to the flow, banter, and guidelines all in one shamelessly fun hour! Not sure what you want to chat about? AdWeek posted an awesome listing of all the possible Twitter chats you can participate in. There’s a Twitter chat for nearly every topic known to mankind.
2. Choose Your Topic, Hashtag, and Time – Once you’ve participated in a few Twitter Chats, you’ll notice that they are all about specific events or topics. You’ll want to choose a topic that is really engaging and not super sales-y. Nobody wants to spend an hour online with you if you are selling, so find a topic that relates to your campaign but not entirely focused on the sales aspect of your campaign. Next? Choose a hashtag. Keep it simple, memorable and relevant. And finally, pick a great time! Look at your ideal audience. What’a a time you know they’re typically available.
3. Have Something to Offer – Offering some sort of prize during the Twitter Party will definitiely increase the number of people who participate. Prizes encourages participants to be more engaged in the conversation, thus generating a larger reach for your message. The trick is to offer a prize in the middle of the chat and announce the winners at the end – ensuring that your audience will sit tight for the length of the party. It helps to promote the fact that you’re giving items away before the chat starts too! Wondering about the prizes? Gift cards are always a great idea.
4. Choose a Host or Co-Host – How can you have a party without a host? And picking the right host or hostess, why that’s what makes a great event!!! As DJ Khaled would say, this is a “MAJOR key” to success. Obviously, your co-host should be some type of influencer. Maybe they’re already working on the campaign with you and have a large following or maybe they’re someone you hand select because of the engagement from their Twitter followers. Either way, the host is there to bring in more people and help to spread the word before the chat. Having a popular host or co-host makes for a great party and ensures lots of people will show up!!
5. Promote, Promote, Promote – Now that you’ve planned and coordinated your Twitter Party, you need to get people to show up! Promoted tweets, Facebook posts, or Instagrams – anything works! Create an Eventbrite and have the tweeters RSVP, so you can send courteous reminders leading up to the chat. Be sure to ask for their Twitter handle in the RSVP process to do just that! Another helpful tip for promoting your Twitter Chat is to create graphics for your co-host and other influencers to share. Images get noticed more often than text or link posts and garner the best engagement!
6. Tracking Your Success – This is the last and final step, you had a great event, now brag about it! There are lots of resources for tracking the success of a Twitter party, at Everywhere, we like to use Tracx to monitor the social components to our campaigns. You can get insightful data such as engagement rate, unique participants, keywords, and overall impressions. More than that, you can get audience breakdown – like their gender or where the participants live. Check it out if you’re looking for a way to analyze your Twitter chat or want to track specific influencers for a campaign!

So there you have it! The beauty in Twitter Chats is that the structure is completely up to you! Twitter chats are really a way for your brand to make new friends. Even before your chat is over, you will have formed new relationships, gained more followers, and expanded your exposure.

Tweet me your tips, questions, or just to say hello, @_LynzeeJay!

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