The appeal of being an active participant on Twitter is obvious. It’s a platform that provides you (a brand representative) real time interactions with your target audience in a clean, streamlined way that is easy to understand. What’s not to love? But are you concerned that Twitter doesn’t come naturally to you?

If so, you’re not alone! Many people feel overwhelmed when they first try to master the basics of Twitter, let alone attempting to live-tweet! To help, we’ve highlighted some basic tips to help any live-tweeting beginner knock it out of the park. Check them out below:

Tip #1: Use the right hashtags and twitter handles

You can provide great content for your audience, but if you aren’t referencing the right hashtags, you’re fighting a losing battle. Whether you’re live-tweeting your own event or someone else’s, make sure you check each social media channel in advance to confirm all tags and handles that may be related to that event. This preemptive step will confirm if there are any unofficial tags that you can reference to increase your audience exposure.

Pro-tip: One of the main drawbacks of Twitter is the inability to edit once you’ve posted a comment, leaving you the (only) solution of deleting your tweet and trying again. To relieve the pressure of this, try to have an easily accessible list available of pre-made tweets to help save you time so you can post in the heat of the moment.

Tip #2: Engage with your followers

What’s the point of live-tweeting if no one knows about it? First things first, you need to make sure that you notify your followers on your social media accounts beforehand that you will be live-tweeting this specific event. One of the main purposes of your social media accounts should be to create and foster your authority as a thought leader, resulting in better brand recognition and attendee engagement.

One of the best ways to do this is to make sure you focus on building up your Twitter audience by following and interacting with other thought leaders in your industry. You can do this by replying and responding to their tweets as well as promoting other relevant events they are involved with. Once you have established this foundation, put some focus on advertising and executing a Q&A segment in your live-tweeting. This experience will allow your audience to feel invested in the event, as you will essentially be their eyes and ears!

Tip #3: Vary your event material

It’s hard enough collecting followers on social media, so don’t scare them away by posting the same tweet format over and over again. Like anything else, it just gets old! We recommend promoting various formats of content about the event, such as:

  • Live statements from speakers during sessions
  • Photos of attendees during/between sessions
  • Retweeting other attendees/speakers
  • Fun photos from behind the scenes

To help keep you ahead of the avalanche of content, try having some photos ready to post before the event (and be thoughtful about pixel size). The last thing you want to do is pause during your live-tweeting to fix a photo you could have corrected the night before.

Remember that one of your goals with live-tweeting should be to build a “bridge” between the live event and your audience, with your twitter account as the connector. To accomplish this, you would ideally assign one person to solely focus on the actual live-tweeting so that they can truly capture the overall atmosphere of the event without distraction.

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Planning an event, especially a big one, can seem like a daunting task. There are a million things to do and, if you’re like most organizations, very few people to help. But don’t worry! We’ve broken down the event planning process into nine simple steps for overall success. Check out our free guide 9 Steps to Event Planning below!

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