It’s 2012, and whether or not your brand or company should be on social media is no longer up for debate. Instead, the question has become how your brand should be on social media. It’s where your competition as well as your customers will be, so even a minimal presence will be beneficial. If you use Twitter, you haven’t really experienced the power social media has to bring people together until you’ve participated in a Twitter chat.

What is a Twitter chat? (Tweet this)

A Twitter chat is a public conversation on Twitter taking place at a specific day and time to discuss a specific topic. A Twitter chat will use a specific hashtag to curate the conversation, such as #SmallBizChat or #LikeableChat. While the hashtag may be used throughout the week to share links and comments, there will be a set day and time when all participants are on Twitter at the same time talking about a certain issue or topic. There will be a moderator that will tweet questions or prompts relating to the topic, which the participants will discuss using the hashtag.

For example, #LikeableChat takes place on Sundays from 10-11 PM EST. It’s hosted by Likeable Media and moderated by their Marketing Director. The chat focuses on topics related to social media, word of mouth marketing and being “likeable.” Specific topics range from using social media for crisis management to discussing how social media impacted the Olympics.

Why should I participate in a Twitter chat? (Tweet this)

• To learn - If there’s a certain area of your business, such as marketing or accounting, that’s especially difficult for you, finding a Twitter chat around that topic can help you. You may find a chat that exactly matches the task you need help with, or you may meet people through the chat that can give you advice or lend their expertise.
• To network - Twitter chats are excellent networking opportunities. By joining a chat relating to your industry, you can meet people who you can relate to. You can discuss industry news, challenges, share your opinions and advice, and develop friendships and possibly partnerships.
• To meet potential customers - In addition to meeting other businesses like your own, you can also meet people interested in your business. For example, if you sell rock climbing equipment, participants of #ClimbChat would probably be interested in your products. However, do not try to sell to people through the Twitter chat. Instead, just talk to them and only mention your products if it’s actually relevant to the conversation. Twitter chats are a good way to build brand awareness and take it from there.

How do I get started? (Tweet this)

First, you need to find Twitter chats to join in on. There are many resources for finding chats. You can go through this Google Doc of over 700 Twitter chats that gives details such as chat description, moderator, and day and time. You can also use websites like twebevent to look at Twitter chat listings. Most importantly, pay attention to what chats your network is already participating in. When you notice someone you follow participating in a Twitter chat, check out the stream to see if it would be helpful for you.

When you pick a chat and want to join in, there are a few ways to follow the chat. I personally use TweetChat.com. You sign in through your Twitter account, enter the hashtag of the chat, and are presented with a stream that automatically updates when new tweets are posted and automatically adds the hashtag to the end of your tweets. This is important because if you forget to add your hashtag to your tweets, no one in the chat will see them. Similar tools include TweetGrid and twebevent. Alternatively, you could participate in the chat from Twitter itself, or add the hashtag’s stream to your Twitter client such as HootSuite or TweetDeck.

While chatting, remember your manners. Don’t be too self-promotional and respect the community. Many Twitter chats have specific rules. For example, a lot of chats want you to retweet the questions so that your followers can more easily follow along and be tempted to join in. Pam Moore has a great post about Twitter chat tips, so I’d suggest reading that for more tips.

Have you ever participated in Twitter chat before? Which ones are your favorites?

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Tags: professional networking, small business marketing, social media, social media marketing, Twitter, twitter chats

This entry was posted on Friday, October 5th, 2012 at 10:25 am and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.