May 04, 2011
7 Ways to Build Community (and Interest) with Twitter Chats
Online chats have really evolved since the days when AOL was king. In this day and age of social media where our online conversations have been condensed down to bite-sized nuggets of 140 characters or less, chatting has moved from the IM chatrooms to Twitter. A natural progression, since Twitter is already being used by millions of people to converse with each other daily.
Enter Twitter Chats. While not a new concept (Twitter chats have been around for at least a few years), they're still fantastic for connecting with people in much the same way the original chatrooms allowed.
There are Twitter chats that happen daily for a variety of topics (check out this comprehensive list of Twitter chats to find one that interests you), and it's incredibly easy to join the conversation. Simply follow the assigned hashtag for the chat you want to participate in and include that hashtag in your chat-related tweets. Tweetchat is the foremost tool available for Twitter chats, allowing you to easily follow a specific hashtag in a dedicated “room” and automatically include that hashtag in your tweets (so you don't have to type it yourself). Twitter chats usually take place at a certain scheduled time on a regular basis (check with the moderator of a particular chat for its schedule) and last for about 30 minutes to an hour.
It's equally easy to create and moderate your own Twitter chat, and it can be used as a powerful community-building, networking and marketing tool for businesses, events, associations and nonprofits. Here are 7 ways Twitter chats can be used to help you connect with your customers, prospects, base, members and others in your industry:
- Pre-event mingling: If you're a conference or event organizer, a Twitter chat can be a great way for attendees to mingle with each other before the event and get advice from both you and each other. An example of this is #nabchat, which is a Twitter chat we organized before the NAB Show (our client) for veteran and newbie attendees alike to connect with each other.
- Feedback: Let's say you're beta-testing a new product or service before it launches. Why not hold a Twitter chat with your beta testers to get their feedback? This also allows you to connect on a more personal level with those who may be your customers in the near future.
- Crowdsourcing: Along the same lines as using a Twitter chat for customer feedback, it can also be used to crowdsource ideas – i.e. event sessions, fundraising ideas, or even product ideas.
- Thought-leadership: If you're leading weekly Twitter chats about important topics within your industry or niche, you'll quickly establish yourself and your organization as a thought-leader. You might even consider engaging and partnering with an expert in your industry to share in leading your chats periodically. Engage 365, an online community for event professionals, does an excellent job of this with their weekly #engage365 Twitter chats, enlisting the help of industry experts to moderate on different chat topics.
- Interviewing an industry expert or leader: Twitter chats can also be used to conduct “Twitterviews” with other industry thought leaders (for instance, speakers at an upcoming conference). These are usually much more tightly moderated, with discussions and Q&As happening during a specific time period.
- Rallying your base and fundraising: Nonprofits and political campaigns can use Twitter chats to generate excitement and discussion around a specific cause or platform and encourage people to donate or get involved. An example of this is #SOSFood, which was a series of Twitter chats for food bloggers to help raise money for our client, Share Our Strength. The chats themselves were about food-blogging topics, but participants were encouraged to donate to Share Our Strength during the chats.
- Getting to know you: At the heart of all Twitter chats is simply getting acquainted and networking with your fellow Tweeps over a topic in which you share an interest!
How have you used Twitter chats or seen them used successfully as a marketing or community-building tool? Leave a comment and tell us about it?
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Technorati Tags: Twitter social media nonprofits associations events
Posted by Kari Rippetoe at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)April 20, 2011
10 Tips for Successful Social Media Contests & Promotions
Contests and promotions through social media outposts like Twitter and Facebook are a great way to generate excitement and engage and involve your fans, friends and followers. It's a key way to get people interacting with your brand, product, event or organization in a meaningful way while helping you to identify your most enthusiastic advocates.
Through our work with a variety of clients at Tuvel Communications, we've created and executed several successful social media contests & promotions. You can see some examples of our work, here, here and here.
Along the way, we've been able to refine our efforts to maximize results while creating excitement and having fun! By sharing some of our tips, we hope that we can save you time while driving the results that you want. With this in mind, we've created our Top 10 list of ways to ensure that your social media contests & promotions are successful:
Get peeps engaged! Don't just broadcast promotions through social networking outlets. Rather, get folks involved with your brand or organization. We recently ran a Twitter promotion that asked folks to tell us, in 140 characters or less, why they should get a free conference pass. We also ran a promotion that required those interested to provide the contest answer as a comment on the client blog. Create something that allows people to interact directly with your brand - it's key to getting traction and conversation going in your social media communities.
Have a there-there. Don't just do a contest for the sake of doing a contest! All of our promotions have a specific purpose. While you want to create buzz and excitement, you also also want to think about the other goals you want to accomplish. Do you want to increase attendance, fund-raise, generate discussion, build an email list or deliver another metric?
Make it simple to participate. Complex games are fun (anyone remember the early days of scavenger hunts that included several websites?) but may attract less participants. It's great to utilize the "flavor of the month" technologies out there, but keep your audience in mind and don't make them do anything that will generate more perplexed questions than actual participation.
Create fun and excitement! People love contests and the chance to win prizes. Make 'em interesting and people will play. Convey excitement through messaging. Make your promotion different and, of course, inject personality into it.
Follow best practices. We are careful not to get our clients or bloggers and others into trouble by promoting or creating a contest. Know the rules beforehand. In this game, you can't beg forgiveness! You can find out more about the rules and regulations here and here.
Offer value and relevance. Find out what turns people on. We have executed many government related promotions. We've been told that government types aren't interested in promotions. Not true! Most people are interested in a contest or giveaway, it's just a matter of finding out what they like.
Leverage marketing partners. We typically approach client partners that have large followings (fans, friends, followers, subscribers). We then approach these folks so that they might create a special (client) promotion for their readers. Everyone wins in this scenario with partners being able to offer value and our client reaping the rewards!
It's the total campaign that matters. Promotions are most successful when they are part of a larger, integrated campaign. Involve creative and promote on the website and through email. Our most successful campaigns are seamless and can be played through several social networking platforms.
Make it easy to pick a winner and fulfill. We typically create giveaways so that our clients can randomly choose winners. We also find prizes that can be fulfilled through an email address - gift cards are a good example - make awarding easy. Have you ever had to hunt down snail mail addresses for fulfillment? Logistically, it can be a painful process!
Don't stop! Promotions help to create traction and momentum. Continue the conversation, get others involved and grow your supporters. In other words: be a smart marketer!