Everything You Need to Know about Hosting Twitter Chats
Twitter chats offer an additional method for increasing audience engagement and digital community learning. If you’ve joined one in the past yourself, you are likely familiar with the format. The chat is typically hosted by an account that can offer direct, high-level expertise on a specific topic, somewhat similar to a podcast format, but completely managed through Tweets. The goal is to facilitate dialogue between participants and elevate a multitude of perspectives that can challenge or reaffirm existing ideas.
I’ve produced several Twitter chats for national education and youth-serving organizations, including co-hosting City Year National and NBC Academy’s (then NBC Education Nation’s) #ToolkitTalk and leading MENTOR’s #MentoringMonth chat. I’ve also joined several as a participant. Interacting with Twitter chats on both sides has taught me that although they may seem to run seamlessly in real-time, behind the scenes they require a clear content plan, online event production, and promotion strategy to be effective.
Planning to host your own Twitter chat in the near future? Here are a few tips that will help you project manage effectively and grow your online community at the same time.
First, select your Twitter chat theme
Ask yourself if there is a topic that will help educate and provide clarity to your audience. What questions do you get most often from your followers? Are there aspects of your organization that you want your general public to understand better? Where can you add unique value to ongoing conversations related to your selected topic? Ultimately, speaking to what you know will make content generation later in the process much easier!
Find your co-hosts and promotion partners
Is there an influencer or content expert in your network who can lend their insight to the conversation? Do you have mutual goals for educating your audience on the topic you’ve selected? Lean into their expertise, which can serve as a balance to your own. You should also consider the size of the co-hosts Twitter audience and/or engagement rate. Their promotion of the chat can add to your brand awareness, ultimately helping to grow your organic audience.
Market the opportunity to your followers
Think about the variety of ways you want to promote the opportunity for attendees in your network to join the chat. You could include a blurb in your organizational newsletter, tag people who often interact with your brand and extend an invitation, or create a promotional graphic that can be used cross-channel. All of these methods will help get the word out. Promotion should start at least one month beforehand, to build up a good grouping of participants.
Develop your Twitter chat run-of-show
Write your run-of-show with the Twitter chat objectives, relevant host handles, and the selected chat hashtag. This “script” should also include things like timestamps for each question, sample answers, and replies that you can copy and paste, and when things like introductions and closing statements will happen. Treat this process as if you’re running the command center of an actual event.
Host a prep call to answer outstanding questions
A pre-chat prep call offers the opportunity to run through crisis scenarios and answer any outstanding technical questions. You can talk through what you might do if a chat host is having trouble connecting to WiFi, someone is locked out of their account, or if a chat is “hacked” and an attendee is sharing inappropriate messages or harassing other attendees. There should be a plan in place to address issues that can be anticipated and others that may come up in real-time.
Time to go live!
The day of the online chat is just as exciting as the day of an in-person event. Typically, all co-hosts will join an open dial-in or Zoom meeting to be able to talk through any issues that come up and to flag specific questions from attendees that hosts should aim to answer. It’s definitely easier to talk by phone, when there are multiple views for the chat on your screen.
Pro tip: Use TweetDeck to set up a dashboard in advance with the chat hashtag, your feed, replies, mentions and DMs, to monitor and reply in one view.
Create a Twitter moment with your hashtag and debrief
A Twitter moment gives you an opportunity to create your own digital story with highlights from the Twitter chat. You’ll want to curate the Moment to include the best comments and replies, so edit using your own judgment of what your audience would be interested in. Here’s a great guide that shows step-by-step, how to create your own Moment.
A debrief is critical to understanding what went well and what missed the mark. This reflection time should include team members directly engaged with the project from start to finish. Ultimately, this provides space to share openly and shape the next chat, based on insights.
Schedule the next chat!
If you plan on hosting a Twitter chat series on a monthly, bi-monthly or even quarterly basis, you can share this next planned date with your attendees so they can save the date. Otherwise, include in your debrief exploration of topics and potential hosts to get something on the calendar in the near future. Stick to a frequency you can manage internally, and go from there.
WordSpark Digital Consulting is a social impact consultancy based on the East Coast. Ready to learn more about how you can use effective strategy to deepen your connection with relevant audiences? Let’s connect.