Lots of membership bodies have a Twitter account, but not all of them tweet live from their account during their own events. Tweeting during your event can help stimulate Twitter discussion not only from delegates but from others interested in the event. Those who are unable to attend may well be following and searching tweets about it on Twitter. And this Twitter action can in turn help you raise your profile in front of new contacts on Twitter as the content is shared.

As I have been the “live tweeter” on behalf of both the Trade Association Forum and MemberWise at their previous events, I thought I’d share my thoughts on how to approach live tweeting at your organisation’s events:

1. Decide which of your events you will tweet at. Small events, or those where people are expecting to talk in confidence, won’t necessarily work. Larger conferences lend themselves well to live tweeting.
2. Select an event hashtag prior to the event and publicise on your marketing material including the event instructions.  For example, “#ABCconf”. Hashtags aren’t case sensitive and try to keep them fairly short.
3. Agree who is going to do the tweeting on the day. With a small team it can be all hands on deck at events, so you could consider using somebody else. Perhaps a social media savvy member, or a trustee/volunteer or use a freelancer/consultant.
4. If you are using a third party to tweet, have a discussion before the event about tweet content; tone, what is off limits and what to do if there is a really negative tweet from somebody about the event. Perhaps share some suggested tweets so the individual responsible is clear.
5. Set up your Twitter account on either a laptop, tablet or somebody’s phone on the day. Make sure there is internet access!
6. Consider sharing tweets via a screen/monitor so that all delegates can see, this should encourage them to get involved. You could use a free tool like Twitterfall which collects together tweets using a hashtag and they ‘fall’ down the screen.
7. Start tweeting! Typical tweets from an event:
1. “The room is starting to fill up, a warm welcome to all our delegates. #abcconf”
2. “John Smith is speaking next about the new legislation, should be an informative session. #abcconf”
3. “J Smith says that 80% of the public agree with this legislation. It will save over £1million across 3 years. Do you agree with it? #abcconf”
8. Retweet (RT) other people’s tweets about the event.
9. Use the opportunity to highlight your sponsors, by tweeting their twitter handle (e.g. @companya) along with your thanks to them and a little about them.
10. At the end of the event thank those that got involved in the conversation. It can also be a good time to remind your followers and your new followers about other events and also membership.

For great examples of how to tweet live during an event,  follow @CharityComms and @Media_Trust on twitter.

If you missed it before, you can download my free guide to Twitter for membership bodies.