How to make your twitter chat a success for your brand
Certainly, many of you might be sailing in the same boat to build your brand awareness and drive sales for your business. Before you get bogged down in something, make sure you are using the right social platforms for your brand. And if you are using Twitter chat, in this post you will learn how you can make your Twitter chat a success for your brand.
Many of you reading this might be enthusiast marketers, leaders, participants or panelist of Twitter chat. Live chats on social media has grown widely for brands as an incredible tool for marketing, sales, customer support, and collaboration. Twitter chats are a great way for businesses to engage with the social community and discuss pretty much anything that interests them. For businesses and brands, Twitter chats are becoming an essential marketing strategy to bring the audience together and attract new followers.
For example, a Twitter chat by me (#ProofHubChat) occurs biweekly and professionals, marketers, leaders from all over the world tune in to share their knowledge. I am surprised by the amount of enthusiasm people have during the chat. Certainly, the whole process involves a lot of preparation to bring down the guests and to get people excited to participate and attend. I have a learned a lot about how to run a successful Twitter chat and achieve business goals. Let us first have a look at the benefits of runnings a Twitter chat for your business.
Exposure for your company
Connect with prospects
Create one-on-one relationships
Build an authority
Awareness of your expertise by others
Promotion of your brand
You can have these benefit of Twitter chat for your brand if you know how it works well. That’s why I am sharing with you the following guidelines to understand the most effective ways of hosting a Twitter chat.
Choose your topics and questions wisely
Twitter chats usually follow a ‘question and answers’ format and it makes it easy to get lost in a sea of tweets. So, first, you need to choose a topic for your chat to set yourself up for success. Choose a broad topic related to your industry or something that is trending.
After you have decided the topic, build a schedule in advance to promote your chat and send invites. Come up with 10-11 questions and prepare yourself with the best knowledge for best answers. During the Twitter chat, you will come across random conversations buzzing around, tweets addressing the questions or commentary about answers, so prepare yourself with everything that revolves around the topic you chose.
Make it lively by getting into conversations, creating graphics or GIFs to include in your answer posts. Take care that you do not step on anyone’s toes while choosing the topics and questions.
Create anticipation to bring in guests
A few days before the event do not forget to drop sneak peaks for your guests. You can put down a countdown a few hours before your chat is scheduled to create anticipation. Show your excitement through GIFs or quotes adding a touch of humor for guests to be more engaged with you.
Find your audience on all social media platforms and tell them your date and time and steps to participate. Keep them alert with your posts and do whatever it takes to let them know that chat is happening and they have to be present there.
Creating an anticipation will keep on reminding your guests to participate on time because there is nothing worse than an empty Twitter chat with no participants.
Arrange the right timing
It will be quite hard to choose the right timing for your chat to get an engaged audience that will be consistent to attend. Pick a time that works the best depending on the audience you want to bring in and who are your followers.
How to pick the right time:
Be specific for each month or week
Be sure that no one else in conducting a chat on similar topic on the same day
Help people with time zones to understand the time of your chat
Create a timetable of well-known chat and then pick the best time for your own chat
Pick the day that works best for you and your followers, and stick with it.
Understand the format and audience
How do you moderate your Twitter chat will decide the success of your chat. Check out the moderator and feature the guests if required. Understand the format of structuring the chat session. Review previous chats and questions that have been asked by moderators in the past.
Take care of the following things:
Make sure to ask a question every 10 minutes
Chats should stay on the topic
Questions should be thought to provoke
Make sure to have the main guest
Be sure to communicate clearly with your audience so they can be prepared.
Pick a short and clear hashtag
It can be a tricky business to choose an ideal hashtag. A good idea is to choose a unique hashtag, one that somebody else is already not using and that reinforces your brand. Pick something clear and simple that relates back to your business or services/products directly. People will tweet back the same and every time they provide input, your brand will be promoted. This will give your brand a great exposure.
If you haven't yet tried a Twitter chat or your Twitter chat has never been a success, these simple tricks will give a new way to build your brand online. It is a great way to connect with your audience and take your marketing efforts to a new platform. Successful Twitter chats can help you build an authentic relationship with your community, promote genuine engagement and knowledge sharing. Have fun, get inspired and represent your brand!