Let’s Talk About How To Get the Most Out of Twitter Chats
A lot has been written about the basic techniques of how to approach a Twitter chat, how to follow a Twitter chat, and things like that. In fact, this post from the BlogWorld folks lists 26 posts about Twitter chats that should give you a pretty good summary of that kind of information. But today, I want to talk with you a little bit about something that doesn’t get talked about as much, and that is how to get the most that you can out of participating in a Twitter chat.
Twitter chats are interesting because they take the whole world of Twitter and minimize it into a much smaller group and a specific topic. That said, your approach to Twitter as a whole can be formulated and refined as you make your way through Twitter chats. The following are some mannerisms I’ve developed over the last year. That’s not to say they are the right ways to do it, but I have found chats have become increasingly rewarding as I have followed these basic ideas, so hopefully it will work the same way for you.
1. It’s a dance, not open mic night: There is a lot of pressure, I think, when you are in a chat to say things that really make an impact on the conversation. People want to get retweeted 20 times and have people come back at them days later and say, “Man, you were so brilliant in that chat!” Sometimes you do get yourself retweeted, and sometimes people do compliment you on something you said. However, that’s not really trying to participate in a chat, right? That’s just trying to get, well, retweets. Try to alter your focus more towards conversing and less from trying to get yourself lots of retweets.
2. Retweeting others can get boring for you and can bug others: There is a fine line between retweeting really great stuff so that your followers can see it and retweeting everything so you can stay in the mix. I was in a chat once where someone retweeted everything the moderator was saying, including basic bio information for the person who was a special guest for the chat. If most of your time in a chat is spent retweeting others, it’s not going to feel as rewarding for you (I’d think) and it’s not really going to seem like you’re offering a lot to the chat. Imagine going to a webinar and just repeating everything the presenter said. Kind of weird, right? Try to balance your retweeting with replying to people who say stuff you like. This makes your approach more conversational and more engaging.
3. Try to have a 12:1 ratio between replies to others and things you say yourself: I learned the 12:1 ratio when I was still pretty new to the online world. Chris Brogan wrote in a blog post that for every time you want to promote yourself, you should promote 12 other people. I still try to use that rule when I’m in a chat. In fact, I try to limit myself to 2 tweets that I just toss out there on my own. I reply to the moderator, I reply to other chat participants, and people still talk back at me. I may not get as many retweets, but it’s a lot more fun!
4. Promoting yourself in the middle of a conversation can get old super-quick: I’ve debated this with people before. To me, a chat is not the time to tweet links to your blog posts, especially if those posts aren’t exceedingly relevant to what is being discussed. Most chats will give you a chance to introduce yourself and you can link to your blog then, but posting lots of links to your site gets distracting, and most people will probably not click to it right then anyway. Why? Because they’re chatting!
5. Acting like a poop makes everyone feel stinky: Getting into tiffs in the middle of a Twitter chat is kind of like having a big fight at a pleasant family restaurant. It just makes everyone feel uncomfortable and awkward. If you find that someone is treating you poorly, try to take the hashtag off of your exchange. Contact the moderator and let them know that someone is being abusive. But if you fight back in the middle of the chat, even if you are 100% innocent, you will look bad.
Following these five general concepts have made chats really fun for me. They have enabled me to meet and network with a lot of great people, I’ve been able to learn a lot, and it’s more enjoyable than tweeting at yourself for an hour (in my opinion). Then again, I could be wrong!
Let’s talk about it!
Image by Robbie Ribeiro. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/Robmania
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Re #4: If one person — and it usually is just one person! — has a question that you’ve answered in a blog post, @mention them directly, omitting the chat’s hashtag. If the chat is very busy and they don’t need the information to participate in the convo, wait until the chat is over.
Good tactic. This happens to me all the time on accident. (I’m not very good at Twitter… lol!)
Good addition to the conversation, Angelique. Or you can DM them if they seem interested, too. That way they don’t have to search in the stream for it!
Margie I wish I had this list when I first started out on chats!
To take your point 1 a step further, you don’t want to be that crazy dancer that clears a floor not because he’s good, but because he is soooo bad.
Regarding number 4, one of my favorite chat is #smallbizchat hosted by Melinda Emerson. She has a rule to hold all promotional stuff until the end. Then she saves about 5 minutes for people to do pitches, she calls it roll call. It works great and I find people really do pay attention because of the set-up.
I guess technically she couldn’t make someone stop, but clearly those in the chat are not going to listen so it defeats the purpose if you break the rule.
Finally, did you really use poop in a post? I wish I could think of a clever Beavis & Butthead joke to share here 🙂
Yep, I really did use the P word. Shocking, I know, but even the most nice people in the world have to say poop sometimes 😀 I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me! 😮
That sounds like a great idea regarding a time to promote things. I’ve been trying that with #tweetdiner lately – people can link to important online causes (including ones they work on themselves) for the last 10 minutes of the chat. Of course there is no way to stop poor behavior if you’re moderating a chat – there was a kerfuffle in a chat I was running once and I didn’t even find out about it till a week later. You just have to do the best you can and hope you can keep people moving 🙂
Very helpful post, Margie. And #2? OMG!!! SO A-N-N-O-Y-I-N-G!!!
I have sat through several chats (as you well know) and some of them seemed about 65% retweets. It gets very frustrating when you are actually trying to keep up (E.g. – Blogchat) and you have to scroll through 10 times further to find the original Tweet(er). In addition to that, the retweets of the retweets of the retweets… there’s so many names, you can see the comment anymore!
People can get kind of silly sometimes. 😀
Yeah, the retweets of the retweets of the retweets get to be a bit much, don’t they? The biggest danger with that is that you sometimes end up retweeting yourself 3-4 times, which … I don’t know, does that help your Klout score? Are you an influencer of you? Hmm…
Margie,
It’s a great reminder on how to behave in the playground. I like to see RT of the questions asked in a chat because sometimes it’s very difficult to keep up with them in a busy chat. I also like to see meaningful tweets RT for the same reason. In #Blogchat, for example it’s good to have a reasonable amount of RT’s or else it’s all just a blur. I agree with Brandon, though that it get’s taken to a level that makes it difficult to scroll back and find the originator.
Part of the problem may be that there are some built in incentives to get RT’s. If someone is trying to improve their Klout score they can do so by getting RT’s and getting responses from others who have lots of followers. Sometimes the ego just checks in and takes over as well. One other thing that plays into it is if the chat topic is something that you are really passionate about your emotions take over and you just can’t help yourself 🙂
I tend to give a pass to someone who normally behaves well but gets into a passionate discussion about their favorite topic. I’m not saying it’s ok to misbehave or mistreat anyone under any circumstances but if someone gets very enthusiastic and messes up on a few of your recommendations I won’t hold it against them.
Thank you for publishing this timely reminder. It should be mandatory reading for all Twitter chat participants. There will be a quiz too 🙂
Hi Jim,
Definitely all important points you’ve raised here! And like I said, these are just my opinions and how I end up enjoying myself in chats. Everybody is different and everybody has different reasons for doing things, including upping their Klout scores. I’m just throwing the topic out there for further discussion.
Thanks for adding to it!
Margie,
Brilliant tips and reminders. Especially the 12 – 1 rule you attributed to Chris. It makes a world of sense. I’m hardwired to serve as a catalyst and to challenge assumptions so I seek to contribute new perspectives during chats. Yet every chat that I have ever participated in with you…you make me feel good. You make me laugh and all-around think, “damn, that Margie is good people”. And viola…that’s why I’m following and reading you my good woman. Point served, volleyed and taken. Margie love!
Margie,
I agree with all of your tips. Do you remember, way back when, Mack Collier wrote a post call “What is #blogchat?” http://mackcollier.com/social-media-library/what-is-blogchat/ Every week a few hours before #blogchat he tweets a link to this so that if people have never participated before they can get a feeling of what to expect.
You will see he tried to lay good ground-rules; however, some objected. RTs are not a big deal, until you have 4000 tweets and 449 contributors in a 60 minute chat. You can easily get lost in the RTs. Yikes.
Thanks for the reminders.
Judy
Margie, as always you have great things to say/offer. In this case, I’d add wisdom. As you know well, I like to participate in chats and have started my own. I call a busy chat, like #blogchat, “Brain Exercise” because to really participate requires amazing focus. To actually offer witty, clever replies to what is going on is my personal challenge as well as my quirky desire to be the “Class Clown.”
I hereby give you permission AND request that if I’m every acting like a “poop” you will call me out on it!
Good ideas here Margie – but you missed my #1 peeve about chats! And that’s when people jump in at the halfway point to ask what the chat’s about (clearly not having read any previous tweets) and then try to turn the topic to something completely irrelevant.
So the tip I’d have to add is “do your homework”. Chat hosts usually post the topic beforehand and RT it a few times throughout the duration. It really makes the chat go more smoothly and irritates those of us who read up beforehand far less 🙂