You’ve decided – or you’ve been told – that it is time that your meeting incorporates Twitter.  In fact, the young keener in your office has assured you that doing so is actually quite easy – just set up a Twitter wall.  Unfortunately, you know that whenever anyone says this, they either don’t know what they’re talking about, or they have conveniently omitted the fine print. And as more conferences are either being delivered virtual or in a hybrid model, why is this even relevant?

It probably makes sense to address the last question first.  In a certain sense, 99% of all meetings delivered virtually have a Twitter Wall built in: it’s called the chat box.  As a result, expectations are changing rapidly: people are less enamored with being an audience, and more keen on being a participant.  The chat box and the Twitter wall allow this to happen.

Including Twitter and Chat within your meeting plans actually does provide some benefits:

1) It allows a conversational backchannel to form amongst attendees, improving engagement and building community.
2) The conversation can continue well after the event itself.
3) The conversation can be archived/reviewed for feedback and ideas for future meetings.
4) Using Twitter successfully helps demonstrate that you are tech-savvy and up-to-date.

On the flip side, using it poorly also reflects on you.  And Twitter/Chat does add one more thing to do… and one more thing that can go wrong.

For the uninitiated, Twitter is the Social Media service that allows users to post 280 character mini-status updates – “tweets”.  If a user follows you, anything that you tweet is then shown on their twitter home page.  Twitter uses a concept called hashtags – a keyword preceded by the # character – as the mechanism to allow conversations to happen.  Search for a particular hashtag, and you’ll usually find a robust conversation on the topic at hand.  To “join” the conversation, merely include the hashtag as part of your post.

A Twitter Wall is web-based software that automatically listens for a certain hashtag, and then displays it on the screen.  Add a projector, and you are good to go.  Or not.

Chat, on the other hand, doesn’t always explicitly use Hashtags, but is the ongoing conversation that takes place within a streaming platform, such as Zoom.  For the purpose of this whitepaper, I will use the term Twitter Wall to refer to the concept, whether the content is from Twitter, Chat, or some other platform. For the uninitiated, Twitter is the Social Media service that allows users to post 280 character mini-status updates – “tweets”.  If a user follows you, anything that you tweet is then shown on their twitter home page.  Twitter uses a concept called hashtags – a keyword preceded by the # character – as the mechanism to allow conversations to happen.  Search for a particular hashtag, and you’ll usually find a robust conversation on the topic at hand.  To “join” the conversation, merely include the hashtag as part of your post.

A Twitter Wall is web-based software that automatically listens for a certain hashtag, and then displays it on the screen.  Add a projector, and you are good to go.  Or not.

Chat, on the other hand, doesn’t always explicitly use Hashtags, but is the ongoing conversation that takes place within a streaming platform, such as Zoom.  For the purpose of this whitepaper, I will use the term Twitter Wall to refer to the concept, whether the content is from Twitter, Chat, or some other platform.

Twitter walls can be used either in an open area – often near registration – so that attendees can see comments made by others, or within the conference rooms themselves, so that attendees can use them as a backchannel during each presentation.  Not sure where to begin? There are four key activities that are necessary to host a successful Twitter meeting:

1) Choose a hashtag
2) Publicize it and educate your attendees
3) Twitter wall technical set-up
4) Post-event follow-up

Does this topic resonate? Reach out to Randall: he can present it to your group.  (More presentation topics)
Download Randall’s professional credentials: Speaker credentials one-sheet or Management Advisory credentials.

Content Authenticity Statement: 100% original content: no AI was used in creating this content.

@RandallCraig (Follow me for daily insights)
www.RandallCraig.com: Professional credentials site.