Twitter parties are fun ways to connect with your followers and to gain greater exposure for your brand. They take lots of planning and preparation, so you’ll want to make sure you do everything you can to get it right. Here are five things you can do to make sure you are on the path to Twitter party success!

Ample Promotion Time: If you announce your party the day of the event, you’ll probably get some people to attend. But often people don’t act the first time they are offered something. Ideally, allow at least a week to tweet, post, and blog about your party to help gain momentum. Some companies even send out press releases to gain further exposure, you’ll need to give them some circulation time for the biggest impact.

Convey the Facts: Put all of the components of your party in one place and make it easy for your followers to find and understand. Set up a registration page that includes the date, time, hosts/sponsor, hashtag, and any other information or requirements that are needed to attend or draw people to your party. Having an info page will give you a ‘landing page’ for which you can include a link to in Facebook posts and Tweets. Your info page can be set up on your website or blog, or you can create a Facebook event for it, or use a third-part event service such as Eventbrite or Twtvite.

Prizes: Having a great giveaway generates a lot of attention. Someone interested in winning might be more motivated to tweet about, which might lead someone else who might not have otherwise seen it to also tweet about it or attend. If a good prize can help generate some extra buzz for the event you’ve worked so hard on to promote, and it’s in your budget to give away—go for it!

Excellent Content: When doing an informal survey several months back of those who regularly attend Twitter events, about half said they wouldn’t attend a party based on prizes alone. Time is valuable; people want to get something in return for their attention. Not everyone wins a prize at Twitter parties, but if they can leave the event with greater knowledge of a topic, or by having a valuable interaction with an expert, celeb spokesperson, or company rep, they’ll be glad they took the time to attend — and remember you and your brand for it. Take time to plan your party, create insightful questions and assemble a team of participants who will give added value to your event.

Experience: You can go it alone and host a Twitter party yourself. With a little investment of time and research, most likely any skilled Twitter user can figure it out themselves. However, sometimes it pays to learn the ropes from someone who’s been there before. An experienced Twitter party or chat host can help you to navigate your first party and avoid potential problems. I have had clients comment about not knowing what to tweet during a party, not knowing how to handle giveaways, or unsure of how to set up a professional-looking registration page. Or they simply don’t have the time to do it all themselves. An experienced host can help you with that and give you the confidence you need to make sure you have a blast at your party — and that your attendees do to.

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