One aspect of planning a Twitter party or chat that people often seem to need help with is selecting a hashtag.

At first glance, it might seem to be one of the easier pieces of the Twitter chat puzzle: it’s usually no more than several characters in length — how tricky can it be, right? But if you want to get the most out of your hashtag during your next Twitter party or chat, here are a few things you might want to consider:

Length: It may seem like a ‘no-brainer’ but it’s true: the shorter the hashtag the better. Since you only have 140 characters to work with in a tweet, you need all of the real estate you can get. That doesn’t necessarily mean make it so short that it goes unnoticed. It’s one thing to tweet an abbreviation everyone recognizes (like #TGIF or #FF), but a hashtag that is abbreviated that stands for something very few people would know (like #ACTP for Acme Company Twitter Promotion) won’t garner many clicks. For brevity’s sake, you most likely will only want to use one hashtag as the Twitter party’s hashtag rather than cluttering up the event with two. However, if your company typically uses another hashtag in tweets, you might want to use both when promoting the Twitter chat.

Appeal: Hashtags are not case sensitive. If you type in #TGIF or #tgif in Twitter search you will get the same results. Mixing up lower and upper case letters can help with readability. Which hashtag is easier to read: #acmeconewyear or #AcmeCoNewYear? If you want your hashtag’s message as clear as possible, consider using both upper and lower cases to make each word stand out.

Best Practices: There are some things you cannot do with a hashtag. Hashtags cannot include spaces or punctuation — the minute you add either one, the hashtag ends (for example, if you type ‘#Acme Co’ or ‘#Acme-Co’, the hashtag would only be considered ‘#Acme’). You can start your hashtag with a number, as long as you include letters (it cannot be all numbers). Which means #2015 will not be searchable, but #2015Acme will). Also, if you accidentally put a number or letter immediately before your hashtag (like promo#AcmeCo), your hashtag (#AcmeCo) will not be searchable either (source: Twitter Help Center). Twitter also discourages hashtag ‘stuffing,’ or including as many hashtags as possible in a tweet with the hopes of getting noticed. You just might get noticed by Twitter — as a spammer.

Avoid Epic Fails: Occasionally, selecting the wrong hashtag has a way of backfiring on a promotion. Consider the infamous hashtag to promote singer Susan Boyle’s album: #SusanAlbumParty. The hashtag ended up trending, but mainly because tweets took the non-case sensitive tag, made a few new capitals and gave the tag a not-so-nice meaning (#SusAnalBumParty). Take a look at your hashtag from all angles and make sure it is incapable of being altered to create an unintended meaning.

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Tags: hashtags, Twitter, Twitter chat tips, twitter party tips

Are you thinking of hosting a Twitter party or chat for your business or organization? Hosting a chat on Twitter can be a lively way to engage your followers and help spread the word about your business or organization. However, not all products and services are a good fit for a chat.

So what are some questions to ask before you dive into the Twitter party scene? Here are some ideas:

Where are your followers on social media? If you have very few Twitter followers, having a Twitter party might work as a way to gain more. However, if your customer base consists of a demographic that has little interest in tweeting (perhaps Baby Boomer males?), you might want to hold off on organizing a chat. Often, we advise companies that followings on a larger scale work best for Twitter parties (for example, a business people can find online or a nationwide chain). Occasionally, we have seen a Twitter party work well for a small, local business or brand. If you are a small company with a group of hardcore, loyal Twitter followers, having a Twitter party might go a long way in reaching out to this group, engaging them, and perhaps creating brand awareness amongst their followers and friends.

What is your business? Some Twitter chats that have been very successful include: chats during televised programs or events, parties sponsored by mom-favored brands or products, chats for a non-profit organization that included helpful information to increase awareness about an important subject or a chat that included a well-known celebrity participant. Controversial brands often do not fare well during live events. If you are a company that recently faced negative publicity, then having a Twitter event might backfire. For example, a well-known maker of cleaning products held a ‘Healthy Child’ Twitter party with the intent of teaching parents how to keep their homes cleaner and thus, their kids healthier. Many parents joined the chat and questioned the toxicity of their products and how they could be considered healthy for kids. If you think your product might create discord in your chat, it’s best to find another promotional venue.

What are your objectives? What do you hope to achieve in having a Twitter party? Do you want to interact with your followers or get them to tweet about you with the hope that their followers will become aware of your business and follow you too? Do you hope your hashtag will become a trending topic and bring a lot more attention to your brand or organization? Or is your goal simply to interact with people in real-time and generate some good PR? In all of these scenarios, having a Twitter party can be a great idea. However, if you are hoping for immediate sales as a result of the party, you might be disappointed. Like any form of advertising, repetition is the key. We’ve even found some brands who have multiple, regular chats and parties to really benefit from this form of advertising. If you believe having one party will work miracles when it comes to sales, you had better look elsewhere.

What is your timing? Why do you want to have a Twitter chat at this point in time? Are you launching a new company, product, service or website? Will your chat coincide with a live event, such as a conference, grand opening or t.v. show? Twitter parties often are celebrations of newsworthy events: a product launch, an industry gathering, an announcement or contest. Twitter parties are newsworthy; the promotional goal is to make that news known even more throughout the Twittersphere. Twitter parties work best when there is reason to celebrate. Find an angle that is newsworthy about your business, and the party will be easier to promote and sell to others to attend.

Twitter parties and chats can be great ways to communicate with people in a fun, festive atmosphere. Not only will your interaction with followers increase during the chat, but also before an after. There are some additional aspects of having a chat that are beneficial for businesses and organizations: if someone engages in a conversation once, they might be more willing to do so in the future, or more willing to listen to your future messages. Also, Twitter party sponsors have discovered that live chats can be great ways to get feedback from those who use their products and services. If you feel that a Twitter party or chat might be right for your company but you’re not sure where to begin, contact us on Twitter or email us at [email protected]. 

Tags: twitter chat, Twitter party guide, twitter party tips

Twitter parties are all about the #hashtag. If you’re new to Twitter and not familiar with the term, you soon will be. It’s a vital component of the social networking site.

A hashtag is a keyword with the pound (“#”) sign in front of it. In a tweet you might see something like this: Party Tonight! Check it out at TweeParties.com! #tweeparties Notice the bold portion: #tweeparties. This is a hashtag in action. In Twitter, if you see a hashtag and click on it, you’ll see a list of all tweets recently posted using that hashtag. It makes searching for specific topics easier by uniting similar tweets with a specific keyword. Without hashtags—one specific keyword picked out just of the party and used by all attendees’ tweet—we wouldn’t have Twitter parties.

You can follow a party in Twitter alone. Just search the right sidebar for the hashtag. However, in order to view the most recent posts, you would have to keep hitting your “refresh” button. So rather than tiring out your mouse, try a Twitter aggregator program. An aggregator program is free software, either available through your web browser or for download. Programs such as Tweet Chat, Tweet Grid, Tweet Deck and Hootsuite make it easier to keep up with a party by automatically refreshing your timeline. First off, to do any of this, you’ll need a free Twitter account. Pick a user name that sums you up and get tweeting!

The first party I ever attended, I attended on Twitter, so don’t feel badly if you give it a go that way! Depending on the maneuverability of your fingers, you might do just fine. Or the “refreshing” might drive you a little crazy (as it did me).

The next time, I tried Tweet Chat. This is a great one for beginners attending their first party. Visit Tweet Chat’s homepage and you’ll get a quick 3-Step guide to using the program. It’s free and all you need is a web browser to use it. You’ll sign in using your Twitter account. Then, enter the party’s unique hashtag in the box at the top (following the “#” sign) and hit “Go!” A one-column list will appear showing all of the tweets using that hashtag in reverse-chronological order (most recent first). Two benefits: 1) the timeline will automatically refresh itself (no manual refreshing!); 2) Each time you tweet, the hashtag will be added to your tweets for you (you don’t have to type the tweet each time! So you don’t have to worry about making a typo and having a tweet miss being seen during the party! The single-column format provides less confusion to a party newbie. But watchout! When that list refreshes, it might list a ton of tweets at once. If you want to make sure you don’t miss one sent specifically to you, have two windows open: one for Tweet Chat and the other for your Twitter account. Then occasionally refresh your “@” button to see if anyone has responded to one of your tweets.

You could also use Tweet Deck or Hootsuite. Both of these are different from Tweet Chat in that you can have more than one column. So you can set up one column to follow the hashtag, another to follow the party host, and another to follow your own account (which helps to see when people are replying to your tweets). Both are free. The only difference is that Tweet Deck is a program you download and install on your computer and Hootsuite is something you can use via your browser alone. I’ve tried both. Both have real benefits in day-to-day tweeting. However, when I’ve used them during parties, I felt they didn’t automatically refresh often enough.

What seems to be the most popular party aggregator is Tweet Grid. It is not without occasional problems, but in contacting the programmer, the problems lie with Twitter, and hopefully someday will be resolved. Tweet Grid makes it easy to follow parties (in fact, many party hosts create custom links to the grid—all you need to do is click on the link, enter your Twitter ID, and bingo! You’re in). On the welcome screen, just enter the hashtag, the Twitter ID’s of the party hosts, and your ID. A new screen will open up revealing the three columns, and you’re in! When you tweet, you don’t need to include the hashtag—it will include it for you. Also, you can upload photos via Tweet Grid and send DM’s much like being in your own Twitter account. You also could create more columns to follow another hashtag, if needed.

Sometimes when using Tweet Grid the center column freezes up—the party host column. One way to get the column moving again is to try removing the “from:” that’s before the Twitter ID in that column. You will now see all tweets mentioning that ID, including those from other users, but at least you won’t miss anything from that ID and the column will start refreshing again.

The bottom line: use whatever method is most comfortable for you. And have patience. New technology doesn’t always work brilliantly 100% of the time (insert a Twitter ‘fail whale’ here!) But with a little know-how and some practice, you’ll be able to find your own path to Twitter party enjoyment! (Any questions/comments, please leave them here!) Happy Tweeting!

Tags: hootsuite, social media marketing, tweet chat, tweet deck, tweet grid, twitter aggregators, twitter party tips