5 Live Tweeting Tips

Why live Tweet? I live tweet for two reasons. One is to help bring the event to those who could not be in the session. It is not a replacement for attending but it does give a sense of what's happening to those outside the room. The other reason I live tweet is to capture notes for the session. The tweets are now in my Twitter history, so later I will be able to go back in a few weeks to pull out some nuggets.

• Prep the tools. Have your tools setup and ready to go before people start talking. I use TweetDeck for most live tweeting. I also have open: a text editor (Wordpad, TextEdit, something simple; I use Evernote) to capture longer bits of info; the Twitter website signed into my main account, just in case no other tool will post to Twitter; my phone apps (Seesmic and Twitter app), as a backup if my laptop apps fail me.
• Use hashtags and names. To help focus the tweets, I use the event hashtag and the person's Twitter name. If they do not have a Twitter name, I'll use their company Twitter name, and fall back to their last name if nothing else is available. Example: #acfc11 Earl/Thornton session: bend your knees when walking with camera to help keep up/down camera movement to a minimum. Another example: #acfc11 @katpinke @Al_Winmill helping share ninja tactics to social media twitpic.com/6a7hfz. Using hashtags and Twitter username helps people find specific sessions amongst all the event hashtag noise.
• Create and share links. Many times you will not be able to keep up with everything a person says. However they may have a website with the info. Share that web link. Another tactic is to use Google (or your favorite search engine) to find related information. I recommend this for terms and companies that might get mentioned. If you don't know the term then someone else doesn't either so help out with a definition link:) Sharing links also helps capture those links for later when you are developing your event blog post and curating your link collection.
• Use the tools. Ok, those tool were set setup for a reason. Live tweeting can be fast at times so I use Evernote to capture information in a bit more free form. I use this raw info to form a specific tweet during a slow period.
• Find a buddy. This is live tweeting and there are real people at the event you can connect with. Sometimes it helps to buddy up on listening. Our brains can only keep ahead a little bit. If someone else can help remind you what was said, great! Also, your buddy may have interesting material already tweeted so take this opportunity to re-tweet (RT) those tweets. This helps your followers and gets those RTs into your history for later review.
• Take a break. Live tweeting is real time and can move pretty quick. You need a break occasionally.

Bonus tips!

• If you connectivity is reduced or lost, continue to live tweet using your text editor. The info can then be batch tweeted later. It will not be real time but it does get the info into the Twitter stream.
• Use a tool like TextExpander, a macro text expander to simplify repeated typing long strings, like the hashtag and session name.
• Use a digital recorder to capture all the audio, just in case you missed something. I use an Olympus digital recorder, low cost and records on a single AAA for +10 hours.