This is the 1st in our newest online training opportunity for public health professionals: Using What You Know about Social Media - How to Conduct a Successful Twitter Chat!

1. How to Conduct a
Successful Twitter Chat
Carlos Chapman II, Partnerships & Outreach
Coordinator CDC NPIN
Wednesday, January 29, 2014

2. Objectives
• How to research & develop content for a Twitter chat
• What to include in a Twitter chat guide
• How to measure the success of a Twitter chat
• Best practices for Twitter chat engagement

3. Twitter Basics

4. Twitter Basics

5. Hosting a Twitter Chat

6. What is a Twitter Chat?
• Public scheduled
meeting where people
gather around a certain
topic and create an
online discussion on
Twitter by using one
unique hashtag

7. Benefits for Hosting a Twitter Chat
• Promote awareness of and participation in your
organization’s activities
• Increase conversations about certain topics, available
resources and tools on Twitter
• Expand depth of organizational conversations in your
network and develop new relationships
• Build your own organization reach and reputation on
Twitter

8. Pre – Planning Steps

9. Topic Selection
• Focus on needs of your
followers
• Listen!
• Area of expertise/ social
media goals

10. Creating the Hashtag
Hashtags should be
• Short
• Unique and creative
• Easy to type
• Focused around the topic
• Memorable
• Avoid double letters and symbols
Hashtag search Web sites
• www.twubs.com
• www.hashtags.org
• www.tagdef.com
• www.Twitter.com

11. Scheduling the Twitter Chat
• Select best day & time
• Avoid conflicts with
other pre - scheduled
chats
• Have a set schedule
• Include the time zone

12. Guest Selection
• Not mandatory
• Subject Matter
Experts
• Provide questions in
advance
• Offer Twitter tutorials

13. Script Development
• Roles/Staff
• Promotional Tweets
 Scheduling tweets
• Topic Questions
• Tweet character limit is 140
(120 is ideal)
• Protocol guidelines (T1. A1. )
• Resource links
• Include hashtag in all tweets
• Script approval

14. Day of Chat
• Final script
• Meeting space prepared
 TV Monitor
 Conference phone line
• Suggested tools to run chat
 www.tweetchat.com
 www.twubs.com
 www.hootsuite.com
 www.twitter.com

15. After the Chat
• Follow-up on outstanding questions
• Identify influencers, potential guests for other chats
• Archive the chat
• Storify and other tools
• Evaluate and measure
• Announce the next chat

16. Measuring Success of a Twitter Chat

17. Why Evaluate?
Evaluating enables you to:
• Understand what’s working and what’s not
• Adjust and improve your chat topics
• Demonstrate the value of Twitter outreach via the Twitter
chat
• Understand your audience and influencers

18. Twitter Analytical Tools
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TwitterAnalyzer
TweetStats
Hashtracking
Tweetreach
TwitterCounter
Tweriod
PeopleBrowsr
Socialbro
Radian 6

19. Twitter Chat Measurements
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Metrics table
Trending graph
Top contributing participants
Top contributing participants w/ most followers
Geographic distribution
River of News

20. Best Practices
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Prepare topic questions and content
early
Cross channel promotion
Share questions with guests in
advance
Establish protocols at start of chat
Greet participants
Acknowledge mentions
Keep tweets under 140 characters

21. Best Practices
• Shorten links (www.bitly.com)
o Test all your links before sending
• Include pictures/videos to increase
engagement
• Include hashtags to help people follow the
conversation
• Stay open to new formats
• Consider multimedia
• Take the chat beyond Twitter

22. #UWYKchat
Let’s practice!
Sample Tweets:
T1. Have you hosted/participated in a chat before?
#UWYKchat
A1. Yes #UWYKchat
T2. Are you planning to host a chat next year?
#UWYKchat
A2. Yes, we are planning to host a chat next week.
#UWYKchat

23. Questions