Plan Your Meetings

Tweet tweet

Posted by Kristi Casey Sanders on September 17, 2008 at 7:12 pm

If you have a Facebook profile, you’re familiar with the concept of Twitter, an application that tells all your friends what you’re doing right now (or at least what you were doing when you typed it in). What makes Twitter more fun is that updates are sent and received via cell phone.

Once you’re logged in, you can find people from your e-mail address book or invite groups of people to participate. Which brings me to some applications I think meeting planners will find useful:

  1. You can create a really fun, interactive way for attendees to talk with each other throughout your events. (Although, it also gives them a way to overthrow boring presenters. See this entry about how an audience of Tweeters took over a poorly organized keynote presentation.)
  2. It allows you to instantly communicate with your entire staff or group of attendees on-site without having to buy into any kind of software or service provider.
  3. It allows you to send questions, seek help and communicate with everyone you’re connected to, instantly.
  4. It can be used for scavenger hunts and team-building games, giving them a novel twist while bypassing the need for investing in GPS or other hand-held devices.
  5. You can “follow” a thread of interest, magazines, other meeting planners and news channels. Do a search for what interests you, and choose to follow them. It’s pretty cool. And, at a 140-word limit, the updates take no time to read.

Are you tweeting? Let me know. My Twitter name is KristiCasey. I’ve also started tweeting for PYM. So, if you want the latest news on the meetings industry, follow PYMLive.

Join the discussion

  1. Erica Prewett Says:
    September 24, 2008 at 6:29 pm

    Kristi,
    Thanks for this. However, I have a question. I am an avid Facebook’r and admit to having a slightly addictive personality, which means I need to limit my blogging, etc to a few sites (like this one) or else my life would be consumed doing this. What tips do you have for learning a new system (like Twitter) for events purposes without getting “sucked in”?

  1. Kristi Casey Sanders Says:
    September 24, 2008 at 6:56 pm

    Erica-

    One way you can limit the temptation is to keep it Web-only, so you have to log into your computer to send and receive updates. Or, I’ve enabled my phone, but I only read my tweets online and send my tweets by mobile.

    I think the key, so it’s not overwhelming or overly time consuming, is to set aside a certain time every day that you log in. For me, I like to check in first thing in the morning, check links other people have tweeted, read my RSS feed to see if there’s anything to share, and then send out an update. If I have time later in the day, I may send another update, but only if I feel there’s something really cool or useful.

    You’ll notice, when you start to “follow” people that most of the people tweet about every thing, ie: “Kathy Griffin has bad hair,” “Just getting out of the shower.” I don’t find those feeds as useful as ones that tend to send information. So, once you start choosing people you want to follow, you’ll figure out pretty soon who’s sending out information that you can use and those that you can skim over. I’m following 100+ people, but I spend less than 5 min. on this a day, because there’s maybe 2 links every morning I want to check out among all the updates.

    Also, if your focus is on sending information rather than receiving it, it doesn’t take that much time — only the time it takes you to text 140 characters or less.

    Something also to keep in mind: Twitter updates go to everyone who’s following you, so if you’re doing something just for an event, you also may attract several other hangers-on, which you may or may not want.

    If you want to tweet to a select (private) audience, take a look at Yammer: http://blog.blist.com/2008/09/13/why-yammer-matters/

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