How tweet chats work
February 22, 2012
Have you wanted to attend a Tweet Chat but weren’t sure how it worked? You are not alone, my friend. Let me see if I can boil it down.
Tweet Chat: A moderated discussion that happens on Twitter. They range from business focused topics like leadership (like the one led by Lisa Petrilli and Steve Woodruff) and blogging (like the mega popular BlogChat led by Mack Collier) to crime news and gardening. And everything in between.
Here’s how it works: You find a tweet chat that interests you by scrolling through the list kept on Google Docs or one of your favorite bloggers might mention (or host) one.
Each chat has its own hashtag (like #blogchat) so you can follow along. To participate — you can do that in several ways.
1) Within Twitter itself, you can click on the #hashtag and you’ll see all the recent tweets using that hashtag. But if it’s a popular one, that gets crazy in a hurry.
2) You can use a tool like Tweetchat.com (there are plenty of others too) to follow the conversation (by entering the chat’s hashtag, it searches for and scrolls the conversation for you). You can just listen or jump in.
If you’re going to participate, there are some expectations:
- Use the hashtag if you’re asking a question of the moderator (or another chatter)
- If you’re responding to something that was said, use the person’s Twitter handle and the hashtag (if what they said is too long to RT and respond)
- Retweeting is welcomed and encouraged to invite your network into the conversation
- It’s not cool to go off topic and use the hashtag
- It’s even less cool to use a chat to market your wares
That’s it. Very simple and a great way to extend your Twitter network, smarts and typing skills!
Looking for some chats that might be up your alley? Check out this list: 25 twitter chats every entrepreneur must know.
