Building Your Brand and Network Using Twitter Chats

We’ve been talking social media all month and I’ve managed to write every post about Facebook. I had an interesting conversation with someone the other day. I was saying to me Facebook is the more serious, business site and Twitter was the fun, cocktail party kind of site.

When I say that I mean I feel uncomfortable posting something about watching the Bachelor, or Grey’s Anatomy on Facebook, and yet I can have an hour long conversation about it, back and forth with a bunch of people on Twitter.

The interesting thing about this conversation was the person I was talking to felt the exact OPPOSITE. To her, Facebook was the cocktail party and Twitter was all business.

Either way… it works ~ the point is to get some clarity around what part each site plays in your marketing and your business.

So today, let’s talk about twitter. I’ve talked about creating connections on twitter, and how to provide great content on twitter so I’m not going to talk about those things today. What  I do want to talk about is twitter chats, and how you can use them to build your brand and your network.

What is a twitter chat ~ aka Twitter Party

A twitter chat or twitter party is a conversation at a designated time about a designated topic.  What’s really amazing is there are twitter chats about EVERYTHING… literally EVERYTHING!! Which means you can find a twitter chat related or relevant to your niche to participate in.

How does a twitter chat work?

It depends on the chat, but generally it’s just a conversation with a bunch of people about a specific topic. You just participate in the conversation. However, so everyone can see you’re participating you’ll want to add the chat’s hashtag to the end of your tweet.

How do I follow the conversation?

Following a twitter chat can be very overwhelming the first couple times you try! First of all you’ll need to know the hashtag. For example, Blog Chat is supposedly the BIGGEST twitter chat on the web. It’s run by Mack Collier at 9pm Eastern on Sunday nights. The hash tag is #blogchat.

So on Sunday night you can do a couple things to follow and participate in this chat. You could use tweetchat.com  which is a site built for following twitter chats. You simply put your hashtag in at the top of the site and it will start pulling in the whole conversation. You can reply and participate directly from this site. This is probably the easiest way to follow a chat. You could also use tweetdeck and set up a column using a search for the hashtag ~ then you can follow the conversation and participate via tweetdeck. Either way works. Just remember to add the hashtag after your comment so people will see it.

What’s the point? 

Participating in a twitter chat gives you an amazing opportunity to meet and connect with other people in your niche, possible clients/readers/jv partners… they’re all there chatting away about the topic you blog about! As you see people participating in the chat you can follow them, many will follow you back ~ especially if you are PARTICIPATING in the chat… this is again another area where just watching doesn’t pay. The more you can participate the more people will see your name! So follow the people, maybe even make a twitter list for them, so you can keep up with what their doing, retweet their stuff, comment on it, create a deeper connection with them ~ ask them to connect over on facebook! The point of all this is to grow your network ~ to get to know more people ~ make more connections.

How to build YOUR brand with twitter chats

Host your own! You don’t have to participate in a twitter chat ~ you can create your own! You can host a chat on any topic at any time. Just decide to do it! Then start letting people know. If you have a list, send them an announcement. If you’re on related forums, let them know. Make regular (but not obnoxious) posts about it on twitter. If you have a facebook page or group let them know as well!

Easy ways to fill out a twitter chat

It may feel completely overwhelming, the thought of hosting a twitter chat, but really it’s not too tough!! The easiest way to do it is to come up with about 5 questions that are relevant to your topic. What are the biggest questions people ask you about what you’re doing? Then you can answer/discuss those 5 questions for your chat. Simply post Q1. then the question, and then your chatters will retweet the question, and will answer it, and converse about it. If you have 5 questions, just start a new question every 6 minutes or so. You’ll be amazed at how fast it goes. If you’re feeling stuck, as follow up questions, and reply to what people have said. Even if you only have a few people on your chat you can get a lively discussion going and it will be great!

Another chat I sometimes participate in is #commenthour. This chat is all about meeting new people and getting new comments/followers on your blog. The host picks 25 random blogs (from those who have signed up for the chat) and then announces them and everyone runs over to check out the blog and leave a comment. It’s an INSANE hour. Very fast, very hectic, but you meet a lot of great people.

So it’s not always just asking questions, you can make your chat anything you want it to be. Thing about your audience, what do they need? What do they like to do? I know a group of moms who get together for #winewednesday and chat. It can be as formal or as informal as you want it to be.

When you host a chat people will be retweeting you, and replying to you. You will be building your brand, and your reputation simply by having the courage to jump out there and do something not everyone is willing to do. AND it’s fun!!

How often should I host a twitter party?

That’s completely up to you. You can do it weekly, or monthly, or every other week or you could do it ONCE!  If you have big news you do an “announcement party” to spread the news. That would be fun. If you’re going to do regular parties though make sure you’re consistent. Your party will grow as word spreads ~ remember every time someone tweets with your party hashtag their entire network can see it. As more people see it, more people will start asking questions and start coming to the party. That’s when things get really big and really fun. I suggest if you’re going to make this part of your marketing strategy you try to do a weekly party… but start with one and see how you like it.

Where do I find twitter parties?

Here’s  a twitter chat schedule. This has been around for a long time. You’ll see I wasn’t kidding about all the topics there are for twitter parties! AND if you start a twitter chat you can add YOUR party to this list as well! Here’s a list of 25 chats for entrepreneurs.

I can’t wait to hear about your twitter party ~ so when you get one set up make sure you come back and tell us when and the hashtag!