{"id":514,"date":"2009-08-02T14:11:39","date_gmt":"2009-08-02T18:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tuvel.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/02\/what-we-learned-from-our-twitter-foodie-chat\/"},"modified":"2011-06-15T16:40:04","modified_gmt":"2011-06-15T20:40:04","slug":"what-we-learned-from-our-twitter-foodie-chat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tuvel.com\/blog\/what-we-learned-from-our-twitter-foodie-chat\/","title":{"rendered":"What we learned from our Twitter foodie chat"},"content":{"rendered":"

We recently organized a Twitter foodie chat<\/a> for client Share Our Strength<\/a>. The goals of our chat were to raise money, create awareness and build community. You can find out what a Twitter chat is here<\/a>.
\nI wanted to get lessons learned down on digital paper before we forget! Our chat was held on July 30 with a moderator and panel of 5. See the details here<\/a>.
\nBefore continuing though, I must thank some very smart Internet folks whom we learned a great deal from. Jeff Hurt<\/a> is an assn. guy and involved with Twitter chats #eventprofs<\/a> and #assnchat<\/a>. Sarah Evans<\/a> runs her own PR shop<\/a> and the #journchat<\/a> twitter chat. Robert Swanwick<\/a> runs #SpkrChat<\/a> and all of it’s parts. And, of course there’s Carissa Rogers<\/a> who runs the wildly popular #gno\/Girls Night Out <\/a> chat. You can check out a more complete listing of Twitter chats and their corresponding schedules here<\/a>.
\nFrom these folks and others, we learned about moderating chats, setting up chat rooms<\/a>, chat wikis<\/a> and topic polls<\/a>. We also learned more by reading this<\/a> and this<\/a>. We actually created and even distributed our own #sosfood chat guide<\/a>.
\nOne of the biggest lessons we learned was that an online chat takes as much preparation as a traditional event! Here are some of the other things that we learned from our first Twitter chat:<\/p>\n


\nLessons learned:<\/strong>
\nHave a mission or message that resonates<\/strong>. Share Our Strength<\/a> is a great client with an easy to understand message<\/a>. Clarity and brevity help when staring down the barrel at 140 characters \ud83d\ude42
\nGet a great moderator<\/strong>. Kate Miller<\/a>, of Cooking During Stolen moments<\/a> moderated our chat. Kate is a respected community builder and experienced foodie. She also has lots of friends- key to attracting a valuable panel, securing giveaways and getting the word out. Probably most important, Kate has the right temperament to run a chat.
\nModerating a chat is really not about moderation! A good moderator is a better facilitator! Kate was able to ask questions and then get out of the way. This is easier said then done when tweets are zipping by at the speed of sound. She was able to keep the conversation rolling along without stifling it.
\nAlong with a moderator, it helps to have a great panel<\/a>. Panelists add value, draw attention and help to create excitement. Many established chats have a moderator but no panel or maybe one guest. We felt it was important to reach for the stars in our first chat and ended up with a panel of 5 foodies. The fun thing about a chat though is that all the participants can be panelists while sharing experiences and knowledge.
\nTry to establish a personality.<\/strong> Chats, like other online conversations have personalities! Think about what you want yours to be before show time. Granted, your chat’s personality will, in part, depend on the topic and tweeps but… you can also help to shape it. We liked the feel of #gno’s chat<\/a>. Our moderator took a warm & fuzzy<\/a> approach for our night time chat and foodies responded<\/a>.
\nGet the word out<\/strong>. To spread the word, we searched through Twitter directories such as wefollow<\/a>, Twellow<\/a> and TwitterPacks<\/a>. We then compiled a list of foodies, developed a message, contacted folks and asked them to come to our party.
\nSince the Twitter chat was the 2nd half of a campaign, we were fortunate to have lots of bloggers<\/a> to reach out to that supported our cause. We also contacted the clients Twitter followers<\/a> that we thought might be interested.
\nFor every person we contacted, we asked for a retweet\/RT<\/a>. Most important, we asked partners & panelists to tweet it up! We started the marketing outreach effort one week prior to the chat. We felt pretty good when we saw traction from initial tweets.
\nHave a place<\/a> that offers an explanation and a way to get involved.<\/strong> There are lots of peeps that aren’t familiar with chats. Twitter chat archives<\/a> can also be posted to the website. what the hashtag<\/a> offers a free chat archiving service along with metrics. We were also able to use webpage our page for fundraising.
\nUse giveaways and prizes to create excitement.<\/strong> We worked hard to secure great giveaways and raffle prizes<\/a>. Again, we tried to tailor everything we did to the chat’s topic and this also pertained to prizes. People still love something for nothing!
\nWork out the logistics ahead of time!<\/strong> We figured out fulfillment for giveaways and raffle prizes in advance. We also had a schedule along with cued up questions. We created tweets ahead of time. We also tried to work out smaller details before the chat started so that we could focus on the conversation. We also had a team in place while the chat was going on. This allowed our moderator to focus on the conversation while we took care of business.
\nThe conversation moved at a quick pace- some said<\/a>, it went by to fast. We raised almost $1,000 in 2 hours and had 175 people involved in our chat. We made new friends and followers, discovered new niches, learned by watching and listening and had a great time!
\nSo, when are you doing your next chat?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We recently organized a Twitter foodie chat for client Share Our Strength. The goals of our chat were to raise money, create awareness and build community. You can find out what a Twitter chat is here. I wanted to get lessons learned down on digital paper before we forget! Our chat was held on July […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[80,81,20,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-514","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-social-media","7":"tag-mitcharnowitz","8":"tag-socialmedia","9":"tag-twitter","10":"tag-twitterchats","11":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuvel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuvel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuvel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuvel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuvel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuvel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":576,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuvel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions\/576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuvel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuvel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuvel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}