Twitter is kind of like a psychological puzzle. The conundrum, particularly when managing Twitter for clients, is “how can I get the most retweets/mentions/favorites from my peers by using 140 characters or less? What can I broadcast online that will not only align with my personal or corporate objective, but also be useful to or appreciated by my audience?”

Tweeting on behalf of a client or thought leader can be challenging, but it’s a useful social channel to engage with because it rewards the best content.

Throughout our time representing clients on Twitter, we have found that live-tweeting during events can be one of the fastest ways to expand your network. Events that occur in real time, like industry conferences, broadcast events or webinars, provide large, built-in audiences that you can engage with using hashtags or by scheduling Twitter chats. We have discovered some tips for effective tweeting during industry conferences that can help you gain more followers:

  1. Focus on key takeaways – The most popular live-tweets of the events tend to be data points and quotes. Focus on live-tweeting these fun-to-share factoids during panels.
  2. Be timely – Conference participants who write posts DURING the event (such as keynote recaps, opinion pieces, highlights of the day, etc.) get more traction than posts written one week later. By that time, the conference you attended is old news and the hashtag will no longer be active, meaning you’ll get less eyeballs on your content.
  3. Market your activities – If appropriate, create your own hashtag for the speaking event or or other activities you have going on at the show. Doing this encourages social sharing and draws more online attention to your event and organization. Remember to promote your company’s hashtag and conference hashtag before the panel or session to encourage audience participation and sharing.
  4. Take advantage of Twitter algorithms to amplify your content – Popular posts increase your reach on Twitter and earn you followers. For instance, if you search a hashtag on Twitter, you are taken to the “Top” tweets and photos page. This is always what I look at first, because the most popular tweets and photos tend to have the best, most useful content. If you could get one of your tweets or photos on this “Top” page, it would significantly increase your reach.
  5. Be consistent – The most common mistake live-tweeters make is inconsistency. If you are planning to live-tweet a panel, remember to make an introduction and conclusion. Aim to tweet for two panels per day and let your audience know when you will be doing that. These actions help manage expectations about how often you will be tweeting the next few days.

Attending an industry conference soon? Make sure to check out these additional blogs posts about how to leverage social media and navigate the conference world.