When it comes to what Twitter means for events, there are
far more unknowns than knowns at this point, but here are some of the
early indicators:
1. Twitter is the new back channel for communication:
In any event that appeals to early adopters, and increasingly a greater and greater segment of the population, people will be using Twitter for the digital equivalent of passing notes back and forth in class.
All events will want to establish a designated hashtag (#ted, #davos, etc…) to allow these users to connect with each other easily onsite, just by including it in their tweets. Or just stand back, they will create one for themselves.
The emergence of this phenomenon is a two edged sword for events. Even sophisticated events trying to build community around their Facebook pages are finding the grassroots nature of Twitter impossible to control. The conversation is out in public and flowing freely, and once underway can’t be easily corralled into a more structured environment. At least that was my experience at the OMMA Social Conference a few weeks ago, where a rich twitter stream included at least a couple of invites from the promoters to bring the conversation back to the established Facebook community pages, with little or no response.
This may also affect more established Event community and collaboration suppliers, such as Jive Software and others, but more about that category in a future post.
2. The back channel becomes as public as your conference website, maybe more so:
This designated hashtag will immediately enable anyone anywhere searching for what is going on at your event to follow along on the comments in real time, to join in, and allow them to follow posted links, photos, etc…
This is a powerful outbound communication stream that you will want to nurture,
participate in, and appropriately leverage. Best practices are still evolving, but will certainly be based around adding value to others’ experiences. One of the best pieces I’ve read on being true to this spirit is a wonderful post by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh on How Twitter can make you a Better and Happier person.
3. Twitter is also a pre-conference marketing channel all its own:
Think 140 characters is too small for effective marketing? Pete Cashmore of Mashable only needed half that many to launch the following seemingly effective promotion related to its Sponsorship of the User Generated Content Expo (just follow the UGCX link for the details).
Comment Contest: 4 More Free Passes to UGCX
http://tinyurl.com/bhy8on
4. Twitter is also starting to impact how people travel to events, where they stay during events, etc…
…and this impact gets more and more mainstream every day, as witnessed by this piece in USA Today
5. Twitter is a speaker support tool
As top moderators like John Battelle, of Web 2.0 Expo, Web 2.0 Summit, and the Conversational Marketing Summit (this last a client of mine), use twitter to crowdsource the best possible questions to pose to key leaders onstage.
6. Twitter is a force pushing the evolution of the structure of events themselves
For example, the desire for tweeple (twitter users) to get together
in-person, through cause-marketing undertakings like this week's Twestival,
which looks like it’s going to both fabulous and worthwhile, or through
tweet ups happening informally within all kinds of other events. Or the
creation of entirely new event formats, like the interesting twebinars
that Radian6 and Chris Brogan hosted earlier this year.
But
Twitter is just getting started. To go back to quoting Evan at his TED
talk, "I have no idea where Twitter is going". Keep in mind that there
are currently 3400 independent developers working with the Twitter API,
and currently 2000 registered applications. Given that many of them
will continue to impact the world of face to face events, this is an
important area for continued exploration.
Beyond these few
possibilities described above, what are you seeing about the ways that
Twitter is starting to make impact in the events you attend, put on, or
sponsor? And what is your dream for how its full potential can come to
pass?
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