Twitter Party 101

Twitter is a social media platforms that give followers a real-time update using in 140 characters.  Twitter has become a go-to source for information, whether, it is local news, celebrity updates, contests, motivational quotes or brand information.  Twitter has become a needed and versatile tool for national brands.

A Twitter Party is a focused – and fun – tool to get your message out.  A party can be held anytime during the day with early afternoon and evening being the most popular time slots.  LinkedMom has established the Wednesday 8 pm – 9 pm EST timeslot every week.  This means that every week, we hold a twitter party or chat at that time. Each week, we continue to build our audience and followers and we even have some regulars attend.

Our Twitter Parties are hosted by Margarita Ibbott @DownshiftingPro and Paula Schuck @Inkscrblr, two well established and savvy social media experts with considerable followings on their own. LinkedMoms also has expert guest panellist to  make sure that the information you get is the best.  For a brand Twitter Party, we require full participation in the party which provides the opportunity to engage with our followers directly and their fans.  If gives your brand more exposure as well as helps you acquire more twitter followers and Facebook Likes.

How does a twitter party work?

Besides having at a set time, we have a unique hashtag – #LinkedMoms. We ask our participants to follow the conversation with this hashtag so everyone will see each others tweets and follow the conversation.  We will also add customized hashtags for specific topics (#organize, #homeschool #BrandName).  We have a set plan.

Tools to help you manage the stream

In order to follow the Twitter Party conversation, we provide custom Tweetgrid to make following a twitter party much easier.

The four panels have different feeds so you can keep track of your handle, the hostesses handles, the brands handle and the #LinkedMoms hashtag.  The speed of the tweets can be adjusted to suit your reading style. Here is a 3 minute video to explain how to use TweetGrid

Or if you don’t want to watch everything on different panels, you can always try TweetChat.  This is a single panel format that lets you plug in the # and then see what is in the Twitter stream.  This can also be adjusted to slow down the feed.

What are the benefits of attending a twitter party?

Twitter parties can be targeted to a specific target market or they can be used to broadcast a message. The biggest benefit is the amount of impressions and the overall reach.  Every time a tweet is sent out, it is measure in impressions or however many people saw that tweet in their feed.  When you multiply that by 50-150 participants, you are creating huge impressions in a short period of time.

What are the benefits for a brand to sponsor a twitter party?
For a brand, it is a quick and easy way to communicate your message en masse.  So you have a very focused campaign that you can have our followers disseminate for you!  Participation can vary but introducing prizes can be a big boost. So consider giving away product, coupons or services to the participants to thank them for taking the time to participate.

You can also drive traffic to your Facebook page, your blog and your website.  We have great ideas on how this can work for you.  Please contact us for more details on hosting your sponsored twitter party.