In addition to being a “webinar connoisseur” I stay on top of best practices and new industry developments by attending Twitter chats. A Twitter chat is a conversation on Twitter that is held on a certain day/time and contains a specific hashtag so that people can follow along. Word of mouth about the chat spreads when followers of the people attending the chats see the hashtag and join the conversation as well. If you see a chat that interests you, set up a Twitter search or use a program like TweetDeck, Seesmic, or WhatTheHashtag to follow along.
Many marketing, public relations, and social media industry leaders spend time each week participating in these chats. You can often find Beth Harte from Marketing Profs, Mack Collier from The Viral Garden, Sarah Evans from PRSarahEvans.com, Valeria Maltoni from Conversation Agent, and many others on Twitter chats. It’s an easy way to learn from your peers, experts in the field, and basically anyone who is interested about a certain topic.
My Top 12 Twitter Chats By Day
Here are the 12 Twitter chats that I try to attend as often as my schedule allows (all times Eastern). Please note that there are several that overlap on Tuesday and Wednesday night – you’ll either have to multi-task and view all of them at once or pick the topic that looks most interesting that evening.
Monday
8P-11P #JournChat (chat with public relations professionals, bloggers, journalists)
Tuesday
12N-1P #SocialMedia (social media for business) This chat is designated by a specific #SM?? hashtag – each week increments by 1 see HashtagSocialMedia for more details.
8P-9P #SMBiz (small business networking)
8P-9P #PR20Chat (the latest in public relations)
9P-10P #EventProfs (social media and events)
Wednesday
11A-12N #BrandChat (personal branding)
1P-2:30P #SMChat (social media and communities)
8P-9P #IMCChat (Integrated Marketing Communications conversations)
8P-9P #SmallBizChat (small business tips & advice, especially new small businesses)
Thursday
4P-5P #MrktChat (travel and tourism marketing – lots of ski resorts represented here)
Friday
12N-1P #KaizenBlog (using Kaizen techniques for continuous improvement in social media)
Saturday
Take a break – it’s the weekend for crying out loud! (If you’re really bored, you can review the chats that you multi-tasked on Wednesday night…)
Sunday
9-10P #BlogChat (how to make your blog better)
Do you attend any of these chats? Which ones do you find the most interesting? Do you know of a great Twitter chat that I have missed? I’m always looking for new conversations to join, so please leave a comment below and let me know!
14 Comments
Thanks for listing #SmallBizChat – I’m the co-host (@smallBizLady is the host). I agree that the chat’s you’ve named are all good ones – Twitter chats allow a sustained, if sometimes “technologically awkward,” conversation about a specific subject; not just 140 characters, but an hours worth with a variety of people on one topic.
For those not using Seemsic or Tweetdeck, one tip we give for folks wanting to participate in a chat is to use two other tools, either tweetchat.com (you put in the #hashtag and all tweets in the chat show up in one column).
We prefer Tweetgrid.com in their “party” mode – We usually set it up in advance an tweet it out on @SmallBizChat the day of the chat (Weds 8-9 p ET). It shows three columns – Left column shows all tweets with the #hashtag, middle column shows the host (@SmallBizLady) & guest (so people can see questions and the guest’s answers), the right column is left blank – we suggest users put their @username there to see when people reply to them during the chat. You can hover over a tweet you like and reply to it, retweet it or favorite it too.
For example this is this week’s (1st week in Feb., 2010) tweetgrid http://is.gd/7tYSv – if you only see one name in the center column, that just means the guest hasn’t tweeted lately. It may look intimidating, but it can really help keep track what’s going on during a busy chat. Sorry to be promotional, but it’s hard to imagine this tool without seeing it.
Thanks for the tips, Cathy! I haven’t used Tweetgrid.com because I generally find TweetDeck works for me, but it sounds like it might be a good alternative. I’ll have to check it out!
Sharon—
Thank you for this post. I enjoy participating in tweetchats and conducting #Smallbizchat because it is the perfect way to gather people with similar interests. It helps clear the clutter and give people meaningful information.
Thank so much for highlighting our chat on Wednesday night at 8pm ET.
Melinda Emerson
@SmallBizLady
Melinda, you and Cathy do a great job with providing meaningful information with #SmallBizChat. It’s always interesting to see what your topic will be and who will be joining to provide their insights.
Great list! I’ve participated in #sbbuzz (not on your list and I’m not sure they are around anymore) and #smbiz and #smallbizchat.
I swear by TweetGrid Party style when I do my chats (or live streaming during events). My backup is TweetChat.
Here is a link to a great list of chats that several people seem to maintain on a regular basis…what the colors mean? I have no idea! http://bit.ly/dx8ouy
I appreciate the link to the chat list, Michelle. I’ve actually had several nice conversations with Robert Swanwick (the chat list owner). Amazing guy with so many things going on – he even set up a public Google Wave for an #eventprofs chat when Twitter was acting up last month. I’ll Tweet him to see if he’d provide a comment on what the colors mean.
I haven’t tried #sbbuzz but I looked it up and it appears to be Tuesdays from 8PM–9PM ET. Looks like I’ll have to multi-task on Tuesdays as well as Wednesdays now. I appreciate the recommendation and hope to see you there!
Hey guys. So, great to see all the interest in Twitter Chats. Thanks to people like you guys I expect they’ll become one of the main use cases for Twitter over time.
The Twitter Chat Schedule Google Doc is editable by anyone. I try to do as little management of it as possible. Someone early on decided to group similar chats by color. Since then color has been used in different ways. There is no rhyme or reason, but it looks better than black/white so its fine by me.
As far as tools for chatting go, I am surprised that twebevent.com is not more popular. It was my hypothesis that Chat owners would want to brand the chat, add intro text, provide date/time, track the number of hits, and even include embed video/audio. What do you guys think?
Robert, I really appreciate your clarification of the colors on the Twitter Chat Schedule Google Doc. I’m sure that the features that you mention will make twebevent.com very popular once the word gets out. Perhaps if some of the Chat owners (like Cathy and Melinda who have been kind enough to comment on my post) try it and like it, then they’ll spread the word among other Chat owners.
Great list – some of these I did not know about.
I tried & liked #pr20chat; #imcchat; #blogchat; #journchat.
Note: #pr20chat is now on Tuesdays, 8 PM ET.
Glad you like it, Ksenia – thanks for the kind words! I’ll make the change to #pr20chat now (and we’ll really have to multi-task on Tuesdays and Wednesdays)!
Thank you so much for including #mrktchat in your list! As the founder of it, I love the opportunity it presents to travel&hospitality people to learn from each other, network and talk about hot topics in social media and marketing for the travel and tourism industries. Indeed, we have many ski resorts represented in the chat but we are open to all people from the travel and hospitality industries or just any one who wants to discuss with us. Thank you to all who attend it!
Milena, I was happy to include your chat in the list! #mrktchat is a great resource even if you’re not in travel, tourism and hospitality! Since it’s at the end of the day on the East Coast, the timing is sometimes not the best for me, but the wonderful thing is that I can review it later and ask questions or RT even though I don’t have the immediate responses of the “live” chat sessions.
Sharon,
Thanks so much for bringing me into all these great chats! I’ve added them to my TweetDeck and bookmarked this page just in case. Looking forward to making many new connections!
Jon
Glad you like them, Jon! I know I have learned quite a bit, and made may great new connections, but participating in them!
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by sharonmostyn: 6 of my Top 12 Twitter Chats: #JournChat #SocialMedia #SMBiz #BrandChat #SMChat #IMCChat http://bit.ly/c74KBG...
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