Help Start A TweetChat

This week I had the opportunity to to help a friend (@AshleyAW) who was hosing her first tweet chat #PRSSA. She was hosting the chat on behalf of @PRSSANC and the goal was to unite and connect PR students and to increase awareness/excitement for the annual PRSSA National Conference (which will be held in DC in Oct. 2010). Ashley contacted me for a few last-minute tweetchat tips because she thought I might have some good ideas/tips even though I haven’t personally hosted a chat before. I was honored that Ashley thought to ask, yet I felt incredibly inadequate but gave her a few ideas that I thought might help. Ashley did a great job and #PRSSA chat was awesome! Here are some of the tips I mentioned to her. What do you think? What else should I have included?

Tips on hosting a successful tweetchat:
1. Begin with introductions – People like to tell about themselves and it creates a way for everyone to get to know each other beyond their 140 character responses.

2. Keep it to an hour – If people linger and chat, that’s great, but you don’t want people to feel they have to stay around for 2 hrs especially on the first chat when you aren’t sure of the turnout.

3. Set a timed outline – Plan to have questions roll out at a specific interval (e.g. 10min, 15min, etc.) but keep in mind that some questions might be answered in 5 minutes & you don’t want your chat to go silent. You made need to release the next question ahead of schedule to keep things moving.

4. Have more questions than you think you will need – That’s pretty self explanatory.

5. Twitter accounts for the chat & personal – This may vary by chat but for in this case I thought it would be good to moderate the chat from the @PRSSANC account and have her answer her own thoughts and opinions from her personal account. It increases participation and doesn’t attach any opinions to the national account.

6. Transcript – When the chat is over you can use sites like What The Hash Tag to create a transcript of the chat and pass along to those who weren’t able to join or for those who could but wanted to read some of the info they may have missed.

7. List Participants – Making a list helps you keep organized and encourages participants to return.

ANNOUNCING: Cache Valley Foursquare Day #fsqdayCV

Thats right – We are taking part in National Foursquare Day Cache Valley is going to participate and rock the house – Pounders Grill (North) on 4/16! Details below!

WHAT: National Foursquare Day – Cache Valley is having our own SWARM at Pounders Grill (2095 North Main Street, Logan, Utah)
WHEN: 5:30-8:30p on 4/16/10 – Its the 4th month & 4th day SQUARED! 🙂
WHERE: Pounders Grill (2095 North Main Street. Logan, Utah)
WHY: National Foursquare Day! Duh! Not on foursquare yet? Thats okay, everyone is welcome & check them out here
WHO: Everyone is welcome! You are encouraged to check out foursquare.com first but even if you just want to come join the fun, we would love to see you there!
DETAILS: We are all going to meet at Pounders and check in. When we get 50+ people to check in within 3 hours we ALL get the SWARM badge! Its a tough one to get but we can totally do it!
SPECIALS: Pounders if offering a special deal for us Foursquare Day participants – If you buy a Pounders plate they will upgrade you to the Kuhuna Plate for the same price!!!!
QUESTIONS: Contact me by leaving a comment on this blog or by tweeting me you can always go old school and just email me at jackieb3@gmail.com

Become a fan of #4sqdayCV here

The social media I use in a day….

I found this article from a tweet (via @Sung_H_Lee) and it really got me contemplating MY social media. How much do I use it? When do I use it? Does it replace my morning news? (YES!)

So I started thinking…what social media to I really use in one day? Here is the little (or not so little) list I put together today:

Twitter – classic, original & basic.

UberTwitter – On the go, lunch date, other errands – Gotta keep up w/my tweeps

HootSuite – For the times when there is to much up and running on my work computer, using hootsuite just helps me keep organized & streamlined.

Facebook – Not constantly, but you know Ill check it at least once! ha!

Delicious – There are bookmarks on my delicious that I love sending to new friends. There are also book marks that I use everyday but because I toggle between my work desktop & my laptop so much, it’s just easier to keep them in delicious.

LinkedIn – I have been working hard lately to expand and prefect my LinkenIn account. It is easy to set up & forget about it. It is important to keep it current & keep searching for connections. My latest favorite thing is to connect with some of the #chats that I participate in on twitter.

Buzz – Gotta say, it hasn’t hooked my just yet, but I check it…

Google profile – Same as LinkedIn, its easy to set it up & forget about it. There are a few sections that I would like to edit and If it’s not on my to-do-list I wont get to it!

Foursquare – I’m new…but working hard to catch up! I WILL be the Mayor of something/somewhere! ha!

Blog Comments – We read hundreds of things a day…the only way to let people know you have an opinion or if you find it “interesting” is to leave a comment. Motto: Encourage good writing! There is no better way then to leave a comment on something you find “good.”

BBM – If you don’t know the acronym, you don’t own a BlackBerry. This is the messaging tool (BlackBerry Messenger) that all BBs have. You can use it to connect with individual contacts or with other groups of people. I use this just as much as I text (old school sms, that is!)

Flickr – I have to admit I don’t use this one every day but I just got back from PRSSA National Assembly in Austin and I have been updating photos! yay!

WordPress – Well, of course!

Okay, I think that is what I have rounded up for today. No wonder, twitter has replaced my morning news. I just search @CNN and I am set!

Happy Social Media-ing everyone! 🙂

Twitter Addiction – Play on Cymbalta’s “Depression Hurts”

For video class we had to make a commercial. Of course I did mine about Twitter – and the addiction that it can become! Ha! I made parody of the Cymbalta commercial “Depression Hurts”

#HAPPO go lucky..

Happy about #HAPPO
http://helpaprproout.com/?p=262
Have you heard the news?!?! #HAPPO is back! April 30th there will me more #HAPPO happening & this time its focused on PR Students (Interns, soon-t0-be grads, etc.) & recent PR graduates! That’s right people, this is like the #HAPPO for US! There are still about 200 #happo tags a day after the Feb. 19 first round. So people are still into it & still lively! We have seen the success stories, so lets make April 30th benefit us!….the Millennials! Let’s go people! Get your resumes tight, portfolios on point! Its time to rock!