Thanks to Peer Lawther for asking this question on LinkedIn: Has anyone used Twitter as a live conference blogging tool, and what were the conclusions you reached as to its suitability? See how everyone answered the question about how to use Twitter as a live conference blogging tool.
Here’s my answer – Peer selected it as the best!
Hello Peer:
After live-tweeting a few sessions at BlogHer08, I decided to cover every session I could from BlogWorld08. Follow the link in the resource section if you’d like to see the twitter transcripts in blog post format.
To answer your questions . . .
1. Has anyone on here used Twitter in this way and what findings did you arrive at from using it?
Findings – great way to connect with other people at the conference and with your twitter community; works best if these people are on twitter. People who knew I was covering the event promoted my twitter stream both during and after the event. Many speakers appreciated the exposure.
2. Were the reactions positive, what were the negatives (if any; personally I’d say one negative would be the sheer amount of tweets in a short space of time)
Only one tweet came in that made me think: the person asked if they should follow me or not – that could be a positive or a negative comment.
It was challenging to answer people’s replies to me on twitter while I was covering a session, but I tend to be one who captures as much as I can – verbatim. If you paraphrase or summarize, you’ll tweet less and you may have more value. Have to test that one.
Trade-offs: it’s a hassle to haul a heavy laptop around for a few days and outlets might be in short supply so take an adapter with room for several other cords. Yes, you can use a phone and I have a good mobile device, but I like to use a full-size keyboard and a big screen.
3. and is Twitter a tool you’d use in future for conference (micro-)blogging?
Yes, definitely.
4. Finally, is the audience there for this kind of thing?
My followers kind of expect me to send out live tweets now, I think. People in the live audience get to follow the back channel chat on the screen when it’s projected. Those online can also follow live. Archiving the updates as a blog post is a great way to preserve the value long after the conference is over.
@wiredprworks on twitter.com
Links
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Latest @wiredprworks twitter coverage: David Meerman Scott at MeetingTechOnline Summit
Have a conference you’d like covered? Contact Barbara on twitter @wiredprworks.com or call 630.207.7530.
English
5 thoughts on “Conference Coverage: Using Twitter as Live Blogging Tool”
Its great to see you define your practice. I enjoyed and benefitted greatly from you live micro blogging from Las Vegas and have attempted to implement a similar appraoch while attending the New Marketing Summit last month.
Another great aspect of the practice is being able to go back through search (made easy by hashtags) and reflect on your takeaways along with the comments of other participants.
Earlier in the week it was interesting to watch the live tweeting from web2summit. There were those twweting the content of Al Gore’s message and those that were questioning how profusely he was sweating. It seem that both appraochs, the transcription and the commentating is of value.
Richard Reeve’s last blog post..Antique Warehouse Visit
Its great to see you define your practice. I enjoyed and benefitted greatly from you live micro blogging from Las Vegas and have attempted to implement a similar appraoch while attending the New Marketing Summit last month.
Another great aspect of the practice is being able to go back through search (made easy by hashtags) and reflect on your takeaways along with the comments of other participants.
Earlier in the week it was interesting to watch the live tweeting from web2summit. There were those twweting the content of Al Gore’s message and those that were questioning how profusely he was sweating. It seem that both appraochs, the transcription and the commentating is of value.
Richard Reeve’s last blog post..Antique Warehouse Visit
Its great to see you define your practice. I enjoyed and benefitted greatly from you live micro blogging from Las Vegas and have attempted to implement a similar appraoch while attending the New Marketing Summit last month.
Another great aspect of the practice is being able to go back through search (made easy by hashtags) and reflect on your takeaways along with the comments of other participants.
Earlier in the week it was interesting to watch the live tweeting from web2summit. There were those twweting the content of Al Gore’s message and those that were questioning how profusely he was sweating. It seem that both appraochs, the transcription and the commentating is of value.
Richard Reeve’s last blog post..Antique Warehouse Visit
Missed the live tweeting from web2summit; here’s the link to search results about Al Gore’s presentation: http://tr.im/zo5
I go more for the transcription approach and insert a few personal comments here and there. My aim is to get the most accurate feed from the event out to the users, but always appreciate seeing what other people have to say.
Missed the live tweeting from web2summit; here’s the link to search results about Al Gore’s presentation: http://tr.im/zo5
I go more for the transcription approach and insert a few personal comments here and there. My aim is to get the most accurate feed from the event out to the users, but always appreciate seeing what other people have to say.