By: Melissa Sullivan
Twitter chats are a great way to help establish your brand as an expert in a particular area and interact directly with your customers. With a small investment of time, you can generate a broad awareness and increase engagement with your target audience. Planning is key to a successful chat. Here are five common mistakes you’ll want to avoid as you put your chat together.
1.Scheduling conflicts
You have a great topic that your audience would love to engage with, but so does someone else. Don’t schedule your chat at the same time as another chat with a topic relevant to your audience. You don’t want to compete. Twbevent and TwChat are just two of the sites that feature a list of upcoming Twitter chats. Spend some time searching for other chats before you choose a date and time to avoid scheduling conflicts.
2. An inexperienced or ineffective moderator
There is more to moderating a Twitter chat than participating. Effective moderators keep the conversation on topic and civil. Make sure your moderator has participated in Twitter chats before and clearly understands the duties of the moderator.
3. No warning for your followers
When you host or participate in a Twitter chat, you’re going to have a high volume of tweets in a short amount of time. This could be a turnoff to your followers who are not participating in the chat. Be sure to warn them ahead of time.
4. Unprepared to discuss the topic at hand
Great conversation doesn’t always happen naturally. Sometimes it needs a little help. Pre-plan a few questions and answers. Tweet some thought starters to get the ball rolling.
5. Not following up with the people you meet/interact with during the chat
A Twitter chat is a great way to meet new people and generate interest in your brand. Follow-up with the new contacts you’ve made. Thank them for participating and work to advance the relationships you started.