Hi my name is Johan, and I'm a Twitter backchanneleer and I like to be engaged. This statement might sound quite self serving, but that cant be helped. Social Media has show everyone that the world can revolve around them and now it's become the norm.
I've not always been into the whole "me, me, me, this is how I want to be engaged" power trip, its not till I had my first true online engagement experienced from a thriving community that I realised there is a better way.
Bare with me as I take you through my "first time" and then make a few suggestions on how to improve your engagement with the backchannel to truly take your event global.
My first backchannel experience
I've been to a number of events and conferences armed with my trusty paper notebook and pen that I picked up from an exhibitor.
Erm... ok when I say "Picked up", I actually mean, "Sneaked up in a way that would even make James Bond proud, grabbed a pen or two and disappeared into the crowd before I'm even a blip on an overzealous sales person's Radar. "
Anyway, so here I am pen ready, paper ready, sitting comfortably and ready to learn from the person behind the podium with more titles behind their name than Stephen Hawkins.
That's where it all starts going wrong. Not just for me, but for the speaker and the event organisers.
The speaker starts by welcoming everyone, she mentions a free wifi service is available and that questions will be taken via Twitter and pops up the event twitter hashtag on the screen.
Everyone gasps (ok not really but its more dramatic that way) and a number of iPhones, androids and tiny teeny laptops are ripped out of bags pockets and purses.
She looses the audience for a few minutes while a large number of the audience is trying to logon to the wifi and setting up twitter searches on the hashtag.
And guess what? the Wifi network is flooded and cracks under the pressure, those that are lucky enough to be in a part of the auditorium that has a 3G signal immediately start tweeting about the event and the broken Wifi.
Within moments the event is all across the world being retweeted and it appears negative. Eventually everyone gets over the initial shock of their being a hashtag and wifi not working.
I must say I missed most of the first speakers presentation as I followed suit and happily chatted away on the trusty tweetdeck for iPhone... and that was it... I was hooked, I shrugged off the old pen and paper and rose like a phoenix to become a Backchanneleer!
Then comes the Q&A and someone dares ask a question via Twitter, the chairman asks the question and then turns to the audience asking the twtterer to raise their hand.
Backchanneleer: A person/s that belongs to a group of individuals who socialise, comment, fact check, aggregate and interpret content, in real time, during a presentation or live engagement. Twitter often being the most popular channel.
The gall of the chairman, shattering the poor tweeters anonymity.
So I raise my hand, yes yes, it was me asking the question. All eyes turn towards me, some smiling (due to my participation in the backchannel) others just staring at me blankly.
So the day progresses and I learn more from the twitter backchannel conversations than the actual presentations.
Somewhere during the day the paper and pen obtained at great personal risk, went missing. I suspect the pen had words with the pad of paper and decided to find someone who would actually use them.
That night I find myself exhausted, emotional and surrounded by new friends made during the event.
Something started bouncing around my mind and I finally sat down an wrote down how I would like to be engaged, so here goes:
Engaging the backchannel
- Ensure your event has a Twitter hashtag(#) and please make it 10 characters or less, I only have 140 characters to play with. If you do not have a hastag in place by the time your event starts, several will be created for you by the backchannel, fragmenting your event and message.
- Publicise the hashtag (#) and start using it to keep everyone informed, use it beforehand to talk a bit more about the event and its presenters. People would like to set up their searches and start engaging before the event, not during the first speaker.
- Follow the backchannel chatter and react accordingly, just taking questions via Twitter is NOT engaging the backchannel, its called "We are to lazy to think of better ways to engage with Twitter users, but if we allow them to ask questions via twitter it will keep them happy"
- Introduce the speakers with twitter via the event's hash tag.
- Include name, company, job title and twitter username in one tweet
- And @username subject of their presentation in another.
- Tweet golden nuggets out of the speakers presentation during presentation. I have never seen it done before but would love a short 100 character summary of some of the choice quotes and statistics tweeted by the presenter or presenter's assistnt during the presentation. So all I need to do is retweet and I can add some comments.
- Answer all questions that is asked via Twitter, even if its a tweet to the person within a few hours. Nothing annoys me more than being given the opportunity to ask a question and then it being ignored.
- Have the presenters engage before or after their presentations. Not all questions can be asked during the presentation, so encourage presenters to be available on twitter or a live chat to answer any further questions. A live video chat would be perfect.
- No matter how negative the backchannel, Never antagonise or belittle the channel. This sounds like common sense but apparently its not. I have seen many "experts" rant and rave about the negativity. That just angers everyone.
- Provide fast reliable free Wifi Access. Well... what else do I need to say? If you are to offer such a service ensure its exemplary, and that people are aware of it before the event.
- Provide recharging points. Laptop, Pones, iPads etc run out of juice quickly. Ensure you have enough recharge points available. If possible have a few spare adapters available, even if you have to glue them to the wall sockets so they don't mysteriously "relocate".
When running an event or you are a public speaker. Please do engage with the backchannel. However think about the what, the how and the when, well ahead of time.
Its better to not do it and let the backchannel sort itself out, than deciding to do it at the last moment without thought and planning.
Possible post of interest:
1 comments:
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