One unique way of increasing engagement amongst your audience is to live tweet an event that is relevant to your brand.
Take your pick. The spring’s schedule is jammed pack with the Super Bowl, the Puppy Bowl, Academy Awards, and political debates – if it’s on TV, then you should put it on your content calendar.
Preparing for a live tweet session takes more than downloading the Twitter app. To prepare you for any event you’re considering providing coverage for, take a look at our do’s and don’ts.
DO: CHECK AHEAD OF TIME FOR ANY RESULTS
Here’s a secret that you may or may not know: not all of these events will be live. If you happen to be providing coverage of an event that was pre-recorded, look online to see if the broadcasting network has a press release including all of the winners. Your night will go much easier if you can draft your tweets exactly as they will be posted. (In the chance that your event is truly live, then go ahead and draft up possible messages that fit within the 140 character restraint.)
DON’T: DO IT ALONE
Providing live coverage of the event will work out best if you have recruited help. Not only should you include other members of your marketing team or company to be active on the Twitter account, but you should also access Twitter on both your laptop and phone – you never know what technological failures could happen at the most crucial moments. Plus, it’s a great excuse to order in pizza at the office.
DO: TAG RELEVANT ACCOUNTS
While it’s a great idea to use the event’s hashtag in your message, it’s also a good idea to consider tagging the accounts of the people and organizations involved. With an awards show, you can tag the winner of the award, congratulating them on this accomplishment. For an athletic event, you can tag the team’s official account every time they score. You can also tag the network that is broadcasting the event, or if the event has its own separate account. Any of these solutions are the right answer; by including these other accounts in your content, they are more likely to engage with the tweet. If they retweet or favorite your message, your brand is now being exposed to their entire audience.
DON’T: FORGET TO MAXIMIZE COMMERCIAL BREAKS
You don’t need to miss a moment of the event because you had to take a phone call or you wanted to grab a bite to eat. Schedule out the time of the event accordingly, and remember: you’re providing live coverage of the event – even if you are using your DVR to allow you to replay something, you don’t need to get too behind. You want your audience to see you as a news authority on the event.
DO: FIND YOUR OWN CREATIVE MARK
If you are live tweeting for this particular event, you need to keep thinking on how this event can be tied back to your brand. This can be done with a hashtag, a creative picture that is incorporated with every tweet, or whatever you can think of. Providing short tweets with updates of the event is needed, but will quickly become boring for the audience. Change things up.
Follow these steps, and you’ll see an increase in user engagement during the event. The notifications will be rolling in, so make sure your devices are charged.
Parachute Media’s live tweet coverage of the World Dog Awards for PEDIGREE Foundation.
