What we learned from #ANightWithNU: Things To Consider When LiveTweeting An Event
Our team had the opportunity to live tweet the event titled A Night With Northwestern in D.C.: The Fight for Capitol Hill that took place on Thursday, November 6th and was moderated by NBC News National Correspondent Peter Alexander. Here is a recap of some of our thoughts, reflections, and recommendations for live-tweeting an event like this one.
We thought that the clear challenge was to be in the moment and attentive to the conversation while making a relevant contribution to that discussion
We think that Q&A through 140 characters could be a great tool to efficiently get through different feed ideas and respond to them accordingly
Do research on the topic or focus of the event before and during it if you are unfamiliar with the subject matter being discussed
Have a plan in advance: Know the run show for the event as best you can and get any preliminary info (background info on who is involved, content to share, relevant links) to have at your disposal so you're not scrambling during the event
Pre-populate with saved drafts of "evergreen content" to promote the event during a lull in conversation
Re-tweet and engage with others that are participating rather than treating it like a one-way medium
Make sure to quickly spellcheck key terms and names before you tweet them out
Keep up with who’s speaking and remember to quote them correctly
Keep an open document where you have the event’s hashtag and the handles of the panel members written where they can be quickly copied and pasted into a tweet
While you're watching, be on the lookout for "nuggets" that summarize a big idea that will fit into a Tweet rather than larger quotes - break larger quotes into separate Tweets
Use a recap service like Storify to pull together a social recap of the highlights immediately after, in real-time and use it to close out the live tweeting
