4 crucial steps to get your event trending on Twitter

Co-authored by Jonathan Houston

According to www.dailybloggr.com, if you want to trend on Twitter, all you need is around 100 people tweeting the same hashtag simultaneously. Sounds simple but this may not be that easy to pull off. It’s about the volume of your audience rather than the volume of your tweets.

So here is how you should set about doing this. The process rules are simple enough so that you can take this process and copy it for your own events:

1. Get the right speaker

Just one high-profile speaker can help ensure that you have a successful event. This brings into sharp focus the importance of having an accomplished speaker to deliver your message. Do not misconstrue this advice to mean that you need to source your speaker internally – your organisation can find industry thought leaders who do not form part of your salaried staff.

2. Content is king

This has been said in so many contexts, but it is so important that it is worth saying again. Content is what is going to draw the people to your event. Make the content real and relevant to your target audience. As Kevin Costner knows from Field of Dreams – “if you build it they will come”.

3. Promotion

Pre-event promotion is fourfold. Promote the speaker, promote the content, promote the hash tag, promote the event. Within this step there is another checklist to follow:

• Ensure that you are aware of the different time zones that could affect your event.
• Use multi-channels (email, Twitter, Facebook, phone calls, LinkedIn, webpage, blog).
• Invite the influencers within the media and your industry.

Remember that everyone that you are inviting is not going to be able to attend your event. This does not mean that their non-attendance indicates that they are not interested; this simply means that they are unable to be there in person. The promotion of your hash tag is critically important as this will allow those not there to follow the event and propagate and share the content to their extended networks.

The influencers who you invite need to see why the event is relevant to their audience (which is why content is critically important). Ensure that you invite them way in advance as their diaries often fill up quickly and they are going to be a great source of coverage for your event.

During the event don’t forget that you need to seed conversations and ensure that you are also pushing the content to your network (which must never be forgotten). This seeding of conversation will ensure that your following will grow and that you are giving back to your social community.

After the event you need to ensure that you follow up on the emails and conversations that have been started. For example, the conversation on our hashtag for a recent event (#TechTrends2012) is still going long after the event has come to a close. These conversations are generally asking for you to share your presentation, content and additional insights into the network. This is where the money lies — it is here that you are going to pick up leads and opportunities to do work for your audience — do not leave out this step.

4. Influencers

Ensure that you understand who the media influencers are for your event. In you’re running a tech event for example, be sure to invite influencers and journalists who are interested in technology and technology trends.