So You Wanna Livetweet: 10 Rules for Effective Livetweeting

Local politics are my jam. I love city council meetings, state legislative hearings, debates between local candidates and anything else of that ilk. I’ll show up to them or I’ll watch them on local access TV. A lot of people care about these things, but few show up or actually watch. For these people, I sometimes livetweet these events.

Livetweeting means to use Twitter to send out a series of tweets describing what is happening at an event. Professional journalists livetweet often, but anyone with a Twitter account and a phone can do it. It’s good for uses beyond political junkies for their own entertainment. Livetweeting can apply to all sorts of interests. I use it mainly for the supercool world of local politics, but I hear some people who are interested in a thing called “sports” will livetweet their “games” (Spoiler Alert: I have a sports reference at the end).

Livetweeting can expand your follower base and establish you as authority among them on a topic. If you’re an advocate for a cause, livetweeting a relevant event can inform your fellow advocates and engage them. If you’re a communication professional, livetweeting a press conference or event can get your message out to a broader audience.

That’s if you do it right. If you’re boring, you could turn off your own followers. If you’re inaccurate, you could confuse and mislead people about what’s going on. If you’re livetweeting an event for your employer and do it poorly, you could make your boss look dumb. So I compiled some tips on how to be an effective livetweeter.

As a quick note, this article is mainly for people who are livetweeting an event to an audience who isn’t watching it. A lot of people like to livetweet televisions shows, widely broadcast sports events, etc. This article isn’t for that. My only advice to you is to stick to commentary. The only people interested in reading your livetweeting are people who are already watching, so you don’t need to tweet what is going on.

Here we go:

1. Don’t livefacebook. It sucks. Also no one will read your liveblog, probably.

Twitter is custom made for providing blow-by-blows of ongoing events through livetweeting. No other platform comes close. Facebook’s algorithms mean if you post a blow-by-blow, your posts will not be in order on people’s timelines — if they appear at all (which, if you’re posting frequently, means they won’t). Facebook Live can show something as it occurs, but it’s really only good for providing a livefeed for people to watch. It’s difficult for you, the author, to tell a story that way, and if people don’t watch from the beginning they aren’t able to catch up. It can be used in combination with livetweeting, but it won’t replace it. Same for Periscope. Snapchat has some utility, but it doesn’t create a record and posts can’t be shared. I’ve never heard of anyone live-instagramming, and I hope I never do.

In the old days, before Twitter, we used to liveblog. People still can and do. The problem with that is that if you don’t already have a strong audience coming to your blog, you won’t connect with as many people as you could through Twitter. Whenever a big Supreme Court case is coming out, people know to go to SCOTUSBlog’s live feed. Unless you have that kind of audience already, use an existing platform like Twitter to catch new followers and reach a broader audience.

If you have a strong Facebook audience, use it to divert them to your Twitter. Post before that you’ll be livetweeting the event, and link your Twitter profile. People who don’t normally follow you on Twitter will head to your page. And after it’s done, post a status talking about the results.

If you’re one of those people who links their Twitter and Facebook so everything you tweet automatically gets posted on Facebook, TURN THAT FUNCTION OFF BEFORE YOU LIVETWEET. And never turn it back on. You’re not social mediaing right if you’re using Facebook and Twitter for the same purpose.

2. Prepare. This doesn’t have to be on the fly.

Livetweeting may seem as simple as showing up to a place with your phone in hand. But effective livetweeting usually requires some kind of preparation.

Make sure you understand the rules and procedure of what you’re livetweeting. If you’re whispering “What’s happening?” and “Why did she do that?” constantly, you’re going to miss critical events. Worse, if you don’t understand what’s going on, you could miss a major detail or misreport something, which will destroy the narrative you’re trying to present.

If you can, grab any agendas, itineraries, speaker lists, etc. This will help you follow along and prepare throughout the event.

If you’re a comms professional livetweeting a press conference or similar event for your employer, work out some ready-to-tweet quotes in advance for your boss and other speakers to say that you can tweet out in full. They need to be short and pithy enough to account for hashtags and handles. These will be the money shots of your livetweet that your followers will retweet, so make them look good. Try to word them so you don’t have to shorten words. “? not wut ur cntry can do 4 u, ? wut u can do 4 ur cntry — @JFK #inaugural” is not a pretty tweet, and it’s not going to convey the message you want it to convey.

Also, charge your phone, because obvs.

3. Get your hashtag game on point.

A lot of communication professionals, including yours truly, think hashtags are overused and overplayed. But for livetweeting, they’re gold. The utility of a hashtag is that people can click on them and see everything people are tweeting about a subject. That’s incredibly useful for a livetweet. So you want to make sure you’re using your hashtags and you’re using them right.

First and foremost, don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Check to see if there’s a hashtag other people are already using, and use that if so. You want to build a base of followers, and the best way to do that is by going to a preexisting one that people will already be clicking on and following.

If there’s nothing out there, then it’s up to you to create a hashtag. It needs to be a hashtag you can use in every tweet during your livetweet. What you’re really looking for is a balance between a hashtag that properly and instantly represents the event you’re retweeting, but is short enough to not interfere with you being able to convey what’s happening in 140 characters. If your hashtag for a civic association meeting where recycling is being discussed is #NorthAshburyCivicAssociationDiscussesRecycling, then you’re not going to be able to get much out in a tweet. If it’s #NACARec, people may not know what you’re talking about. #NAshburyRecycling may be a good balance.

Once you determine a hashtag, stick with it. Only use one hashtag. Don’t cloud your tweets with a bunch of unnecessary hashtags. It’s a waste of characters and a waste of energy, and it could wind up confusing your audience. If there’s more than one hashtag out there for an event, pick a side. And don’t make random words in your tweets hashtags. It will look like you don’t understand what hashtags are for.

Whenever possible, integrate the hashtag into your tweets. This both saves characters and, in the minds of your readers, your hashtag will be more closely associated with the event you’re livetweeting. For example: “Twice as many people at #NAshburyRecycling meeting than at normal meeting, indicates strong interest.”

4. Advertise what you’re doing in advance.

Putting out a quick tweet announcing that you’ll be livetweeting is a good way to gain an audience early. People interested in the event who can’t attend will know who to follow.

It’s really best to do it at least once the morning of the event and about 15 minutes before the event is going to start. Often, many people won’t know the starting time of an event. The morning tweet catches those people. The 15-minute-before tweet will catch people just tuning in when it begins.

If there’s an existing hashtag, make sure you use it in your announcement so people looking up that hashtag will see. If you’re inventing a hashtag, try to use the names of some of the players, the name of the event and any other relevant words or phrases that people may search for, so that when they do they’ll stumble across your tweet. “About to livetweet the debate between Jane Smith and Lisa Jones for the Hometown mayor’s race #myrdebate” will catch people searching for Jane Smith, Lisa Jones, Hometown, mayor and debate. They’ll then know to follow that hashtag.

5. Pregame by livetweeting out rules, facts, etc.

Start your livetweet 10 minutes or so before the event begins by tweeting out rules and facts about what’s going to take place, and anything else in advance that will help your audience understand what is happening and what the impact of the things you’re tweeting out are. You can also tweets links to documents and new stories that further explain what you’re about to tweet. For instance:

• “Passing a charter amendment will require a two-thirds vote of City Council #htxnondiscrimination”
• “Hometown Baseballers need to win this game or they’re out of the running for the championship #baseballers”
• “Here’s some background on the ethics violations Rep. Johnson is accused of: (Link) #johnsonhearings”

Doing this not only provides your audience with background, it establishes you early as an authoritative voice on the subject.

Follow back on those pregame tweets throughout your event as pieces of the puzzle come together. “Twelve council members present, so 8 must vote Yes for charter amendment to pass #htxnondiscrimination”

6. Take pictures! People love pictures! Also video, but less so.

Pictures say a thousand words — which is a whole lot of characters. Photos will convey what you can’t in one tweet. Along with quotes and tweets that flatly state the results of whatever you’re livetweeting, photos will be among your most retweeted tweets of the event.

It can be tough when you’re trying to follow along and take great photos. But every time you see an opportunity for a visual, take it. Try to position yourself in the room at the beginning in a place where you believe you’ll be able to most easily capture what’s happening.

Some video is good. But for some people, video can take the place of putting out tweets that describe what’s happening. More people are going to read a quick 140-character-or-less tweet than are going to sit and watch a two minute video.

7. Don’t worry about how much you as post so much as what you’re posting.

Movie critic Roger Ebert had a great quote: “No good movie is ever too long and no bad movie is short enough.” That’s a useful analogy for determining how many tweets a person should be putting out during a livetweet. If your tweets are substantive and interesting, there are never too few. If they aren’t interesting and don’t inform the reader, there are always too many.

If there’s a lot of important stuff going on, feel free to tweet as many times as you need — in fact, be prolific, because if you miss something, you’ll miss telling an important part of the story. Assume your readers are interested in what you’re tweeting. If not, why are they following you?

Never post just to post. Do post if there’s a recess or any reason your readers shouldn’t expect any news for a bit. However, in that downtime, instead of pausing yourself, find something to tweet about (for instance, anything that would normally fall under Rule #4 above that you haven’t tweeted yet). If there’s a lull for any unusual reason (i.e. a player in the event has disappeared or not shown up), definitely tweet that.

A good rule of thumb is to post whenever something substantive happens that has any weight in determining the course of events. And definitely post anything that elicits a reaction from the audience — cheers, laughs, boos, gasps, whatever. Part of livetweeting is to help your readers feel like they’re there. If the live audience is reacting, your Twitter audience will probably react the same.

Don’t sacrifice quality of writing when you’re livetweeting. Grammatically poor tweets lose credibility, and gibberish is a complete turnoff.

8. Engage your audience — to an extent.

The idea between livetweeting is to get a good audience. But Twitter is hardly a one-way avenue of communication. People get Twitter for two reasons: 1. Because they want to read what other people are saying and 2. Because they have something to say. If you’re doing your job right, people will engage with you. You’ll definitely get retweets and likes. But you’ll also have people tweeting at you with their own comments.

You should engage with these people to the extent that it doesn’t interrupt your livetweeting. Like or retweet when appropriate. Answer quick questions with facts, which could increase the number of people who see your tweets.

What I would avoid is getting into substantive discussions or debates. It’s too distracting, and you could wind up missing something important. It’s possible to correct the record if someone comments with an inaccurate fact, but don’t engage in back-and-forth with people on Twitter.

9. Be accurate and forthcoming. Quickly disclose errors and omissions.

Accuracy is key to credibility. If you want to tweet a rumor circulating, say it’s a rumor. If someone tells you something, don’t just report it as fact, say who told it to you. If you don’t understand something or something is unclear, say it. Definitely do not fill the gaps in your knowledge with speculation.

Be clear when you’re quoting someone and when you’re paraphrasing them. Here’s a key rule: Quotation marks mean you are tweeting exactly what a person says. Direct quotes are best, but it’s OK to paraphrase. It’s not OK to misquote.

In the heat of a livetweet, people make mistakes. You might think you understood something but you didn’t. You may have missed something that is important. Your readers will usually be very understanding — so long as you make the correction as quickly as you find out. Leaving out corrections will cloud the narrative, confuse readers and engender mistrust. If the correction is complicated — for instance, a quote without context made a speaker sound like they were saying something they didn’t mean — say you misquoted and will circle back later. Don’t leave it hanging.

10. Report the good and the bad.

Everyone wants to crow about their team’s big victory, whether they’re reporting on a city council vote or their sports teams winning the championship. But that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes the good guys lose, and sometimes things don’t turn out the way you want.

If you’re livetweeting, you need to be honest about what’s happening. If not, you’re going to at best confuse your followers and worst anger them. Either way, people will be turned off.

Let’s say your brand is as a fan of your local soccer team, the Hometown Ballkickers, with their star player, Juan Fútbol. You want the Ballkickers to win, and so do most of your followers. You love to livetweet their games and talk about all their great plays. But if you’re tweeting “Great play by Fútbol! #ballkickers” and “#Ballkickers are killing it on the field! Great defense!” and then end with “#Ballkickers lose 0–3,” your readers’ response will be a big “WTF?”

If you aren’t honest, you risk your credibility — and if you’re representing a person, organization or cause, you risk the credibility of them, too. Even if you don’t consider yourself a journalist, livetweeting is a form of journalism. Good advocacy needs honesty.

If things aren’t going your way, be honest but throw in some commentary that balances your advocacy and the truth. “Fútbol is a great player, but shouldn’t have missed that block. Tragic! #ballkickers”

Sports reference, y’all! I hope that’s made this article relatable. Happy livetweeting!

Kris Banks is a communication professional in Houston.