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Are you a marketer on the quest for social enterprise success?  I am. 

Last year, I was under deadline to launch a marketing campaign. 

I was hammering out slides, assuring VPs the campaign would be awesome, global, integrated, thought leading, within budget, on time, and generate MASSIVE pipeline. 

Running though my cookbook of marketing programs to include:

Email – Check, Landing Pages – Check, Website Promotions – Check, Paid Media – Check, Social Mentions – Check, Partner Toolkits – Check, Webinar – DREAD

Why not try a TweetChat vs. a Webinar? 

Advantages of a TweetChat:

  • No slides. 
    • Unlike a webinar, TweetChats are public conversations with a unique hashtag.  There are no slides to prepare.  Hooray!
  • Fast, Easy. 
    • No writers, designers, or web producers required. Promote your TweetChat via 140 characters on your social channels.  Blog about the upcoming TweetChat and topic.  If you have time and budget, then consider paid media, email integration, and community outreach to drive attendance to your TweetChat. If not, rely on organic.
  • Promotional power. 
    • TweetChats are a great strategy to engage with your followers and grow your community quickly. With the right topic, you can quickly establish your company as a thought leader.  Gently weave your messages and objectives into the TweetChat.
  • Engagement.
    • Webinars are synonymous with 50 minutes of slides and 10 minutes of canned questions.  TweetChats allow you to engage with your audience on a more personal level, in real-time.  Most likely, you’ll identify at least a few highly qualified inbound leads.
  • Short, Fast. 
    • Most TweetChats are 30 minutes or less. Can you type fast and respond in 140 characters? Think fast.  Time will fly by faster than a snoozy webinar.
  • It’s Social.
    • When your CMO asks how are you impacting share of voice, growing followers, influencing sentiment, increasing engagement, YOU will have an answer – TweetChat – check. 

Disadvantages of a TweetChat:

  • Surrender control.  
    • TweetChats are a public conversation.  Webinars are private.  You always introduce yourself to risk.  Hijackers might try overtake your topic.  Angry customers may voice opinions. Remain calm.  Followers will respect you for shepherding a meaningful dialogue.
  • Staffing.
    • You should staff accordingly.  TweetChats are 100% engagement.  Ensure that you have a staff to help respond to questions, ask questions, or engage with the community, and summarize key points for the duration of the TweetChat.
  • Who’s attending? 
    • Unlike a webinar, you can’t brag about registration numbers prior to the TweetChat.  There is an element of uncertainty on who’ll attend.  BUT – you can analyze the social conversations from the TweetChat via a social measurement tool like Radian6. You can even include sentiment, which would be a good indictor of success.
  • Format. 
    • Webinar format is very tried and true.  Intro, Speaker 1, Speaker 2, Q&A.  TweetChats can take on a free-flow Q&A format.  Ensure that you have put thought around number of topics and questions you’ll present in your TweetChat. 
  • Pipeline.
    • Your webinar leads flow into your CRM system (hopefully salesforce.com), and you can directly track new leads, pipeline, and maturation associated to all webinar attendees.  With TweetChats, you’ll likely walk away with a few very high-quality inbound leads.  Like webinars, TweetChats also nurture your community of followers (leads, contacts, customers) at every stage of the funnel. 
  • Still not done. 
    • When a webinar ends, you send a follow-up and you’re done.  TweetChat participants might still use your hashtag to engage in conversation. Ensure your still monitoring the discussion post event.  Use your blog for chat summary.

Want to experience a live TweetChat this week?  Here’s your chance!

The Dreamforce team is hosting a TweetChat to answer questions and share exclusive details about the event. We even have a special discount for participants. That’s right. 

Rachel Thornton, Karen Reul, and Catherine Simmons will share tips and latest details on #df12 entertainment, agenda, speakers, travel, session registration, free keynote & expo passes, the cloud expo and product campground, and a special one-day flash sale on registration.

Join our TweetChat 7/26 11:00 PDT at #df12ready to learn exclusive details & receive a registration discount code! Tweet this!