As the NationBuilder Evangelist, I attend a conference almost every weekend. In addition to having the world's largest lanyard collection, I've learned a few things about the best ways to use social media to build community. While there's no substitute for face-to-face interactions, live tweeting an event is perhaps the next best thing.  

Why you should live tweet events:

• You'll begin to build your reputation as a thought leader.
• You'll get noticed by the people you want to meet AND the people you didn’t even know you wanted to meet.
• It's a chance to improve your ability to both listen and write tweetable speeches. 
• You'll have the eternal thanks of the event organizers. This can lead to speaker introductions and invites to speak next year.
• It gives you something to do with your hands.
• You'll gain twitter followers, increase your Klout score, and look fancy to your friends.
• Your tweets lend legitimacy to the event, which then lends legitimacy to you because you are at this super legit event (yes this is a bit circular and also the way social proof works).
• It's a chance for you to demonstrate your ability to use and be a leader in social media to your supporters and potential supporters.
• Live tweeting is a shibboleth to other social media savvy people. This will often get you in the door as “one of them” faster than a snazzy business card, or cold email.

Before the event:

1. Find the event hashtag and tweet about the event before it starts (event social media people will LOVE you and retweet you tons).
2. Find as many speaker Twitter handles as possible and follow them (you can unfollow them later if you don’t enjoy them, but it’s much easier to find them when searching during their speech if you already follow them). This is worth doing ahead of time because many folks have Twitter handles that are hard to find. 
3. Make sure your phone, iPad, or computer is charged. Bring an external battery or scope out a seat near an outlet. The external battery I have has room for two phones to charge simultaneously. There's basically no faster way to endear yourself to people at conferences than to make it easy for them to charge their phones. If you don't have an external battery, a small power strip to share means no one will ever be bummed you're hogging the outlet. Lunch and coffee breaks are great times to charge your phone as well because those are the times you'll want to focus on talking to the people around you, not staring at your phone. 
4. Add speakers and attendees to your database before you go to the event. This will make it easier for you to log contacts, follow up with folks, and build lasting relationships with people you tweet with at the conference.

At the event:

1. Don’t write negative tweets. Asking critical questions is one thing – being snarky and mean is another. While you might get retweets for snark, it’s generally not good practice to troll. In my opinion, if you don’t have anything nice and constructive to say, maybe it's time to take a break from tweeting.
2. Give as good as you get. Alternate between posting and boosting the posts of others. Favorite, follow, and retweet liberally (but don't be disingenuous). Engage in dialog with people when you can. Ask questions of other folks, especially if they are also heavy tweeters.
3. Follow the hashtag so it's easy to find everyone using it. 
4. Pictures and video tend to be retweeted more. If you can grab a shot of the speaker, or the conference brochure, or your name badge, people will be more likely to see it and star or retweet it. 


5. While a speaker is talking, be ready to quote them before they say something salient. Open a new tweet. Put in the event hashtag and the speaker’s Twitter handle. Then put your cursor at the beginning and get ready to type. As you practice live tweeting, you’ll be able to hear as someone starts a sentence that will be really tweetable, so you can capture it as they speak. When you have a good quote, post it and then immediately open up a blank tweet and get ready for your next one. 

In between tweets, search for the hashtag (make sure to look at all tweets and not just top tweets) and retweet and star folks. 
6. Follow users who are giving you a lot of love and/or who are valuable potential supporters. 

As people follow you and retweet you, thank them publicly and use the event hashtag. This shows that you notice and care about people who want to engage with you and makes it a lot easier to build that small interaction into a deeper relationship.
   
   Hey @SallytheGiraffe, thanks for the follow and all the retweets! #giraffecon2014
   
   
7. Ask people who seem awesome on Twitter to have lunch or coffee or meet in the hallways between talks. I've met amazing people because we had so much fun retweeting each other during a conference that we just had to be friends.
8. The best tweets are super short. Even shorter than 140 characters. Don’t try to cram every thought in. Focus on memorability, not length.
9. Be a real human being. Include your personality and not pre-packaged messaging. Gush on the speakers in your tweets if you're a huge fan. Use clever hashtags if that's your thing. Try to connect what people are saying to your organization only when it’s appropriate and won’t make you look like a corporate drone. It’s better to not mention your organization in your tweets and be seen as a thought leader than to shove in the brand and delegitimize everything you say.
   
   This: 
   "Creating community is the next big thing in business."  - @BobTheBuilder This is why I love my job. #BusinessCon2014
   
   Not this:
   Love hearing @BobTheBuilder talk about business at #BusinessCon2014. Speaking of business, did you know @NationBuilder is a business? And we work with businesses? And we can spell business? #NationBuilder4Eva."

After the event: 



1. Add everyone who interacted with you on Twitter to your database, or if they are already there, log your contacts.
2. Follow up with everyone who retweeted, starred, or followed you. Thank them, and set up phone calls and emails to get to know them better. Something like this: 
   
   "Thanks for all the retweets at #KansasCon last week @AbeLincoln! Would love to hear more about your work on states vs. federal rights. What’s the best way to connect?"
   
   
3. Tweet a thank you to the organizers and volunteers for their hard work and include the event hashtag.

---

Happy tweeting, everyone! If you've got questions or want to catch up at a conference I'm attending, tweet me at @justlikeharmony and we'll make sure to connect.