Whether you are an official “live tweeter” or “live blogger” on behalf of your employer or a professional group, or have just agreed to try to convey a sense of the event to your colleagues back in the workplace there are a number of steps you can take beforehand to make the process more streamlined.
Hints and tips
- Use two devices - tablet or laptop with phone for backup. Connect both devices to wifi when you arrive. Don't wait until one of your devices fails - (information about the wifi should be available to you at the registration desk). Make sure they are fully charged before the event and bring a spare power pack for your device.
- I often produce a crib sheet with the Twitter handles of all the speakers and their institutions. There are a surprising number of people who don't include this on their slides! I usually have this available in a notepad app so I can cut and paste once they start speaking.
- Before the event, tweet to say you will be live tweeting (or live blogging) from #MyEvent and pin that tweet to your Twitter account. You will then be able to click on the event hashtag from your Twitter profile and see a list of tweets. This is particularly helpful if the event hashtag is lengthy or easy to mis-type.
- If I am an official, or semi-official, live tweeter then I like to draft a few tweets in advance to introduce the speakers and their topics. Sometimes I schedule these in advance, and sometimes i just have them available to post at a suitable time. Having these pre-composed tweets means that I can save my typing for reporting from the event rather than for background information on the speakers.
- Make sure you have several ways to interact with Twitter, and be prepared to switch between them if required - for example if the native Twitter app/website goes down.
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At Internet Librarian International 2018, Alison is speaking in a session that celebrates noisy marketing! B202 Loud in the Library: music, events and exhibitions, explores a range of ways that librarians can reach wider audiences. Her session will help delegates with preparing to share their experience of conference attendance with others. It may be of particular interest to LIS professionals who are new to supporting events whether at a local level or as part of a professional network.
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For more information on the programme, see http://www.internet-librarian.com/2018/Schedule.aspx #ILI2018