I’ll admit, I’m not as active on Twitter as I probably should be. It’s all very immediate, and I’m much more comfortable with blogging and emailing, and things where I can take my time.
But I recently heard about a creative way that makes conversations on Twitter last longer, and I think makes Twitter chats a lot more valuable.
My friend Miral, the founder and CEO of BiblioCrunch, does an amazing job of promoting her company. Every Tuesday night at 9 p.m. eastern time, she hosts a Twitter chat using the hashtag #indiechat. Each week features a different guest and is a conversation about an aspect of indie publishing.
What’s great is that afterwards Bibliocrunch posts a transcript of the conversation on their blog and archives it on Storify, so that anyone who misses out one week can catch up. Storify is a site that allows users to create new stories out of media found on the web. Bibliocrunch’s page on Storify shows a story from each week, listing all the tweets using the #indiechat hashtag so anyone can follow along on the conversation.
As someone who often feels overwhelmed by the number of tweets popping up on my page every time I log in and like I’m missing out on something, I really like this idea of archiving. I have also heard of tools you can use to make it easier to follow along with Twitter chats in real time.
Hootsuite, for example, lets you set up streams to help filter tweets. If you were part of #indiechat, then you could set up a stream to only show tweets using that hashtag. Ian Cleary on Razor Social also recommended a few other tools. I’ve only used Hootsuite, but he said he likes Tweetchat the best. Tweetchat lets you adjust the speed you see new tweets and pause tweets coming in so you have a chance to respond.
I’m glad these tools are out there. They help make Twitter a lot more manageable. Do you know of any other helpful tools? If so, please let me know in the comments!
