What Happens When You Use Twitter Chats (and Twitter Lists too!)
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If you have started with Twitter and have begun the slightly boring process of following people, searching for hashtags or for usernames, you may be feeling that Twitter is a bit tedious. Sure, finding people to follow and have them re-follow you is a big part of the site but is that all there is?
The good news is that no, this is just one aspect of Twitter and not one of the most fun ones.
One of the more fun things you can do on Twitter is to use Twitter Chats to get to know people on the site. Here we are going to look at what they are and how you can organise your Twitter following with something called Lists to help organise all those thousands of people you will soon have following you. Ready?
Table of Contents
What’s a Twitter Chat?
A Twitter Chat is a chat based around a specific hashtag that takes place at a specific time on the site. However, funny enough, you actually don’t want to be on Twitter to make the most of it – more on that in a minute.
Twitter Chats are a way to get to know people who are interested in similar topics to you and to have a ‘chat’ using a set system for a period of time. There are many chats out there around specific themes and I’ve a list of a few for you to check out further down the page. You can also get a number of benefits from them and when you pair them with Twitter Lists afterwards, you can also organise your following.
Basics of a Chat
Most people recommend using a tool like TweetDeck to take part in a Chat because you can easily monitor the conversation. Other recommended tools for the job include Twubs.com or Tweetchat.com – I know the first but not these two personally.
If you use TweetDeck, open a window for notifications and another for the chat’s hashtag. This means you only see the tweets on this hashtag and can concentrate on answering people as well as answering the host’s questions. You can even open a third window just for the host’s questions.
Turn up to the tool about five minutes before the Chat is due to start. People will introduce themselves and it can help to prepare a little copy and paste intro before to save time. The host will then start asking questions and best practice is to quote tweet the answer to make sure that it remains part of the conversation.
Make sure the hashtag is in there too to keep it tied in with the Chat. Most hosts will put a Q1, Q2 at the start of the question so you just put A1, A2 and so on at the beginning of your answer to show which question it relates to.
Don’t be afraid to ask someone to elaborate on an answer, let them know you agree with them or that you want to chat more with them. If you know the answer to someone’s question, don’t be afraid to tell them. Basically, the point of the exercise is to get involved with people and talk to them.
Benefits of Twitter Chats
So why would you spend an hour of your time chatting with people on Twitter when you could be posting on Facebook or sending pictures to Instagram?
Connect with others with shared interests
For starters, you will run into different people and you can connect with others who have your interests – one of the main reasons behind starting on Twitter in the first place. People who regularly use them rate Chats as one of the best ways to communicate with people on the site.
Do some social listening
You can also do some social listening as part of the Chat. Say the topic is about favourite tools and you are trying to decide what tools to focus on in your next blog post – see what people suggest, look for recurring themes and even spot negative opinions to help give a well-rounded approach.
Gain followers
And of course, there’s a good chance that you will gain followers and find new people to follow yourself. Chloe at Chloe Social says she gets around 10 new followers for every chat and also finds people to follow herself. It can also act a support group allowing you to test ideas, find solutions to problems and is a fast-paced experience that usually only lasts around an hour.
Finding Twitter Chats
There are lots of Twitter Chats out there and one of the best lists I’ve found so far was from Zoe Linda who has a massive list (and a free chart) to help manage them.
A few to note include:
| Chat Hashtag | Day | Time (ET) | Time (GMT) |
| #SmallBizChat | Wednesday | 8pm | 1am |
| #BufferChat | Wednesday | 12pm | 5pm |
| #CreativeLounge | Wednesday | 8pm | 1am |
| #BrandChat | Wednesday | 11am | 4pm |
| #CreativeCoffeeHour | Monday | 9pm | 2am |
| #AskABlogger | Tuesday | 2pm | 7pm |
| #BlogHour | Tuesday | 4pm | 9pm |
| #HustleChat | Thursday | 4pm | 9pm |
Twitter Lists
In the article I wrote on starting with Twitter, I mentioned lists as a great way to organise your followers and they can also work well with Chats.
Say you start following ten people on a chat – you can create a list named for the chat and add them to it so you can keep track of where you got to know people from. This is really handy if you want to personalise your responses to them and aren’t the best at remembering names and details!
There are lots of reasons to use Twitter Lists. Personally, I have lists for brands I follow, influencers, bloggers I really enjoy and also for little niche areas such as experts on certain social media sites.
You can create a list from a hashtag, from adding people as you follow them or even through automation with tools like IFTTT. If you use this last option, you often end with people on the list you don’t follow and guess what – you can then follow them.
You can use them to easily see content from influencers you want to work with and then retweet that content to start building a relationship with them.
Or you can use lists of competitors to see what’s working for the opposition and what you can use as inspiration. You can even use lists for those people who regularly retweet your content to easily return the favour.
You can set a list to private or public (so that competitor one might want to be private) but if the list is public, then anyone added will see a little notification that you have done this. In itself, this can be a way to gain followers!
More tweeting than ever
I’ve said before that I still think there is a strong place for Twitter in promoting a blog or business and these features just make it easier and more fun. You can build a good audience, interact with others of shared interests and even catch the eye of an influencer by adding them to a list.
What’s your favourite Twitter tactic? Or do you have a useful tool that helps with the site? I’d love to hear in the comments!
