What is a Twitter Party?

If you are not familiar with what a “Twitter party” is yet, you may want to get yourself acquainted ASAP. You can learn a lot about great products, get informative tips, and it’s a fabulous networking opportunity. Best of all, you can win some seriously great prizes!

What is a Twitter party?

A Twitter party is a means for companies to promote their products to new or existing consumers. A blogger or group of bloggers are contracted to host a theme-specific conversation highlighting their product(s) and various features of it. Those participating in the party contribute their own ideas and tips or answer presented trivia questions.

How does it work?

All you have to do is add a specific hashtag (#cookiesandclogs for example) to your tweets. This is like the address of the home or place the party is being held at. Any tweet with that hashtag is considered ‘in’ that party.  To view all tweets with that hashtag, you need to use an online client such as TweetChat or TweetDeck (I use this one). Both are free.

How do you win stuff?

It depends on the party and the host. Each one decides how they want to run the party and choose winners. Here are some common methods used:

• RSVP – Before the party, you may be asked to enter your twitter handle (@name) in a linked list or in a comment. Some parties will choose winners from this list before or after the party itself.
• Trivia –  Winners are chosen from those that answered correctly either randomly or if they are first, fifth, etc.
• Random – Questions are asked to keep the conversation. Winners are chosen randomly from those that tweet with the hashtag.
• Top Tweeter – Some will give a prize to the one that tweets the most. This is risky as Twitter will ban you for an hour if you exceed the allowed limit, also affectionately known as ‘Twitter Jail’.

Benefit for the sponsor

If I have over 40,000 Twitter followers (which I do) and you have 3000, when we write a tweet it goes out to roughly 42,000 (as some may be following both of us) streams. In 1-2 hours, thousands of new people learn about the sponsoring company and may begin to follow their site, Facebook page, and Twitter accounts. Plus, they get direct feedback and tips from their potential customers. It’s an infomercial with live customer support with thousands all around the world in the audience at the same time.

Benefit for the host

Payment (in many cases), traffic, and followers. The success of a Twitter party depends largely on the host. I’ve been to some that went by in a wink and others where the participants were squabbling over the winners chosen. Let’s just say that if a host holds a good party, they worked hard to make it that way and deserve payment for their time and effort.

So are Twitter parties worth the time?

While there are many I don’t win, what I have won through various Twitter parties are enough to keep me attending ($250 Amazon Gift Card was the most noteable). Plus, they can be very fun and informative! Don’t get overwhelmed as they can be very fast-paced, especially with parties offering ‘big ticket’ prizes. Just try to keep your eye on the host and try to enjoy it. You’ll get the hang of it in no time. See you there!

Would you like me to host a Twitter party for your brand? Email me so we can discuss it further.