Hi my name is Jayne Corso and I am the Community Manager for AEA.
Twitter is a great tool for staying social at conferences. It provides real-time opportunities for sharing content and insights. Here are a few tips to help you be social during your upcoming conferences! You can even use these at Evaluation 2016.
Follow the Conference Hashtag
Most conferences have a hastag which allows you to follow information and news relating to the event. On Twitter, the pound sign (or hash) turns any word that directly follow it into a searchable link. This allows you to organize content and track discussion topics based on keywords. While at a conference, search for the appropriate hashtag (this will most likely be posted at the conference) to see all discussions taking place around the event. From here you can retweet, or even create your own post to stay active in the conversation. At Evaluation 2016, you can use #Eval16.
Retweet Other Users
While attending a conference, retweet posts by other attendees. Retweeting will allow you to spread content to more followers on Twitter and will give you the opportunity to be included in conversations surrounding the event.
Live Tweet a Session
Sharing insights and quotes from presentations and speakers is a great way to help evaluators who couldn’t attend the conference or decided to attend a different session. Live tweeting also helps you build relationships with the speakers. Find the speaker on twitter and add their twitter handle to your post!
Share Photos of your Experience
Photos are a great way to tell a story about your experience at the conference and allow evaluators who were not able to attend an opportunity to visualize the conference. Photos are dominant on Twitter, meaning your photos will be more likely to be retweeted by other attendees, the conference host, and speakers, expanding your exposer to a larger community.
I can’t wait to see what everyone tweets come October at Evaluation 2016! Follow AEA at @aeaweb and use #Eval16 to follow updates and news about the conference.
Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org . aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.