Our very first conference BlueGlass LA is just taking place this week and we are all really excited about it. However if you couldn’t make it to the event (and surely are desperate about that), here are some great Twitter tips for you to still acquire knowledge and network with the participants:
Educate Yourself : Collect the Discussions
Besides being an essential networking tool, a conference is also an awesome way to exchange knowledge and information.
Twitter will help you find what people have been talking within and about the event. You can collect Tweets, summarize them, write reports on the event and what has been shared there.
However you do know that Twitter Search spans the last 30 days only, do you? So archiving Tweets around a really useful conference and sessions would be a great idea.
There are only a couple of tools that will also help you save the Tweeted information for further reference. You may want to try both of them:
1. The Archivist is a nice desktop application (Windows-only) that lets you run any search within Twitter database and lets you export the results to Excel. You can then use Excel columns to:
- Search within the topical Tweets,
- Grab the column listing all the Twitter users and create the list via Tweepl (to follow all of them with one click and let others follow them as well), etc
- Filter and sort Tweets, etc, etc
The tool is very easy to use. Just get it installed, run the search and Save the file to further update it with latest Tweets.
The View menus allows you to view the chart of the search results history and the pie to visualize the Tweeting users:
2. TwapperKeeper is rather a handy tool that allows to create the permanent archive of all Tweets around a (conference) hashtag. With help of this tool, you can thus create a one-reference source of knowledge exchange around any event.
To create an event, first login with your Twitter account (using Twitter authentication) and then simply provide the hashtag, description and tags:
As soon as you create the archive, the tool will send a public Tweet using its official Twitter account linking to your new archive:
Here’s our conference Twitter archive by the way.
As you can see, the archive can be sorted by date, filtered by user or a keyword and set to exclude all the Retweets. No matter which sorting and filtering options you choose, you will be able to get the direct URL of the new archive to link to. For example, here’s our archive excluding all the RTs.
You can also export your archive to save it locally and analyze the collection.
Network: Connect to the Conference Participants
Visiting industry conferences is by far the most effective way to build valuable connections with partners and clients. However if you couldn’t make it to the event, it doesn’t have to mean you can’t get connected to people who were there.
BlastFollow is a handy tool that lets you create the list of all Twitter users who use the official conference hashtag and follow them all with one click. While the tool may be potentially dangerous in the wrong hands, it works like a charm as the “remote” conference networking tool.
To use BlastFollow, simply enter a favorite hashtag (in our case that’s #blueglassla) and click the “Get Users!” button. After a few seconds, you will see the number of users who tweeted with that hashtag recently.
Important note: the tool doesn’t use the Twitter auth to access your account. You will need to provide your login data, so use for your own discretion!
Let’s get the most out of the SEO conferences even though we can’t make it to all of them!
Very cool!
Glad you liked it
These are some great tools, indeed. Wish I could have made it out to the West Coast to attend. Keep the info coming!
I hope we will meet at one of our upcoming events!
Thanks so much for once again providing an incredibly absorbing and useful article, BlueGlass!
I only discovered your site and work after Brogan mentioned it a while back. Now you’re in my feed and I can’t get enough of your inspiring content.
Keep driving the web forward. We all appreciate it.
And if you ever want a guest post on the importance of bringing your business message to life through inexpensive digital broadcasting, drop me a line!
Dave
Dave, thanks for your kind words! We are glad you have discovered us
Thanks very much for posting this fantastic information! These tools have truly opened my eyes to the value of social networking!
Regards,
@BertDickerson
Great, Bert, the purpose of this post has really been to show some creative and alternative ways to use social media.
Outstanding info. I will check them out. I have retweeted this and bookmarked your site for further perusal. This is definitely an area that will blow up as more businesses try to leverage social just like search. Its a great time to be in this field and I thank you for providing the valuable insights into these tools.
Dave, thank you for your kind words! I am happy to hear the information in this post turned useful!
Heard great stuff from one the the guys who attended your seminar. How does Tweet Adder work compared to the others mentioned? Looking for the quality followers.
Thanks!
Thanks for your kind words.
Unlike Tweet Adder, those tools are all free. As for other options, I have never tried Tweet Adder, so I am not sure.
Do be particularly judicious in your use of BlastFollow. I used it to follow delegates of four recent online conferences and the next day my account was suspended by Twitter for ‘aggressive following’!
I’ve since been told to lay off use of these automated follow tools. I was a once-user of buzzom.com which went down because of similar concerns from the motherlode.
Just speaking from personal experience. Everything else here at BG is awe.
Very true, especially with new accounts or accounts with few followers – you need to be very careful with mass following. I’ve heard Twitter treats especially carefully until you hit 2K in the following – but that’s just rumor of course.
Thanks for sharing it with us. This is really helpful and made my life a little easier, for sure! I spend most of my time with Twitter!
I’d been snooping around for this post for ages from your site. I was sure it was here, just had to take a look around
Finally lucked upon it, be very! I’ll ensure to subscribe to your RSS feed from now on.
I just found this through Yahoo. Twitter is awesome and this is so nice. I’m always on the lookout for twitter tools. I’ll check back soon, Thanks!
Excellent write up, bookmarked your site for interest to read more information!