Do It Myself Blog – Glenda Watson Hyatt

Motivational Speaker

Behind the Scenes of a Tweetchat with the Left Thumb Blogger

Filed under: Social Media — by at 6:16 pm on Friday, January 20, 2012

A tweetchat – a chat held on Twitter; typically with a guest host sharing an expertise with a specific group indicated by a hashtag (#). By the very nature of Twitter, anyone interested can participate in the chat.

Thanks to Association for Women in Communications (AWC) organizer and my friend Sheila Scarborough, yesterday I had the pleasure of guest hosting #AWChat, sharing my expertise in web accessibility.

Prior to the chat, I prepared my responses to Sheila’s questions as a series of tweets in SocialOomph – a handy tool for scheduling tweets and other such tasks. I also copied my tweets in to Notepad, just in case…having a back up plan is always wise!

My screen during the chat

During the chat:

  • I had the #AWCchat tweet stream open in Hootsuite on the left side of my screen,
  • my prepared tweets in SocialOomph on the right side of the screen, and
  • my WordQ word prediction/completion hovering in the upper right corner.

When Sheila asked a pre-set question during the chat, I hit “Publish immediately” on the corresponding response tweet in SocialOomph. Except for a 60-second delay in publishing, the system worked amazingly well.

In between Sheila’s questions, I was able to respond to questions from others on the chat. By the end of the hour, my left thumb was on fire (in a good way)! A transcript from the chat is now available.

A few years ago I would have never imagined myself guest hosting such a lively discussion in real life. But, because Twitter is largely text-based and because of the other handy tools, I now have something else to add to the “Can Do” column!

Before I had wrapped up the #AWCchat with Sheila, I was slated for my next tweetchat guest hosting: #SOBCon on February 16th, 10-11am pacific. Join us! 

If you run a tweetchat and if my experience or expertise may be of service to your group, tweet me (@GlendaWH) or leave a comment below with the details.

If you enjoyed this post, consider buying me a chai tea latte. Thanks kindly.

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Trackbacks

  1. Summary transcript for 19 Jan 2012 #AWCchat: web accessibility « #AWCchat

4 Comments »

Comment by Sheila Scarborough

January 20, 2012 @ 7:06 pm

You know Glenda, it never even occurred to me to ask if you’d ever hosted a Twitter chat before. I had such confidence in your smarts, humor and knowledge that I simply thought, “Why, of COURSE Glenda would be perfect!”

Later on, I thought, “OMG what have I asked of her? Is she freaking out? Was this rude of me?”

Of course, you were fabulous, and I love that you’ve shared your tools, tricks and how-to.

Thank you SO much for agreeing to guest host #awcchat after our previously-scheduled host had to be rescheduled. It was a true SOBCon Moment to be in sync with you online during a chat, imagining the Left Thumb pecking away madly. Bless you!

Comment by Nick Broutin

January 20, 2012 @ 7:31 pm

This is pretty awesome!

Comment by Sarah

January 21, 2012 @ 3:58 am

Thanks for sharing this Glenda, very innovative! I’ve been thinking about hosting occasional chats to link in people with dissociative issues living in different parts of Australia, now I’ll give some thought to a twitter chat. 🙂

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