I had the great pleasure of attending the Brand Republic 'Winning Formulas To Maximise The Potential Of Twitter' workshop yesterday. They did a great pre-workshop job interacting with me and making sure I prepared for the day. The information booklet supplied was also very informative and I was particularly struck by the 'Participation and Interactivity' section which advised delegates Prepare; Be vocal!; Get chatting; and Let us know your thoughts.Well here we go. The abiding memory for me apart from telling the guy from Kraft Foods to never, ever change the Cadbury's chocolate recipe was the hashjacking of the conference hashtag #BR140. I love these sort of hashtags, they allow you to connect with people on Twitter before an event and follow everyone's comments during and post an event. They also allow you to 'follow' the event on Twitter if you are not attending, enabling live updates from delegates, the event organisers and other people following. Some events, including this one, also have a live big screen 'Twitterfall' of all the tweets with the hashtag. Always very interesting and entertaining to see your own tweets on the big screen. Being an avid Twitterer I of course contributed to the hashtag with my own mix of pithy comment, useful insight and occassional drivel. For example, I was staggrered when the representative from the Labour Party referred to the 'right-wing Blogosphere' and tweeted accordingly.
Then the most amazing and I have to say hilarious thing happened after the mid-afternoon break, the #BR140 Twitter stream on the big screen started to be populated by hashjackers, with comments such as:-
#br140 Leave now and beat the queue for the urinal
I've dropped £20 somewhere around the 5th row, can anyone spot it? #br140
Let's forget all this boring Internet rubbish and just put our car keys in a big pot... #br140
Does anyone know if these Custard Creams are vegan-friendly? #br140
Can you help a brother out? I'm locked in the third cubicle of the gents with no paper. #br140
All this talk of SM is making me frisky, anyone for some S&M after hours? #br140
Check out the hashtag for the full stream. It was quite an experience, I was literally transfixed to my I-phone and the big screen as more and more jackers joined in and the comments got funnier and funnier. Eventually even pornbots started to contribute.
The switched on Twitterati amongst the audience could see this happening and were starting to chuckle and even the occasional belly laugh. I was literally doubled up in pain, eyes streaming close to cardiac arrest.
All the while a fairly low key panel discussion was taking place on stage, from the likes of Dell, a fashion shop, a taxi firm and the Dogs Trust (that's comedy gold in itself of course).
Then it struck me like a bolt of lightning, the hashjackers were social media and Twitter savvy way beyond the organisers and the panel. I was learning more from the jackers about the power, corruption and lies of Twitter than any of the panel could elucidate. To be fair to the organisers they handled the situation brilliantly, saw the funny side and counter tweeted to keep the delegates and followers of the hashtag onside.
BREvents: Thank you to all the speakers and delegates that attended #br140 & to the hackers for that stint of light entertainment!
So a few valuable lessons to be learned:
1. Moderate your #hashtag
2. Think carefully about having a Twitterfall
3. Make sure the event is truly engaging and interactive
We've all got a lot to learn about Twitter and Social Media, but it's here to stay, is irreverent, in your face and instant - brands need to be cognisant of this and will need a sense of humour to survive.
In a strange way the whole event reminded me of the original film of The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three
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Is moderating a #hashtag actually possible? Interesting article, cheers.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant. :)
ReplyDeleteHi - I just tried to post this and I think it failed, so here's the summarised second version!
ReplyDeleteI'm Alex, the woman from Dogs Trust who was speaking.
I personally found some of the hashjacking quite funny. I know at least one of the people who was doing it (used to work for the same company), so I know it was mainly cheeky, not malicious. And it didn't really disrupt most of the people at the event, as they either couldn't see it (it wasn't really visible past the speaker's table) or weren't really aware they could track the hashtag yet. For those that were, I'd love to know if there's any way of moderating it - I have yet to find one (and I'm not sure I necessarily always would). People are people, and the Internet is a public free-for-all. It's the best thing about it, but it comes with its occasional downside. The organisers were fully aware of the jacking but decided to leave the Twitterfall in place because they knew people couldn't really see it or had other ways of following anyway.
I thought the event offered quite a lot that was interesting, with different kinds of presentation (formal, interview, panel), designed to try and engage a very large group. Then again, I would say that, I was speaking! I don't pretend to find myself fascinating, so I can concede not everyone might have been fully engaged! Still, the hashjacking was from people who weren't actually there, so I'm not sure it can be entirely blamed on that.
Even if you don't have a Twitterfall in the room people can - as you did - follow on devices. No-one can stop you and heavens, why would they?
I'm just glad you enjoyed it, whatever the reason!
Alex @ Dogs Trust
I was at the event on one of the front tables so could read the big screen. The hashjackers were hilarious - I particularly liked the one about the dubstep and drinking out of test tubes. I doubt I would've bothered reading the tagged tweets if it wasn't for them, so they had some purpose.
ReplyDeleteFor me the jury's out on the usefulness of twitterfalls. They seem distracting, and call me old fashioned but I was brought up to listen when someone was speaking - using one's phone whether to take a call or make a tweet seems a bit - well, rude.
Alex I really enjoyed your input, for what it's worth. You seemed to be really balanced in your viewpoints and not take everything too seriously.
@jembop