Few tips on how to use Twitter in promotion and customer engagement.

Come up with a #hashtag prior to the event. It is essential as people can follow the hashtag on Twitter and see the latest event updates. They can also see who’s attending, which provides a valuable opportunity for networking before the event begins. Talking about the event, and using hashtags, will also provoke anticipation and work towards the overall positive experience of the event.

Remember to come up with a memorable and short hashtag, and in order for it to work, you need to promote it on all promo material, newsletters, and other postings so that people know what to use and/or what to follow. You can also think up fun and creative ways to encourage people to use the hashtag, or simply ask them nicely!

Hashtags are not only for the customers, they are also an excellent monitoring tool for you. This way you can see what converstaions are taking place around your event, what the highligts were, and any problems are brought to your attention to be solved.

During the event you should tweet updates and/or changes, whether it be a speaker that’s just begun in a conference room, maybe someone has a new time for the appearance, or simply sending a picture at the event of something happening backstage that is interesting and worth mentioning.

This tweeted information is not only for the attendees but also for people who are interested in the event but were not able to be there on the day. These up-to-date tweets will grant them a live feed of the event, and enable them to follow or participate remotely.

Throughout the event and at all times really, be prepared to answer queries and comments about the event. This not only engages the audience, but is also a big part of the overall experience satisfaction. From time to time, retweet an interesting comment an attendee has made.

An important tip here is to remember that you can never turn social media off, as people expect the answer to be accurate and immediate, whether it be late at night, or at the weekend.

After the event you should ask the attendees for feedback or highlight a blog post that you or others even have written about the event.

Finally of course don’t forget to get a decent wi-fi connection so that people can get online, and test it a number of times. If someone has something to say, there’s nothing more frustrating than being muzzled by a dodgy connection!

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