Twitter - Using it effectively versus ignoring it

Twitter is fast becoming a huge trend - when you get talked about in a mocking manner by the Daily Show, you know you've made it!  As speakers though, twitter brings up a lot of questions.  First off, if people are checking their blackberries or iphones and twittering during your speech, they are not going to be listening as intently if they were paying attention to you.  

So, you have two choices as a speaker in regards to twitter:

1.  Be like Jon Stewart in the video below where he is the "Old Man Stewart shakes his fist at Twitter." 

or

2.  Embrace Twitter as a means to improve communication with your audience.

The first option will only make you upset with people and make you feel powerless as your audience members drift off and check their twitter status.  However, embracing Twitter will allow you to improve your presentations -- if you do it in an effective manner.

Olivia Mitchell posted a guest blog on Chris Spagnuolo's Edgehopper blog on 7 ways to use twitter during your presentations.  I really liked some of the suggestions and think it is a great way for you to engage your audience.  Some of the suggestions include polling your audience, asking questions during the presentation, getting input on your ideas and having evaluations done.  One of the biggest benefits of using twitter for all of these is that the audiences responses have to be 140 characters or less!  Believe me, that is not a lot of words, so people have to condense their ideas to their core.

One catch to some of her suggestions:  you need to get onto twitter and get used to it!  For some of us, this is a big step.  I have only recently gotten onto twitter and I didn't quite get it at first, but do see the potential.  So, in order to effectively use Twitter during your speeches and use it to your advantage, you have to be used to it.  You don't want to step in front of an audience and try to use twitter for the first time...you will not look good!

So, you have a choice: use Twitter to your advantage or to your disadvantage.  To me the choice is an easy one.  

- Travis

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Comments

[caheidelberger]

Pre- and post-presentation, it sounds like a great source of data. Mid-presentation, it sounds like a great way to make the presenter's head explode. Observing the live Twitterstream for feedback and adjustment instead seems to require a different and perhaps more intense form of attention than the normal "reading" of the audience for nonverbal feedback or pausing for oral questions. Can we effectively read Twitter and sustain a presentation's momentum at the same time?

[Travis Dahle]

I agree Corey, I wasn't thinking that you would change your presentation while you are giving it based on the Tweets, but the pre and post part is what I find exciting and applicable.