The Benefits of Starting Your Own Twitter Chat

Recently, I shared a guide on why you should join Twitter chats and how you can make the most of them as a participant.

But what if you want to start your own Twitter chat?

Well, there’s no denying that a lot of work goes into running a successful weekly Twitter chat. Not only are you contacting guests, creating content for the chat (writing questions, creating graphics), and then being present during the busy hour of chatting… But you also have to handle promotion for the chat if you want to grow your audience.

While it does take work and persistence, there are benefits of starting your own Twitter chat. In the long-run, it can be very rewarding for your brand as long as you stick with it and provide value to the community you build.

The Benefits of Starting Your Own Twitter Chat

So, what benefits might you experience from starting your own Twitter chat? I asked a few hosts from some of my favorite chats what makes the experience so rewarding for them. Here’s what they had to say!

1. Building a Thriving Community

For many of us, we’re working hard to build our community on social media and to establish our presence. While it won’t happen overnight, starting your own Twitter chat is a great way to do this. Over time, as you promote your chat and more people discover it through word-of-mouth, your audience will grow.

I launched #TwitterSmarter in July of 2015. Since then, the chat has grown to 300k tweets and 6.32 billion impressions. It’s amazing to see how the community has grown over the years and what makes it so special is the participants that come back every single week.

Hey there! This is excellent. In my experience, the best thing about running #smechat has been watching this amazing community grow and learn not only together, but from each other. It’s certainly a highlight of my week! ??

— Jen Cole #smechat ??? #SMMW19 (@jencoleICT) February 6, 2019

Jen Cole, host of Social Media Examiner’s #smechat, knows how rewarding it can be to watch the community grow. Through Twitter chats, we are able to learn together, but also learn so much from each other in the process. #smechat is Jen’s favorite time of the week and you can join every Wednesday at 1 PM Eastern.

Building a thriving community has so many long-term benefits. For business owners, it can be a great way to establish their brand’s presence. Many of the people who discover and join your Twitter chat will check out your other platforms (your website, social media, etc.). And they just might become paying customers or lifelong friends.

2. Easily Connecting With Your Target Audience

One of the greatest things about Twitter chats is the ability to connect with so many incredible people from around the world. People from all different walks of life come together for the purpose of learning and forming new connections. And that’s what social media is all about, right? Being social! There’s no better way to do that than through a Twitter chat.

For brands, Twitter chats provide the opportunity to connect with their target audience. They’re able to attract those who want to learn from them and can then educate those people on a specific topic. Not only that, but starting your own Twitter chat allows you to learn more about your audience. You’ll actively engage in conversations with them, giving you the chance to learn what they’re interested in and what they’re struggling with. Learning more about the audience you’re targeting will help shape the content you create in the future.

Hi Rachel! The connections we’ve made through our Twitter chat have been invaluable. #SoloBizChat gives us a space to have deeper conversations with our audience and build better relationships with them.

— MeetEdgar (@MeetEdgar) February 6, 2019

My friends at MeetEdgar run #SoloBizChat every Wednesday at 4 PM Eastern. They have truly seen the value of connecting with their target audience through this chat. The deeper connections of a one hour Twitter chat can be invaluable for any brand.

3. Chats Provide an Amazing Opportunity to Learn

Twitter chats are fantastic to join if you want to learn more about a specific topic. Whether you’re looking for a chat on writing, content marketing, social media, or one all about Twitter (hint: #TwitterSmarter), you’re sure to find one to suit your needs. Within one hour, you have the opportunity to learn tips and tricks from guest experts, as well as other participants who have joined the chat.

Even though Twitter chats can be busy with lots of tweets being posted, it’s smart to keep a notebook handy to jot down anything interesting you’ve learned. And you can always read through the tweets again after the chat has ended to soak up more value. Some chat hosts actually share a recap featuring tweets from the Twitter chat, which makes it easy to catch up on what you might have missed.

Expanding his knowledge is one of the things Bernie Fussenegger loves about hosting #Digital360Chat on the first Thursday of every month at 12 PM Eastern. Bernie shared the following:

“The learning part of hosting a chat has been great — learning about our guests, learning more about the topic, but especially learning from others within the chat community.” Bernie went on to say, “Another key benefit is the research and planning part of a chat. I get to learn even more about the subject matter or topic.”

There are so many great benefits to starting your own Twitter chat. If you’d like to learn how to get your chat set up and then manage, host and promote it, check out my Twitter Chat Playbook. It’s a roadmap that shows you everything you need to know to start your own successful chat.

Your Call to Action:

• Determine an umbrella topic that you have a lot of knowledge on and could talk about with your audience on a weekly basis.
• Research to see if there are already chats on this topic. If there are, how active are they? Who is running them? What do they talk about? If there aren’t, figure out if there’s a need for a chat on this topic.
• Consider asking your existing audience if they’d like to join a Twitter chat hosted by you.
• If all signs are a go, start brainstorming potential guests and topic ideas for your brand new Twitter chat. And don’t forget to pick a great hashtag, as well as a date and time for your chat.