Beyond Marketing – Twitter as an Event Operations Tool

By now, most everyone you speak with has some knowledge of the social networking tool Twitter, either as a user or through the extensive media attention it has been given over the last year. Regardless of how you may personally feel about the usefulness of the technology, there's no denying the fact that many industries have embraced the service, and have integrated it into their public communications with varying degrees of success. The event industry, always at the forefront of new communication technologies (text-to-screen, anyone?), has managed to utilize Twitter more effectively than most. The benefits of using Twitter for event marketing are quite apparent – it's cheap, immediate, and provides a level of feedback not available with traditional media communications. However, outside of their marketing efforts, many event producers have yet to utilize Twitter to it's full potential. This is unfortunate, because with some foresight and a few tricks, Twitter can be the perfect tool to for event producers on an operations level, assisting in everything from crowd control to real-time performance information.

For event producers to get the greatest benefit out of Twitter, there are a few steps that I recommend you take. First, I would suggest that you establish a separate Twitter account for your event or venue operation, independent of your general and/or marketing account. This serves two purposes. First, it will ensure that your event guests (or others opting into that particular feed) have easy access to event-specific information, without having to wade through countless unrelated messages. Secondly (and perhaps more importantly), it ensures that your primary feed isn't cluttered with event information irrelevant to the majority of your followers. Just as with email, Twitter spam can be frustrating, off-putting, and ultimately fatal to your marketing and communication efforts.

Additionally, make liberal use of “hashtags” in your messages. For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, hashtags are topical notations within messages (designated with a “#” at the beginning), which allow users to search for specific items within Twitter. For example, you may identify the topic of your tweet by adding the hashtaged term “#eventinfo” somewhere within the message. This in turn will allow your users to search for that specific tag while ignoring other, less relevant messages. Although there are few rules regarding the use of hashtags, it is best to ensure that they are short, specific, and relevant to the topic being addressed. You should also make an effort to communicate what the hashtag means to your followers in advance, lest your efforts at communicating information be met with confusion. The effective use of has tags is an art unto itself. A great primer on the subject can be found here.

Now that you've created a “clean” channel for your event guests to follow, and have designed a system to classify your messages, let's explore a few ways in which you can effectively use Twitter to help manage your event.

1) Control your gate traffic – Update your subscribers as to what gates have the shortest lines, what items are permitted and/or prohibited, and what your search policy is.

2) Crowd-source your traffic reports – create a specific hashtag for event traffic, and encourage your guests to reply with their own updates. Often times, your audience can alert you to traffic issues well before your local police can. You can also use the same hashtag to pass along alternate routing and reassure guests stuck in traffic!

3) Virtual house lights – alert your guests five minutes from start time to return to their seats,k and avoid the mad rush back to their seats.

4) Send a “Twitter” coupon – send a tweet with a secret “code” they can redeem for a discount or free item at the concession stands.

5) Policy reminders – too many people smoking? Crowd surfing out of control? It never hurts to send a friendly reminder of your house policies (whether they listen is another matter altogether).

6) Event schedule and updates – keep your subscribers abreast of set times, schedule changes, and any other ever-changing information.

7) Public alerts – be it lost children or lost keys, a Twitter alert can quickly give you hundreds of additional eyes on the lookout.

8 ) Thank your guests for coming – it may seem obvious, but this simple act of appreciation can be worth it's weight in gold...even in 144 characters.

These are just a few of the many possible uses for Twitter as an event operations tool. As the number of smart phones continue to grow, it's worth investigating whether adding a “communications” position to your event staff to handle such communications is worth the investment. After all, the possibilities are virtually limitless, and constrained only by your imagination and resources to execute such a program.