In the previous two posts of this series we’ve shared suggestions for building a stronger presence leading into your Twitter Q&A session and best practices for promoting and conducting the session. In this post, we will highlight three options for engaging the audience during the session:
- Make it urgent
- Follow President Obama’s lead on Twitter
- Addressing hard and controversial questions is an instant way to engage the interest of your audience
At this point in your Twitter Q&A process, the stage is set; you have established a strong Twitter foundation, decided on topic/theme, created a relevant #Tag, and promoted the event with key influencers, media, and customers – now it is time for execution.
Time is of the essence – this is a live event, create a sense of urgency
The Q&A session should take place at a specific time so you can encourage people to “tune in” and follow along. Providing a window of time for answering questions will create a sense of urgency for people to attend. Just like a live event, questions and answers will be limited to the timeframe that is allotted. Anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes works best. It is always a good idea to send a kickoff tweet to let folks know the session is beginning and a “thank you” tweet to mark the end of the session.
What you have to say is important – no need to limit yourself to 140 characters, President Obama didn’t for his Twitter Q&A
For a Twitter Q&A hosted by President Obama, tens of thousands of questions were tweeted to #AskObama about the economy, healthcare, and other important issues.
Very strategically and thoughtfully, Obama and his staff knew Twitter was a great way to get questions, however the answers need not be restricted to the 140-character Twitter limit.
Instead of answering question exclusively on Twitter, Obama opted to take questions via Twitter and reply in a video format in addition to having an aide tweet his replies. This allowed him to elaborate on his answers to ensure a meaningful response.
While you may not get as many questions as Obama, anyone can and should use other complementary mediums to provide answers.
Here are three potential ways to do this.
- The most popular is to partially answer questions on Twitter, with a fuller response being posted through a follow-on blog post. In this post you can highlight your top Tweets and then really dig into the topics you are most passionate about. In this scenario you are not only reaching your Twitter followers, but you also now have fresh content for anyone reading your blog.
- Like Obama ask your questions on Twitter and then hold a live web conference where the best questions are read aloud and answered in real-time, with the session being recorded so you can repost it on your site.
- Once you’ve answered a number of questions live, you can let the folks in your Twitter Q&A know you will be providing more in-depth replies via a video that you can post to YouTube or your company’s blog. Time is still of the essence with these as you don’t want your followers to lose interest. Once you’ve recorded the session you can link it on Twitter with the same hashtag you used to promote your Twitter Q&A.
There is no need to answer every question, but hard questions should not be ignored
While it’s not necessary to answer every question, hard questions shouldn’t be overlooked, as they will keep the conversation authentic and users engaged. The purpose of the Q&A is to give the audience the chance to clarify unclear or controversial issues with the topic.
If you shy away from those questions, the audience will lose interest and will most likely leave or not return for other Q&A’s in the future. We suggest answering a dozen or so questions in a 30 – 45 minute session. A dozen questions include those received ahead of time and real time.
However, if time permits, and the conversation is going well, you can opt to answer more questions. This should be a judgment call made during the session.
Stay tuned for the final part of this series that will provide ways to keep the conversation going after the session.
