Recently, I had the great honour to attend two amazing conferences: the Social Media Marketing World in San Diego (#SMMW18), organised by Social Media Examiner, where I served as a volunteer at the conference; and the sixth annual Texas Social Media conference (#TXSocialMedia), where I co-presented with Jacqueline Rose. We discussed how to use social media as a teaching tool as educators in the 21st century.

I’ve spent a lot of time attending conferences, both industry and academic ones. It has become clear to me that conferences sometimes can feel quite overwhelming given their themes, audiences, topics, and sizes. I have tried various means to enhance my conference experience. There is one strategy that works effectively every single time.

That is, leveraging Twitter to maximise your conference experience.

In this article, I will share with you two specific practices that you can use to enhance the ROI of your conference experience — regardless of what conference you attend.

Are you ready? Let’s get started.

Live tweeting during the entire conference

Nowadays, it has almost become a common practice that conferences use hashtags to allow people to connect with fellow attendees and to 'live tweet' what they have learned during the event.

Within the past several years, for every single conference that I attended, I live tweeted during the entire event. Although this may sound crazy, I cannot tell you how much I have benefited from this practice.

For example, while attending the Social Media Marketing World conference in San Diego this year, I live tweeted as much as I could, even though I was a volunteer as well.

This practice paid off. I got a big shout out from Social Media Examiner at one of the keynote sessions (see the image below). Did you see my Twitter handle @AiAdysonZhang?

This is a big deal, considering that 5K+ people attended the conference. And Social Media Marketing World is one of the most influential conferences in social media marketing. Can you imagine how much advertising money I'd have to spend to get that type of media exposure?

Even more so, my tweets and Twitter profile got noticed by Onalytica, which is an influencer relationship management software company. They gave me another shout-out and selected me as one of the Top 50 influencers discussing Twitter during the Social Media Marketing World conference (see the image below). I am at number 46:

Because of this exposure, I had lots of people whom I didn’t know, reach out to me at the conference. I even had people NOT attending the conference engage with me about my tweets.

Similarly, right after I got myself registered for the recent Texas Social Media Conference, I tweeted a video of myself expressing how excited I was to speak there (see below):

Guess what?

A few minutes after I tweeted this video, someone walked up to me and greeted me by my name. Holy cow.

Prior to this conference, we had never interacted with each other. As we started chatting, it turned out that we both attended this year’s Social Media Marketing World conference, and we share similar interests. We are now talking about collaborations. What a serendipitous experience! And of course, we took a selfie (see below):

I have endless examples like the ones above to share with you, but you've got the idea. I got connected with so many incredible people, simply because I was live tweeting at conferences; many of whom have now become my friends and collaborators.

If you choose to give this practice a try, please make sure you:

✅ Use the right conference hashtags when sending out your tweets.

✅ Mix up your text tweets with videos (like the one above), images, GIFs, emojis, or other creative visuals.

Networking with speakers prior to the conference

For most conferences, you can see the schedule or programmes before the event takes place. I normally spend a few days studying the conference schedule, selecting the sessions which interest me the most.

And then, I search the speakers’ Twitter handles and send them a quick Tweet with videos, customized GIFs, and / or emojis telling them how excited I am to attend their sessions.

The above tactic works miraculously every single time. Because of the interactions that I have with the speakers prior to the conference, when we first connect in person at the conference, it feels like that we have known each other for a long time. Forget about handshakes - there will be hugs and selfies!

These social interactions made prior to the conference build a solid foundation for face-to-face networking. It creates a level of connection that you just won’t get when you first meet a stranger. That’s the power of social media.

Conclusion

🎯 Live Tweet: It will help you absorb content and get noticed.

🎯 Pre-Conference Network: It will help you build common ground and cultivate relationships that can scale your conference networking.

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