It’s the start of the L&D conference season. Next week see the Learning and Performance Institute’s Learning Live, followed by the World of Learning and then the CIPD’s annual conference and exhibition.
If you aren’t able to attend these conferences, then don’t fear you can still see what’s happening, who is saying what and get involved in the conference from afar.
How? Twitter is a great tool for following events and getting involved in them. If you are not on Twitter, this might be a reason to get started.
Event organisers, especially at larger events, have people assigned to tweeting from sessions - they do for the events I have mentioned here. That means you get great coverage - it really is like being in the room.
This is how to do it.
You can follow an event by following its hahstag. This is the tag that everyone tweeting from the event will be using.
Learning Live’s hashtag is #learninglive
Step 1: Login to Twitter and in the search box type #learninglive and hit enter
You will now see a screen dedicated to the #learninglive hashtag
Let me explain what each tab means:
Top is the most shared tweets
Live is the chronological order of tweets, the most recent first
Accounts are the most active Twitter profiles using the #learninglive hashtag
Photos are the images shared on the #learninglive hashtag
Videos are the videos shared on the #learninglive hashtag
Step 2: Save your search
On the #learninglive screen you will see a tab that says ‘More options’. Click on that and then click on ‘Save this search’. You will then see the search when you click into the search box.
Step 3: Watch the event unfold
Now keep the Live tab open on the #learninglive page and watch as the tweets come in. If the page is not updating then refresh the browser tab (usually ctrl/command R). And don’t forget to favourite tweets you think are useful for you, your team, your peers or anyone else here in the community.
Step 4: Get involved
If you want to get involved, then simply reply to a tweet but make sure you include #learninglive in the tweet so others can see your participation. Or else, retweet those tweets you think deserve it!
If you are a more advanced Twitter user then consider using Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to add the #learninglive hashtag to a column.
Another useful tool for following hashtags is tchat.io - simply login using your Twitter profile and then follow the hashtag. Again, you can leave this running in a tab in your browser. Tweetchat.com also provides a similar service.
I hope this is useful and if you have any tips or questions on using Twitter to follow events without physically being there, then please do share them!
Replies
This is really useful, thank you - I attended the Learning Technologies exhibition last week, and was quite impressed that I actually used Twitter for the first time in this context - I tweeted my way through the 2 days! Some of the tips on here would have made the process easier though - I've never really 'got' Twitter before, I use Facebook and LinkedIn, so I will be trying to use it more often now.
Think I need an idiots guide to Twitter though!
:)
Hi Emma
Well done for using Twitter at Learning Technologies :) Was using Twitter useful? Amongst other things, I like seeing what links people share because they are generally very useful.