A complete guide of hosting a successful Twitter chat.

Using Twitter chat, you are able to grow your social following, generate valuable discussions and feedback and demonstrate the leader`s qualities. If you will perform everything right, your Twitter chat could become a huge base on building strong connections between other developers and companies.

However, you can`t just start a Twitter chat and complete everything in first few hours. There are some steps that should be completed on your way to success, and today we will discuss them.

1. Understand what you are working with

If you don`t know what is Twitter chat, don`t worry – we will give you an explanation. A Twitter chat is a public discussion on Twitter around current hashtag (topic). Twitter chats are led by a designated moderator (brand or individual), whose task is to ask questions and facilitate the discussion at a predetermined time.

On the global web, Twitter chats are similar to forum Q&As (on Reddit it is an Ask Me Anything session). It means that people who are involved in such chat are able to visit it in a current time, answer the questions and discuss some important topics.

2. Don`t miss the core elements

In Twitter chat, we distinguish six main elements that must be added to every Twitter chat:

• A hashtag. As we said before, hashtag gives us a strong topic or theme for discussion.
• A host. That would be you. Every Twitter chat must have a host who will perform all main actions (encouraging participation, starting the discussion, moderating the discussion and keeping it on track)
• A content. If you are starting a Twitter chat, you must have a specific topic for discussion. And, of course you should prepare good content for the chat to attract people and keep them on track.
• Questions and answers. This is the main thing in the chat. The host (you) asks questions or posts discussion topics, and participants post answers one after another. It`s easy to control and to take part.
• A set date and time. You can`t just start a Twitter chat any time you want. People can`t stay online 24\7, so you should choose a day and time (for example, from 12 a.m. to 2 p.m.) when your chat will be active.
• Well, you won`t run a Twitter chat for your own, so you should find people who will be interested in your topics.

Now it`s time to talk about main points of our guide.

Choose the best time to hold a Twitter chat

As we mentioned earlier, people can`t stay offline for the whole day as well as you can`t host a Twitter chat for the whole day. Here you should orientate on your audience (when people are online, how much time they spend visiting Twitter). When you will analyze these points, you will find the perfect timing to start a Twitter chat.

Make your own research

If you first Twitter chat wasn`t good enough, you shouldn’t give up. Ask yourself the right question: what went wrong? How many people took part in the chat? What questions were the most interesting for the audience? Then, when you find the answers, try to change the strategy – give other questions or choose topic from other sphere of life. Make something that will surprise audience.

Create your Twitter chat hashtag

With daily hashtag it will be much easier for users to find you in this social media. People will see that you have your own personal chat and, probably, will pay more attention to it.

Promote your Twitter chat

If you want to have a bigger audience, you should tell everyone about your chat. Make special posts in other social media, make screenshots of the chat to show how it looks like. Make something that will interest your potential chat participants.