I’ve never seen anything like it before on Twitter. It was not an event or a new item, just a question that PR expert Sarah Evans (@PRsarahevans) asked on Twitter. The meat of the trend lasted for about 3 hours and had PR folks, bloggers, news channel reporters, and other journalists lighting up the board with #journchat tweets on Twitter.
Sarah was able to encourage the conversation snowball effect by:
- Stating a clear question to her fan base (over 4,000 followers)
- Setting up a hashtag (#journchat), being consistent in its use, and asking others to use it
- Responding to questions,encouraging more questions, and re-tweeting responses
- Not engaging with people who were ready to dismiss the topic
- Encouraging people to follow the tag via Twitter Search and to start following each other
Key takeaways from this conversation event is that you need to find your own conversation point, stick to it and ask others to contribute and grow the discussion.
As a result of the massive communication/expertise exchange, the plan is to have another similar discussion next Monday 7PM-11PM Central.
This is one of Sarah’s first #journchat tweets of the afternoon.
“HI JOURNALISTS. What’s the best way to initiate dialogue with you (assuming there is NO pitch) Tag #journchat (Send reply to @PRsarahevans)” (View Tweet)
View of #journchat trending on Twitscoop at 10:15PM PST.
