Setting up a Twitter wall is a breeze. Often, all it takes is choosing a suitable tool, entering the event's hashtag, and projecting the results onto a wall using a projector.
There is a wide variety of tools available. Whether you prefer a minimalist or a more elaborate design is up to you. It’s best to test which tool suits your needs beforehand. Blogger Eric Stoller has put together a short list of Twitter wall tools to help you get started.
Once the wall is set up, everyone is encouraged to join the conference discussion.
Physical distance no longer matters. Even those not on-site can jump into the action from afar.
Valuable additional information, practical tips, or inspiration—you’ll usually find plenty of these on the wall throughout a conference.
But what happens when laughter suddenly breaks out in the middle of a presentation because a funny tweet appears, or when spam accounts hijack the hashtag and drown out relevant comments? The latter, in particular, is unfortunately not uncommon.
In such cases, it is nearly impossible for the speaker to regain the audience's attention. Social researcher danah boyd reports on such an incident in her blog. Her presentation ended in a personal disaster because she couldn't interpret the audience's reactions to a Twitter wall she couldn't see herself.
To prevent such scenarios at your conference, we would like to offer you a few tips for the successful use of Twitter walls:
1. Moderate your Twitter wall.
A moderated wall gives you full control over which tweets are published.
Tweets that don't contribute to the discussion are filtered out and do not appear on the wall. Using the appropriate features, the moderator can either select tweets to be excluded or explicitly choose which tweets will be displayed.
⚠️Note: Free tools often do not offer a moderation feature. Be sure to test this beforehand!
A moderated Twitter wall not only looks tidier, but it also fulfills its actual purpose for conference attendees much better: making an event more vibrant through additional contributions and allowing the audience to engage actively.
2. Communicate clear guidelines to all participants.
Before the conference, establish some rules for communication via the Twitter wall.
Emphasize that you value a respectful tone. Offensive, discriminatory, or non-constructive tweets will not be published. The same should apply to tweets intended to use the Twitter wall as advertising space.
💻Share these guidelines with everyone, for example on your conference website.
The official hashtag for your conference should also be found there.
3. Ensure the Twitter wall is visible to everyone.
If there is only one wall on the podium behind the speakers or panelists, it will struggle to serve its purpose. No one wants to have to keep turning around during their presentation to see if new tweets have arrived that need to be addressed.
🖥️It is therefore more effective to set up additional screens on stage to make it easier for speakers to follow the tweets. Alternatively, consider placing the wall on a side wall.
4. Use the wall sparingly.
Using a Twitter wall always carries the risk that the audience will focus more on the tweets than on the actual presentation.
If the wall is placed in a prominent position in the room, the audience's eyes will naturally keep drifting toward it. There is also a high probability that the audience will become overwhelmed, as they are expected to follow the action on stage, monitor incoming tweets, and tweet themselves all at the same time.
Since speakers giving individual presentations usually prepare their talks very thoroughly, it would be a shame if the Twitter wall became the center of attention instead. Therefore, it is advisable to forgo a wall during individual presentations and, at most, use it for questions at the end.
In contrast, during panel discussions and workshops, tweets often provide useful real-time input throughout the entire event, which is why setting up a wall is particularly worthwhile here.
ℹ️In any case, be sure to inform the people on stage in advance that there will be a Twitter wall so they can prepare for it.
Furthermore, a Twitter wall is recommended as a decorative element for the foyer or lounge area. Moderating the tweets is not strictly necessary in these spaces.
5. Create a social wall.
Perhaps not everyone attending your conference has a Twitter account. And perhaps opinions about your conference can be found on platforms other than Twitter. It might be worth considering combining them.
Make room on the wall for those without Twitter, too. Many tools allow you to link to other platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, or Flickr.
📱Again, the same applies: find out in advance what the individual tools offer and consider which networks your conference participants are active on.
