I’ve been to 4 conferences in the last few weeks and at each one I have tweeted throughout.

Why is Twitter good for conferences?

1. your tweets from a conference can act as your conference notes – I am just reflecting on the conferences I’ve been to and I can read my tweets and those of others using a tool such as Twapperkeeper.
2. you can converse with other delegates whilst the conference is taking place – it’s a running commentary on proceedings
3. as the twitterati you can change the conference’s direction – at the Digital Engagement conference in London a couple of weeks back, Helen Milner changed her presentation because of feedback from Twitter
4. you can ‘attend’ the conference without physically being there:

   

5. it makes networking at conferences so much easier:

   

6. at the conference you can develop a community of practice who can go on to develop explored ideas further – these people may meet for the first time through the conference hashtag on Twitter
7. find new people to follow on Twitter by following the hashtag of a conference you’re interested in
8. promote your conference on Twitter before and after the event using a hashtag (info on choosing a good hashtag can be found here)
9. use Twitter to pose a question of the speaker – whether you are physically present or not!
10. Using Twitter at a conference means that you get a 3D experience. A question was posed at the European Congress on E-inclusion held in Brussels, I tweeted it 

    …and was answered by a librarian in England! I then shared this with the conference.

    I can’t recommend using Twitter at conferences enough! You just need to make sure you have a decent connection and to follow what others are saying I would recommend using Twitterfall, just type in the hashtag you want to follow. Twitterfall makes it really easy to retweet or follow or reply to people as well. You can also follow multiple hashtags – which was very useful at one I went to recently where two hashtags were being used!