How to Throw a Great Twitter Chat

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It’s a webinar in 140 character headlines. It’s a speech given in silent sound bites. It’s short attention span theater.

And you’re going to learn a lot.

We call it a Twitter Chat. Since we have only 140 characters, I would call it a Chitter or Chitt or a Twittat or TwiCh. I’m sure there are some more creative abbreviations.

Here are the steps AWeber went through that will make our August 6 Twitter Chat a success.

How to Throw a Great TwiCh

Step one: Some Experienced Guests

A great Twitter Chat involves getting several very bright people together for an hour or so fielding 140 character questions with 140 character answers.

It’s like a conference panel, but no one can steal the mike. No blustering. No raising your hand to ask a question. Everyone has to be very concise and to the point.

Why aren’t all conference panels like this?

Step two: A very important topic and a unique hash tag

I can’t think of a topic more pressing, more critical to the economy, and more likely to scare the natives than conversion optimization, but you might choose something else for your audience.

Hashtag selection is a combination art and science. You want something unique, short and full of your most important keywords.

If you have a TLA (three letter acronym) as a keyword, that can be helpful. I might use #CROTwiCh for Conversion Rate Optimization Twitter Chat. #LPChitt is another abbreviation for Landing Page Twitter Chat.

I hope people don’t think I’m full of chitt.

The folks at AWeber did a smart thing. They branded the event as part of a series they call “The AWeber Hour” by using the hashtag #AWeberHour. It’s short, it has their brand in it, and it implies an hour-long event. Brilliant.

Step three: YOU

Once all of these things are in place, all we need to do is decide on a date and time that you can join the 140-character fun. If you’re a data geek like us, you know exactly when people are sharing on social media.

Here is the graph of social media clicks by hour provided by our fabulous URL shortening service, Captix.

Hourly_Clicks_March_April_May_2014_Conversion_Sciences

For us, mid-day will be the right time for a TwiCh. You can create a Google Analytics’ report to tell you as well.

Come and See

Me and four very smart people will be Chitting about Capturing More Leads Using Email and Landing Pages.

I’ll be Twiching with Oli Gardner of Unbounce, Justine Jordan of Litmus, Justin Rondeau of Which Test Won, and Hunter Boyle of AWeber.

I’m not chitting you! All of them in one place.

Join us on August 6 at 2pm ET, 1pm CT for an #AWeberHour TwiCh and join the fun.

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When Landing Pages Break Promises [Updated]

This is a tale of two companies who can’t afford to blacken their reputation any more than they already have.

It is the story of one letter, one landing page and a broken promise.

Experian doesn’t have many friends in the public domain. Their main job is to prevent people from getting homes, cars and frozen pizzas. Their second job is to make it hard for victims of identity theft to redeem themselves.

Adobe is a company who gave 2.9 million of their customers’ account information to thieves.

I love my Adobe software, so I was philosophical about the security breach. I got a nice letter saying that they’d hired Experian to make sure I didn’t fall victim to identity fraud.

The letter gave no hint of irony.

“You have until February 28, 2014 to activate this complimentary credit monitoring membership by using the following activation code: XXXXXXXX. This code is unique for your use and may not be shared. To enroll, please visit http://www.protectmyid.com/adobe, or call …”

I visited the link in the letter: http://protectmyid.com/adobe

The letter made a clear promise and this link contains a promise by including the word “adobe” in it.

The link sent me here:

image

No blank for an activation code.

No mention of Adobe on the page.

A broken promise.

I took the time to try to sign up. They wouldn’t take my activation code.

The best brand experience is giving visitors what they expect. These companies are pissing on the people they have already let down.

How many times are your ads making promises that your landing pages are breaking?

UPDATE

The landing page has changed. Now THIS is a promise kept:

This is a landing page that keeps Adobe's promise. But, who's the woman?

This is a landing page that keeps Adobe’s promise. My only criticism of this page is the use of business porn.

Now, where did I put that letter?

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