Twitter chats: Everything you need to know to start today



Contributing Writer
Twitter Chat Photo: Radio Station Credit: Michal Zacharzewski


Twitter chats are a great way to met people, share, learn, and have fun!

The best thing is that there are hundreds to choose from and many are held weekly.  Participating is one thing, but holding your own is even better.  Read on to find out how.

What is a Twitter Chat?

A Twitter chat is a when a group of people get together at a pre-determined time and date to discuss a specific topic using their Twitter accounts and a special hashtag.  Twitter chats use hashtags at the end of each message to help in tracking and following the conversation thread.  For example the hashtag to use during LinkedInChat is #linkedinchat which you can put anywhere in your tweet.  This makes it easier to filter for messages pertaining to a specific chat.

How to Participate

You can follow along and contribute using your favorite Twitter client or use a web-based tool like I do.  My favorite Tweet chat client is Twebevent.com, which is free to use. Each chat occurs at a regularly scheduled date and time.  There is a host or moderator who leads the chat and determines the topic for that week.  When participating topic questions are posted, the format “Q1.”, “Q2.”, and so on is used.  You can share your answers by replying with “A1.”, A2.” and so forth.   Sometimes you are encouraged to ask your own questions when there is a special guest during a Twitter chat.

Great Twitter Chats to Join

My favorite Twitter chats tend to be focused on food and wine.  Here is my list of recommendations for you:

  • #Foodiechat – Kick off the week on Monday at 8pm Eastern Time.  Tons of foodies get together and talk about everything from hot dogs to truffles.
  • #Sommchat – Each Wednesday’s at 12 noon Eastern Time for chat about wine.  Not just for Sommeliers or those in training.  Special guests from the wine industry are accessible to you.
  • #Winechat – Held Wednesday’s at 9pm Eastern.  Representatives from wineries around the world join to answer your questions about their wines and growing regions.
  • #MartiniDivaParty – Cocktails anyone?  Start Thursday night right with your favorite beverage and chat about mixed drinks.  7pm Eastern time.
  • #Spicychat – Join us for dinner after your drinks and talk about great food and recipes.  8pm Eastern time.
  • #Vinochat – Full disclosure, I am the host of #Vinochat.  Join us weekly on Thursday’s at 9pm Eastern Time for lively chat about wines from the West Coast!

How to start your own

Why not start and host your own Twitter chat?  Choose your passion and pick a time and day.  Also decide if you should meet weekly, bi-weekly, or even monthly.  Double check this list to make sure your topic is not already covered on the same time and day of the week.  Set the date for your first chat session.  Leverage your Facebook friends and Twitter followers to let them know about your new chat.  Also mention your chat in other related chats, but ask the host first.

Now you are ready to participate or even host your very own twitter chat.  Did you know that there are over 700 Twitter chats today?  Check out this regularly updated Google Docs spreadsheet for more: Big List of 700+ Twitter Chats

Which Twitter chats will you attend?

Peter Trapasso

Peter Trapasso

Social Media consultant at PeterTrapasso.com

Peter is a self-taught social media and wine expert who owns http://PeterTrapasso.com, a social media marketing blog. As part of a 15+ year corporate career in technology he worked for Fortune 500 and startup companies. He is also one of the 75 most followed people on Twitter in San Francisco. And a Top 1% Kred Social Media VIP and Klout Influencer. As seen in Information Week, Yahoo! Small Business Advisor, Google News, Business2Community, and Social Media Today.

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@petertrapasso

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Peter Trapasso

Peter Trapasso

Peter Trapasso

  • http://twitter.com/ianmcleary Ian Cleary

    Hi Peter, I attended blogchat last week and that’s a great one also

  • http://twitter.com/Gazalla Gazalla Gaya

    I usually try to attend blogchat and love the interaction with members of the blogging community. Thank you for a great post and especially for providing a link to this comprehensive spreadsheet of chats that we can attend throughout the week.

  • http://www.adigaskell.org/blog Adi

    Interesting Peter. How do you feel they differ to a live blog or something like that, both from an organisers perspective and a users?

  • http://twitter.com/petertrapasso Peter Trapasso

    Thanks Adi. In a Twitter Chat everyone uses Twitter and specific hashtag like #vinochat when they tweet. Live blogging is similar except that participants post their conversations to a blog. Both are good ways to have a live conversation around a topic with many participants. Both can can have archived transcripts for reviewing later as well.

  • http://twitter.com/NubianOR Lidia M.

    I do enjoy chatting on Twitter. Love #winechat (btw first sentence should be ‘meet’ and not ‘met’) ;-)

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