When Audiences Twitter

On occasion I’ve seen audiences “titter” at the expense of speaker, leader, or trainer.  Now audiences have moved on to “twittering.”  

Twitter is a social networking tool that allows people to send quick real-time updates to their “followers.”  As one blogger put it, it’s like having several simultaneous spontaneous conversations online.

I’m not a twitterer myself, but I’ve recently realized that anytime any of us speak to an audience, there is a good chance that some of the participants are using their blackberries and cell phones to tweet to one another.

Blogger Besty Harman wrote, “I’m really looking forward to using it (Twitter) at the upcoming conference because that way I can read tweets from people who are in the same sessions I’m in or in sessions I’m missing at the moment or I can hear about where everyone is meeting after sessions for some great New Orleans food and drinks.”

Whoa!  I don’t know about you, but the realization that there are active “conversations” going on while I present makes me realize that we are going to have to adapt to this new technology.  One the one hand, I can see Twitter being a helpful tool that we could potentially use to gauge engagement real-time.  On the other, it can be a bit terrifying to know that one naysayer can distract the whole audience without us ever realizing what is going on.  Or worse, twittering could lead to audience mutiny - as happened at the South by Southwest conference during Facebook CEO’s Mark Zuckerberg program. 

I’d love to hear your experiences with how twittering impacts audience engagement.