Livestream + Twitter Hashtag = Great Way To Experience An Event

Image via CrunchBaseSocial Media Weekend: One Tweet At A Time: Saturday
Social Media Weekend: One Tweet At A Time: Sunday
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Social Media Weekend needed to livestream all its panels. It streamed the opening event Friday evening, and the panel on Arab democracy Saturday afternoon that I was able to watch.

This was a paid event. So why livestream? Why give it away for free?

Because it's good business. And it's a good cause. How much do you think a big name company will pay to become a trending topic on Twitter? Social Media Weekend (#smwknd) became a trending topic on Twitter New York during the Arab democracy panel. Livestream made that happen.

If this is an event you want to do year after year - and I would hope so - becoming a trending topic is the killer marketing technique. All those people who watch from afar make people who show up in person feel really, really important. There is this I-was-there feeling. I was not at some obscure event. I was at that even that you might have seen trending on Twitter. That sells tickets.

And it's just a good cause. Why create artificial scarcity? Webcast it, archive it. You bring together VIP panelists as you did, and those panelists are going to use those archived videos as part of their online resume, or what might pass for one these days.

An event attended by hundreds of people online is a big event. It is good to be a big event. Small is beautiful but big is good.

And experiencing an event through both Livestream and the Twitter hashtag is a multidimensional experience. Everyone who can tweet becomes a panelist. It is a rich experience.

And what about being able to ask questions over Twitter? I did that. Twice. One question went to the Arab democracy panel. Another went to the mobile social panel.

And later you embed some of the best tweets into blog posts and save them for posterity.

Social Media Weekend: One Tweet At A Time: Saturday
Image via CrunchBaseSocial Media Weekend: One Tweet At A Time: Sunday

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Mike Yavonditte: An Hour Of Video

Okay so it is not an hour of Mike. When you have Jason Calacanis doing the interviewing, the guy feels like he is half the guest himself, and so this is 30 minutes of Jason and 30 minutes of Mike. But it's a good interview. Jason being an entrepreneur himself has really been able to bring out the story from Mike. It was an hour well spent for me.

Michael Yavonditte: An Exemplary Entrepreneur/Investor
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