How do Twitter Parties work?

You may have seen a posting for a twitter party to win something neat and though, what is a twitter party. Don’t worry you’re not alone. It wasn’t very long ago that I was firing up the ole Google to figure out just what the heck a twitter party was myself. I have now attended a few and feel that I can explain what they are, how they work, and point out some websites that may help you with your party needs.

What is a twitter party? 
A twitter party is a set period of time where you will be tweeting about a certain topic to win prizes. In any twitter party invitation there will be a hashtag specified to follow. It’s written like this #crazydeals. Now if I were hosting one that may be the hashtag to use. It makes the item you’re talking about “trend” and gets more views.

Do I have to get a twitter account?
Yes. Sign up for an account if you don’t have one. If you do have one, then just sign in. This page has a twitter account you can follow if you want – @Crazyforadeal or click here
http://twitter.com/#!/Crazyforadeal. You need to follow the host of the party to see what the instuctions are.

It’s a good idea to know what the symbols mean.
Click to learn what Twitter Terminology means. The like is a twitter page where you can sort based on letter or symbol to see what things mean on twitter. Seriously, a good idea to look around there to know what some of these things mean.

How do I attend?
There’s a few ways to attend a party:
You can do a hashtag search (#something) and refresh often to see what new tweets are out there.

You can sign up with http://tweetchat.com/. It’s a great first party resource. In fact, so far that’s the only way I’ve attended parties. You register and put your hashtag that you want to follow in and whenever you tweet in that room it will automatically append that hashtag into your tweet. That way you don’t have to remember to do it. Check out this screenshot of tweetchat. See the # at the top. Put whatever you want to follow in there and hit “go” and it will take you to a room where it auto-updates with those tweets.

Other programs you can use to attend:  Tweetdeck, Tweetgrid, or Twubs. I bet there’s even more, but really I strongly suggest you at least START with tweetchat.

Here’s an example:
Suppose I’m hosting a twitter party to promote a giveaway I’m hosting. You will need to know the host (@crazyforadeal) and be following them and know the hashtag #Crazydeals and be looking for it.

I send over a tweet: @Crazyforadeal writes – Q1 – tell me your favorite coupon resource and the 20th comment will win prize “A” #Crazydeals
You reply: @YourtwitterID writes – @Crazyforadeal Q1 – I love coupons.com!! #Crazydeals
Then I would go back through the timeline and count to see who had the 20th reply.
I would send a tweet: @Crazyforadeal writes – Congratulations @YourtwitterID won prize “A” please DM me your info for your prize! #Crazydeals
You would then need to go over to twitter and send a direct message to me with your name and email address on it. If you can’t do that then be sure to send me a tweet that says I’m not following you and I need to be for you to send a DM. You’d need to go to your ID and just write a tweet to me like this – @YourtwitterID writes – @Crazyforadeal please follow me so that I can DM you my info for prize A. Thank you!!
Never hurts to thank someone, LOL.

For a party the update speed is everything, but you do NOT have to read each tweet. Be sure that you’re following the host of the party though. That’s it, well it goes by quickly because it’s pretty high intensity. Attend one that you’re not just dying to win to get a feel for the pace, how the winning works, etc.

Winning
If you win If you are chosen as a winner you have to be following the host and the host has to be following you in order for you both to DM (Direct Message) each other on the site. You’ll have to send your contact info to the host. Just send name, email, address. Don’t ever give out your super personal info to someone on twitter. Seriously, they don’t need your social security number at this point in time. If you have to fill out a form for a win over $600 you can do that later after you’re sure of who you’re dealing with. So just send the basics over to get things started.

That’s it! Good luck and if you attend one let us know if you win anything and what you thought about it. If you think I need to add more to this article please let me know that too.