The Art of the Tweetup: NASA’s Success

The emerging popularity of the tweetup is even more evidence that old tried and true PR practices are giving way to new, social-media driven platforms for disseminating information.  Out is the press conference, in is the tweetup.

But some companies avoid holding tweetups because they are not sure how to go about doing it or they think the topics are too complex or obscure to be able to attract a large enough audience.  Not true.  Take NASA for example.  They cover some of the most complex topics in the universe, but as David Rosen explains, NASA has mastered the art of the tweetup.  He outlines some of the rules in his blog How to Launch an Effective Tweetup: Recent NASA Tweetup Offers Four Easy Lessons for PR.

1. Play by the culture’s rules. First, NASA called the event a “Tweetup,” not “100 Media Passes for Twitter Users.” That signaled the event was for us—the twitterers—not for NASA and not for anyone else. The event’s leaders were also Twitter users. If they hadn’t been using it, the room would have been filled with “us”—the twitterers—and “them”—the NASA PR people. Instead, the room was filled with “all of us twitter users, some of whom work for NASA and others who don’t.” Commonality is the bedrock of authentic communities and embracing this principle is a must for successful tweetups.

The selection process NASA used to “select” the participants was in line with the Twitterverse’s egalitarian culture: Simply letting the first 100 people who signed up for the event attend, no matter what they usually tweet about or the number of followers they have. Thousands wanted in, but no one could complain that NASA was trying to manipulate the crowd. NASA created an event that would appeal to a relatively narrow group of people. The crowd then selected itself, with the result being a pro-NASA event.

Finally, NASA’s presenters weren’t offended that the audience was looking at their iPhones most of the time. They knew that behavior signals payment of the ultimate compliment: “What you’re saying is so interesting that I want to share it with my community.” It’s when the crowd isn’t typing that you’ve got a problem.

2. Make your content strategy fit the medium. As one “tweep” (participant) put it during a session, “This presentation is boring. I’m here to talk to everyone else.” One of the hardest things to understand about tweetups is that most of the value comes from the tweeters themselves—not the presenters. But be careful: Value doesn’t mean the same thing as content. As an organizer, you need to feed a steady stream of content to the twitterers that they can dip into when they’re not talking to each other.

What kind of content? I’ll tell you one thing: I didn’t see a single press release. Heck, I write releases and would’ve gotten upset if someone handed me one. How could I quickly translate it into 140 characters? Or a 100-word blog post? Besides, like everyone else, I had my camera and video camera there to get visuals. NASA knew that and provided:

• Things to touch: At the first session, each table was given a mysterious piece of hardware and asked to guess what it was. “Good luck Googling it,” they said. My group got an oxidizer. I don’t know what that is, but I know it’s a piece of the shuttle and I touched it. It was cool and the guy next to me knew what it was and that was even cooler. We got to feel how a tile from a shuttle’s heat shield cracks like an eggshell. Message delivered: NASA’s work is incredibly complex, and safety and fragility are synonymous in space.
• Interesting people: Mike Massimino, the first astronaut to use Twitter in space, told a great story about how a launch feels. He shared it not as a formal address, but as if talking to friends. Later, engineers explained how gyroscopes work—and the engineers in the crowd loved it. Neither bit of content would have been considered “news” to reporters. But they were fascinating to us, and we disseminated the information to our networks with an intensity usually seen during emergencies.
• Many short presentations: This approach kept things moving and gave the diverse crowd a lot to chew on. Some of the info was funny, and funny travels fast and far through social networks. Pictures and videos were sent to us before and during the event in dribs and drabs. If it had been delivered in one package, the info would have felt stale. All the content was public domain, so no one was afraid of getting sued. Trivia, prizes, “special” access—each strategically meted out for maximum effect. If PR plans could be translated into music, then NASA was conducting a symphony.

3. Cultivate a community. The 100 people who attended the tweetup were a community, but didn’t know it until NASA brought us together. That matters because: 1.) NASA gets credit for giving us something valuable and 2.) NASA earned a spot within it. Not as its leader, but as a member.

The trust and goodwill dividends are much higher for the latter than the former. At certain points, NASA gave up control, for example, when one of the members took the podium to announce they’d brought Tastykakes from home for the tweeters who had said they were craving them but couldn’t get them in their own town. NASA also put up big screens that showed all the tweets about the event in real-time. It made people feel like a part of a community and revealed the “real” event. Group photos, the chance for everyone to sign a wheel of a shuttle, mission patches—each action was one the 100 strangers could do together, and represented another shared experience to build group identity.

4. Rock the logistics. If you have 100 twitterers in a room, the last thing you want is to starve them of the powerstrips, wifi and cell phone access they need to get their—and your—message out. Far from coming through your doors with just an iPhone, twitterers come loaded with laptops, photo and video cameras and multiple cell phones. One guy saw the event as an opportunity to try out a high-end microphone that’s used for concerts and comes with its own tripod. All that equipment needs to be charged and some of the plugs are big, blocking other outlets. Don’t inadvertently create a viral video when two podcasters get into a fight over plug rights.

You may not have a spaceship, but your company has a fan base. Maybe they’re customers who have relied on your product for decades and feel it belongs more to them than to you. Maybe they’re engineers who appreciate how hard it is to create new kinds of paint—or improve the flavor of Tastykakes. Maybe they’re investors fascinated with the countries where your company does business. They won’t think of themselves as fans until they’re in a room with like-minded people. They won’t think of themselves as members of a community until you bring them together. And you can’t be accepted as a part of that community—reaping all the sales, visibility, credibility and even free labor—until you get tweeting.

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