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Missing An Important Conference? With Twitter You Can See It All For Free

There are some amazing conferences that happen all over the world in every industry. From the unveiling of the latest products to guest speakers that are the top of the top, it can be so disappointing when you can’t afford to attend yourself. Especially when you know there will be a lot going on there that can give you and edge over the competition.

This is the most common woe that I hear from others in my field: “Oh, I wanted to be there so badly, but just didn’t have the cash!” It is a sentiment I have echoed myself many times.

But the Internet has been a game changer, and social networking has expanded well beyond what we initially saw as its purpose. Twitter has become especially crucial in the sharing of information and connecting, with a number of tools to help keep up to date.

Many organizations and events alike have taken to tweeting about major events, and offering links and conversations about the goings-on of their conferences. Which is what makes it such a brilliant place to go to keep up without actually being there to witness it yourself.

Here are a couple of ways that you can be there without actually being there, and so get all of the benefits. Some of these could also be used by event planners to offer others the chance to check them out.

For The Followers

The Archivist

This is an excellent desktop application that has a huge selection of purposes and can be used regularly for anything. As the name suggests, it is an archiving tool that extracts information from within the Twitter database and organizes it in an easily read and understood Excel spreadsheet.

Possibly the best part about this is how it is set up to give you each username, the date of a tweet, the time it was posted and the status itself. You can also customize and filter everything to give you just what you want and need.

Twitter Toolbox

A simple update program, this runs as an extension for Firefox and Flock. It creates a portion of the sidebar that shows off the changes in your follow list, so you can check up on it whenever you like

It is broken down into three segments: those who you follow but don’t follow you back, mutual follows and communication, and those who have followed you but you have not yet friended.

What makes it different is that it has worked to exploit those differences between lists, so you can more clearly see and control Twitter updates and accounts. For example, with this tool you can make sure certain people don’t see what you tweet.

Twatter Keeper

Going through and finding old tweets can be difficult, especially as the constantly shifting social networking site doesn’t necessarily archive all information for public searches.

Twatter Keeper is one of several tools that have been created to fix this. All you do is use your Twitter account info through a login connection on the Twatter Keeper site. Then, you set up an archive using hashtags as a parameter.

This will allow the program to gather all tweets that use those hashtags as keywords, and put it all together into a single archive. Then, it permanently keeps it active for you to use or share with others.

TwitterLights

For the biggest events of the year, TwitterLights can help you keep up. What it does is creates various lists based on the most popular trending posts, topics, people and conferences. Then, it allows you to go through any list of interest to see updates and positions by popularity.

Depending on what event you are wanting to look for, the Music or Social Media lists are probably going to be your best bet.

BlastFollow!

BlastFollow is a fascinating little tool that works by searching out users rather than actual tweets. You put in the hashtag and hit the search button. This will bring up a full list of anyone who recently used that hashtag, so you can go through their profiles or set up an list of potential conference attendees.

This is both a great and a frustrating tool. Sometimes the information it provides is too broad, and so it is much better for networking than actual event following. But if you want to find others interested in or going to a conference, it is perfect.

For The Conference Planners

Visible Tweets

Just as important as followers keeping up with conferences is the holders keeping up with what their followers are saying about it, or what their own updates are. Visual Tweets takes these updates and makes them into full-size animations to display at your conference.

It is extremely easy to use. You just do a search via hashtag, which will allow you to create a revolving picture of updates related to your event.

Twitter Fountain

Another excellent display program, this one lets you search out hashtags or keywords and create a constantly shifting fountain of information via other people’s tweets. Anything related to your event will be posted, but in a way that is more stylized than most.

You choose the background image, color and method of movement. Then, you can put it up full screen on a projector to let those at your conference see what others are saying. This can also be displayed for followers online using their embed system.

Conclusion

Twitter is a smorgasbord of useful data and information. But it is also an amazing place to keep up with major events that are happening but you can’t attend yourself. These tools will help you to keep up to date, and also help event planners keep their followers up on what is going on.

Do you have any tools that you think are must have’s for this list? If so, be sure to let us know in the comments and provide a link to the download page.

Jessy is a social media geek, web enthusiast and blogger for Life Insurance Finder, the free web-based app to compare life insurance online.