In addition to being a “webinar connoisseur” I stay on top of best practices and new industry developments by attending Twitter chats. A Twitter chat is a conversation on Twitter that is held on a certain day/time and contains a specific hashtag so that people can follow along. Word of mouth about the chat spreads when followers of the people attending the chats see the hashtag and join the conversation as well. If you see a chat that interests you, set up a Twitter search or use a program like TweetDeck, Seesmic, or WhatTheHashtag to follow along.

Many marketing, public relations, and social media industry leaders spend time each week participating in these chats. You can often find Beth Harte from Marketing Profs, Mack Collier from The Viral Garden, Sarah Evans from PRSarahEvans.com, Valeria Maltoni from Conversation Agent, and many others on Twitter chats. It’s an easy way to learn from your peers, experts in the field, and basically anyone who is interested about a certain topic.

My Top 12 Twitter Chats By Day

Here are the 12 Twitter chats that I try to attend as often as my schedule allows (all times Eastern). Please note that there are several that overlap on Tuesday and Wednesday night – you’ll either have to multi-task and view all of them at once or pick the topic that looks most interesting that evening.

Monday

8P-11P #JournChat (chat with public relations professionals, bloggers, journalists)

Tuesday

12N-1P #SocialMedia (social media for business) This chat is designated by a specific #SM?? hashtag – each week increments by 1 see HashtagSocialMedia for more details.
8P-9P #SMBiz (small business networking)
8P-9P #PR20Chat (the latest in public relations)
9P-10P #EventProfs (social media and events)

Wednesday

11A-12N #BrandChat (personal branding)
1P-2:30P #SMChat (social media and communities)
8P-9P #IMCChat (Integrated Marketing Communications conversations)
8P-9P #SmallBizChat (small business tips & advice, especially new small businesses)

Thursday

4P-5P #MrktChat (travel and tourism marketing – lots of ski resorts represented here)

Friday

12N-1P #KaizenBlog (using Kaizen techniques for continuous improvement in social media)

Saturday

Take a break – it’s the weekend for crying out loud! (If you’re really bored, you can review the chats that you multi-tasked on Wednesday night…)

Sunday

9-10P #BlogChat (how to make your blog better)

Do you attend any of these chats? Which ones do you find the most interesting? Do you know of a great Twitter chat that I have missed? I’m always looking for new conversations to join, so please leave a comment below and let me know!