How to Create a Twitter Wall for Events and Moderate It

A Twitter wall for events can bring in lively, engaging content-and moderating posts will help make sure things stay that way

Event planners are masters of multitasking. Whether they’re working behind the scenes on a small wedding, moderately-sized fundraising event, or running a tech conference for 200,000 attendees, they also always have their eyes and ears open for new ways to make their events even better.

In recent years, event planners everywhere have been paying attention to social media walls. A Twitter wall for events has grown from a fun, kitschy feature to a highly-requested, must-have service. These types of walls—which are screens featuring carefully curated, real-time social feeds—allow brands, marketers, consumers, and attendees to interact in new and fascinating ways.

Of course, social walls are also a lot of fun, too.

It’s the phrase “real-time social feeds,” though, that makes some event planners stop in their tracks. If event attendees can get their Twitter posts seen on the social wall just by using an event’s unique hashtag, how are you supposed to control the narrative when social users start to veer off-course?

Engage your attendees with a real-time, fully customizable social media wall. Start your social media wall today.

Why you need to moderate a Twitter wall for events (and the risks if you don’t!)

Moderating your live Twitter wall during an event ensures nothing slips through that shouldn’t. Imagine how embarrassing it would be if a well-respected philanthropist is accepting an award at your fundraiser while the social wall behind him shows a tweet from an attendee who’s upset you ran out of stuffed mushrooms.

Likewise, if there’s an attendee consistently spamming or trolling your event hashtag—or even posting questions that are entirely irrelevant to the purpose of your event—the ability to moderate can be invaluable.

If you have an unmonitored Twitter wall for events, you face the risks of:

• Ruining the experience for engaged attendees
• Offending or insulting guests
• One user potentially dominating a discussion
• Tarnishing a brand or sponsor’s reputation
• Changing the entire positive vibe of an event

The ability to moderate your social wall is a benefit, not a frustration or attempt to censor attendees.

Think about moderators during political debates. Or moderators who host conference sessions. They aren’t detriments to these events. On the contrary, they productively guide the discussions without censoring anyone.

Moderating the content of your social wall gives you and your team the ability to guide the discussion as well. You’re creating a memorable experience, and the Twitter wall should be curated as such.

Deciding what’s appropriate on your Twitter wall for events, large or small

It’s up to you and your clients to decide what kind of content is appropriate for your Twitter wall. “Appropriate” tends to take on different meanings, and it’s certainly going to vary between a church charity event and a rock star’s wedding reception. When moderating, though, there are certain things most people try to keep out of the feed:

• Profanity
• Discriminatory statements
• Irrelevant content

Depending on the type of event, it may be helpful to establish and provide guidelines up front so there’s no confusion when a post is removed. People love to revolt when they feel as if they’ve been wronged, but if you’re giving them the ground rules first, they know what to expect if they violate those guidelines.

Don’t delete angry or upset comments if they’re relevant and thoughtful, though. Address them. Your attendees want to be heard, and it’s a customer service opportunity to make them happy again.

Twitter wall moderation options during your live event

There are three main ways you can handle moderation when it comes to a Twitter wall for events.

1. Moderate on the spot

Just allow all posts to initially go through to the wall and delete any objectionable content as it publicly appears. This type of moderation is risky if your moderator gets distracted or has to leave his or her post for a while. With Everwall, you could add specific profanity filters, and keyword or user blocks to do an initial review, though.

2. Delay the live feed

Use your Twitter wall’s moderation feature (if available) so a human can read the post and look at pictures before they appear on the wall. Everwall’s moderation feature provides support for unlimited moderators, so you could have multiple people on your team managing the feed during your event.

3. Hand off the task to a team

If you and your team are going to be way too busy during an event, Everwall has moderators available 24/7 to handle moderation for you.

You can handle Twitter wall moderation all by yourself, but you certainly don’t have to. Whatever you choose to do, it’s essential to allow your attendees to speak freely and use your hashtag—but within reason. Event planners create memorable experiences, and a carefully curated social wall can play an integral role in an event’s success.