Posts Tagged ‘social media’
Using Twitter for Trivia: A User’s Guide
Thursday, June 23rd, 2011
Since launching our official TrivWorks Twitter feed in 2009, we’ve utilized it for a variety of purposes: marketing upcoming free trivia nights, highlighting news items & achievements of fellow event professionals and live trivia hosts in New York City and beyond, as well as to promote the daily blog you are reading now. However, as a trivia company we also use it as a means of engaging with our audience on a daily basis by providing a steady stream of fun trivia questions for people to enjoy.
There are plenty of great daily trivia feeds on Twitter: @AnswersDotCom, @OMGFacts, our TrivWorks “Special Host” @PatKiernan and even @MasterCard come to mind. However, having tweeted trivia every single day for almost two years, I’ve learned a little something about how to ask realtime Twitter questions in order to maximize engagement with an online audience.
Below are some pointers to make your Twitter trivia feed shine as brightly as it possibly can:
1) Be Consistent – Like any other aspect of social media, consistency is key to maintaining an audience. If you’re going to tweet multiple questions a day, do so. If you’re like Pat Kiernan and tweet one question at the same time every day, keep to that schedule. Your following will reward consistency, but will abandon you quickly if you start deviating from your established pattern.
2) Use Appropriate Hashtags – In order to broaden your Twitter reach beyond your following, be sure to always use the #trivia hashtag, as well as appropriate hashtags for the content of the trivia- be it #movie, #tv, #popculture or #history, there’s an audience of trivia lovers out there just waiting for your awesome questions!
3) Mix It Up – Different people enjoy different types of trivia. While I’m tempted to ask lots of pop culture questions, I know that people also enjoy geography, current events, politics and a plethora of other topics. Keep things spicy by adding variety, and keep your followers on their toes.
4) Never Repeat Questions – If you have a broad and active following, they won’t like it if you ask the same question multiple times. Keep things fresh – there’s an entire world of trivia out there, so take advantage of it!
5) Include Different Media – I’ve found that people respond well not just to tweeted questions, but also to “Identify This” photo questions, with a shortened link to a photo of something. Also, music trivia is very well received – if the question is about a specific song, I often include a “spoiler” link to the answer, typically going directly to a song video on YouTube.
6) Offer Incentives for Responding – Give people a reason to respond, other than just setting their minds at ease with the knowledge that they got an answer right. I often tweet that the 1st to @ me with the correct answer wins a retweet to our followers- a nice incentive indeed! I sometimes spice it up by offering to RT the winner’s choice of trivia question, quote or link as a prize as well.
There are a bunch of other tricks I’ve discovered for maximizing engagement while tweeting, but these are the core tips to follow if you seek to reach your following with trivia questions. What other ways can you think of to make Twitter questions more fun and engaging?
Why Social Media Is Great for Trivia
Friday, April 29th, 2011
Today’s attention-shy world is so vastly different from the one we inhabited 15, 10 or even 5 years ago. Constant interruptions, rings, pings and buzzes from devices, desktops and even subway platforms make this planet – especially New York City – an incredibly difficult place to focus on any one activity for an extended period of time, and trivia has taken a serious hit.
In a show of hands, how many of you can remember the last time you played Trivial Pursuit? Or watched an entire episode of JEAPARDY? Or fired up “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego” on your computer? The fact is that we have more options now than ever before to spend our ever-limited amount of “leisure time,” and extended mental games of wisdom and memory are sadly no challenge to Angry Birds. It would seem, to the casual observer, that in the digital era, trivia is a lost cause.
Enter Web 2.0. The interactive Web has opened a new channel for trivia lovers, which I believe is keeping people’s interest and enthusiasm for the fun brain game alive and well. Whereas growing up we were beholden to a select few sources of trivia- namely, those found on cards printed by Hasbro or read out by Alex Trebec – today we have more sources of fresh, original trivia than ever before, highly relevant and extremely timely.
Facebook started this trend with their online “Quizzes,” but there are now many Facebook-based trivia games which are highly sought-after, and highly addictive (The Economist’s “Well-Red Quiz” of current events is a particularly popular one, played weekly by some 500,000 fans). Twitter has also been a boon for trivia, and a way for companies & individuals to extend their brands online in realtime with daily trivia: Answers.com, mental_floss magazine & MasterCard‘s feeds come to mind, as well as our own TrivWorks “Special Host” Pat Kiernan.
Our own TrivWorks Twitter feed has an extremely active following of trivia lovers who respond to our daily tweets- not because our trivia is so amazing (well, maybe) but because it’s THERE. And it’s there where people want it, namely on their mobile devices. We also encourage on our feed for our followers to send US trivia every day, and they respond in droves. Why? Because you don’t need to work at a trivia company to have great trivia questions! Correctly answering trivia questions feels awesome, but asking a perfect trivia question is even better- believe me, I know. The days of long-form trivia games may be waning, but people still love reading a few clever, relevant questions to break up their day.
Do you think that social media has helped or hurt trivia? Leave your response (and a good trivia question) here on my blog, or send it to us on Twitter.
7 Social Media Must-Reads for Corporate Event Planners & Producers
Thursday, April 7th, 2011
I’m a huge reader, basically anything I can get my hands on. When I first entered the social media world in 2009 by joining Facebook (a late entrant, yes) and then later by joining Twitter, I knew that having a firm grasp on social media was going to be crucial in my effort to build a trivia team building company from scratch.
Below are 7 books which proved invaluable to me, a true social media “newbie” who wanted to bring my company out into the world:
1) Trust Agents (Chris Brogan & Julien Smith) – One of the first social media books I read, and one I swear by. Avoiding technical tactics in favor of developing overall strategy, learn the invaluable skills you must develop in order to build trust online.
2) Crush It! (Gary Vaynerchuck) – The entrepreneurial mind and personality behind Internet blog sensation Wine Library TV offers unusually inspiring lessons in persistence, hustle, patience and follow-through using social media as a platform.
3) The Social Media Marketing Book (Dan Zarrella) – Very approachable, easy-to-read overview of the different social media platforms currently available, offering friendly guidance and direction.
4) The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web (Tamar Weinberg) – This is a more intense version of Zarrella’s social media book, going much further in-depth into each social media platform available. Great for in-depth tactics, as well as developing overall strategy.
5) Twitter Power 2.0 (Joel Comm) – For great pointers specifically on how to use Twitter for business & marketing purposes of your events.
6) Send (David Shipley & Will Scwalbe) – While not technically social media, this book co-written by a former New York Times Op-Ed editor is the authoritative guide on Email etiquette, usage and technique.
7) Search Engine Optimization All-In-One for Dummies (Bruce Clay & Susan Esparza) – Again, not exclusively a social media book, but every event planner with a Web and social media presence should have a basic understanding of SEO. This all-in-one bible provides an incredibly comprehensive overview of how to maximize your blog’s SEO potential.
What other great social media books are out there which you would recommend to corporate event professionals?
TrivWorks founder David Jacobson blogs daily on a wide range of topics relevant to corporate event entertainment, team building and live trivia. 
