The live-tweeting mobile journalist

Live-tweeting an event is like stating the obvious, caffeinated, to your best friend, while ziplining. It’s personal. It’s fast.

I did my first “social broadcast” live from a 1300-person event, and let me tell you, it’s a blast. You’re the news director, editor, on-air talent & film crew all rolled into one. You’re trying to tell the story as it happens with as much media as possible. A little too much media, it turned out. Here’s the scene:

That’s not exaggerated, either. I literally shot HD video with one hand while taking photos, uploading them and tweeting about it with my other hand. The dSLR was for can’t-miss Kodak moments, to be exploited later.

My plan for amping the day online included an early morning Facebook fan page post letting people know we’d be reporting live, photojournalizing and microblogging during the event on Twitter, and polishing off the day on Facebook with a big thank you & full photo gallery. That’s how it went down, too, with a bit of feedback on Twitter and many Facebook likes.

I did a few things I wish I didn’t, though, and here they are to make it easier on you when you try this.

Live-tweeting an event: what not to do

Don’t overmediate. Trying to capture video and photos at the same time will result in you missing one (usually the one you really want) in your live coverage. Be the “I need this now” guy and delegate a videographer or photgrapher to the “we’ll need this later” content.

Don’t tweet images constantly. Not because this is boring—au contraire, it made people say our event looked “awesome”—but because your mobile battery will self destruct. I was fully charged when we started and almost dead halfway through the event.

I switched to text tweets at that point, but should have interspersed text and photo from the beginning. Alternatively, have access to a second phone or invest in a solar charger (from the future).

Let your network know ahead of time. I told the event’s network we’d be broadcasting, but not my personal peoples. They probably don’t follow me at work, but might have, to see the event go down live. I actually wanted to do this on the spot, but the pace was so frantic that I couldn’t get a tweet out.

Dress for success. It was frickin’ freezing, and I was loaned a fabulous down vest with many a pocket. This allowed me to stash up to two cameras at once while operating the third. While I’m torn on facilitating overmediation with such a garment, storage space did allow capture of some video gold.

I bet you thought I’d mention heels at this point. Well, I carried off the day in dreggings (that’s dress-pant-leggings, unfashionistas, and they inconveniently sported no ass pockets) and a mid-heel boot, and was too busy to complain. My feet hurt now though, and I wish I wore jeans.

Power up. I skipped breakfast and ended up eating a donut, seriously jeopardized the fit of my dreggings. I also regret not bringing portable coffee.

Live-tweeting your next event: go for it!

If you’re super engaged in the total funness of throwing an event, your audience is going to respond.

If you have a hard time explaining what it is your organization does, this breaks it down and gets people involved.

You’ll learn how to tell a story.

You’ll get some great stuff, some intense, in-the-moment, brand expression stuff.

Your fans will feel like they’re at the event with you, and like you care enough to take them there.

You’ll feel the rush and crave MORE!