Twitter and General Conference

I have been using Twitter for over a year now, but last October was the first time I had experienced general conference on Twitter. I used the mashup that Aaron Barker created and was able to view the video while watching the tweets roll past. It seemed that there were about 100 people that were sharing quotes that stood out to them, as well as their comments. Several people made the comment that this was a great way to enjoy conference, as they felt part of a larger community.

Although I enjoyed being a part of this new social media revolution, I must be honest and say that I felt somewhat distracted throughout the 2 days of conference last October. It was hard for me to focus on the talks when I was also trying to read all the tweets that were scrolling by.

This conference I decided that I wouldn't use Twitter during the sessions so that I could remain focused on the speakers and their messages. I did, however, use Tweetdeck and set it to filter any tweet with #ldsconf in it. Then, in between sessions or after the conclusion of the conference on Saturday and Sunday I went back and caught up on the tweets. I was quite impressed with the number of people using Twitter and how large the online community had grown.

As of 8:45 p.m. on Sunday, there had been 806 people that had posted over 2000 tweets in 2 days.


With that many people participating in an online discussion about conference, #ldsconf was consistently trending as the top topic on Twitter.




Conference was not just popular on Twitter. Larry Richman has posted stats on his blog about the popularity of lds.org and conference on google as of Saturday afternoon around 1:30 p.m.

As I read through the tweets from conference I saw five things that impressed me.

1. Because of the popularity of the #ldsconf tag, many people that weren't members of the Church didn't know what it was and would tweet and ask for more information. This provided members with a great opportunity to share the gospel via Twitter. I was quite impressed with the quality of responses that were given. Almost every time, the person responding to the question provided a link of some sort so that the individual could learn more about the gospel.





2. Those that were using Twitter communicated about how grateful they were for this online community. Many commented on how they felt part of a larger community of saints.






3. Many people were using twitter to share quotes that touched them from Conference. There were also several individuals that mentioned they were using twitter to take notes. Because so many people were sharing quotes that stood out to them or their thoughts on a particular talk, anyone that missed part of a talk or session were able to receive some insights into what they had missed.









4. By using Twitter, many people conveyed that they felt more engaged in conference and listened more closely than they normally would have.




5. Within minutes of archived content being made available on lds.org, people were tweeting about it to let the larger community know it was up and where to find it. They also communicated when additional content would be available.




It is also interesting to note that many people commented that they couldn't wait for the talks to be made available via mp3, video, podcast, text, or in the Church magazines. Everyone was looking forward to listening, watching, or reading the messages again to study them more in depth and to continue to learn from the Lords servants.

Because of the overwhelming positive experience many had using Twitter during conference, there is already a facebook group for those that followed #ldsconf, a site dedicated to the tweets from conference, and a tweetmap.

As President Monson mentioned today, the internet can be used for both good and bad. I think that the use of Twitter this weekend is an example of using the internet for good. It was evident, though, that there were several people that were trying to bring the bad into the LDS community as #ldsconf was trending as the #1 topic. There were a handful of inappropriate tweets that would be tagged with #ldsconf and would be in the stream of conference tweets. Most of the LDS tweeters would disregard and ignore these tweets so that they wouldn't encourage those that were submitting them.

Twitter has been a great addition to conference for hundreds of individuals all over the world. It is exciting to read how much the online community has meant to them and to read specific instances of how their testimonies have been strengthened. As with many other things, including blogging, email, rss feeds, podcasts, and facebook, each person needs to discover for themselves the best way to use Twitter so that it enriches their experience and doesn't prove to be a distraction. For me, it was using it in between sessions. For others, it was using it throughout the entire conference. Either way, most people who used Twitter during conference this weekend will agree that it is great to live in these days when technology can help to share the gospel message and bring saints together from all over the world.