I will admit to being a hesitant Twitter participant. I find it difficult to balance human interaction with a real life play-by-play broadcast from a computer or smart phone. However, I do believe that Twitter’s reach is undeniable and can be a viable PR tool for any business or organization with the right approach. Here are a few tips to utilize tweets to promote and effectively cover a professional event while not taking away from the actual experience:

1. Set a #hashtag ahead of time. Include the hashtag on event invitations and pre-event tweets. This will encourage pre-event networking and possibly avoid some of the i-don’t-know-anyone-so-i’m-going-to-keep-my-face-in-my-phone-like-a-good-little-tweeter behavior. Twitter is great for making people feel like they know each other and feel confident in striking up a conversation ‘IRL’ (that's "in real life" for those catching up on twitterms).

2. Follow the event run of show to determine how often to tweet. Event highlights should be covered but not be so frequent that they lose value. Set the scene, keep it useful, and state key takeaways.

3. Remember to keep updates from the official twitter handle well under 140 characters so that they can easily be retweeted. If attendees can RT without lots of editing, shortening, and reworking, they will be able to spend more time focused on the content and the people in the room. An easy formula to determine your ideal post length is to take: 140 characters - RT - @ - yourtwitterhandle = # of characters for updates.

4. Use a twitter mobile app. Apps like Hootsuite, Twitter for iPhone, Tweetdeck and the like make interesting and personal updates easier. Monica @M320_Consulting is an event tweeting pro and tells us, “Most mobile apps for Twitter allow for attaching pictures to tweets. It's always great to provide a visual for your followers by tweeting with a picture.”

5. Provide event materials for access later. Use tools like YouTube, SlideShare and your own website (of course) to post event materials like videos, presentations, and podcasts. This way, users can review anything they may have missed and continue to spread the word about the awesome content provided.

6. Use Twitter for the Q&A portion of your event. Let attendees know that the speaker(s) will take questions at the end and that they can tweet their question by composing an @ reply to the official twitter handle. Utilize a team member to monitor these questions during the event and line up the most relevant questions to be addressed at the end.

Following these tips will help you successfully promote your events on Twitter without causing you to miss the real life action. What else would you add that has worked for an event?