BizSugar.com › Marketing › Extending Your Presentations Through the Backchannel :: Duct Tape Marketing

The term “backchannel” was coined in the field of Linguistics in the 1970’s to describe listeners’ behaviors during verbal communication. It is commonly used these days to describe the behavior or conversation going on in social media while a speaker is making a presentation. In some conferences the majority of the people listening may be actively Tweeting throughout a speech.

Like it or not, managing the backchannel has become a part of presenting, in person or online. I’ve certainly seen conferences overuse backchannel twitter streams and the like to the point where they overwhelm and distract rather than aid. There needs to be a balance and I don’t think making a Twitter stream a competing channel makes sense for anyone. Having said that, I think it can be used wisely as it allows people who can’t attend to share and extends the reach of your presentation far beyond the confounds of the local hotel ballroom.