#ChatGram is on Vacation… Sort of

So #ChatGram is officially on vacation… Sort of. 😉 

For the February 27th ChatGram, I decided to do a Facebook Live in the ChatGram Facebook Group instead of doing a Twitter chat. Before I go into full detail about why I chose to do the Live and what was discussed, let’s have quick run down for those who are going, “What the hell is ChatGram, and why is Ken actually writing a whole blog post about it?” 

ChatGram is a weekly Twitter chat I launched back in June 2017. Every Tuesday, there’s a topic about Instagram and  people are allowed to chime in with their ideas about the questions being asked. We also have guests on from time to time to get their input on the Instagram world. But ChatGram is more than a Twitter chat; it’s an open community, and with the aid of its Facebook Group, it gives everyone a chance to learn what’s happening on Instagram, ask questions, and give advice. 

Now that I have covered what ChatGram is, let’s get into what’s going on and why I did a Facebook Live. 

Ultimately, the Facebook Live served as a brain dump for me and let the ChatGram community know the problems I am facing and working on to take ChatGram to the next level. The main issue ChatGram is having is with Twitter itself. Many folks are having problems seeing some or all of the tweets during the chat, and this is extremely problematic. Those who aren’t seeing the tweets at all think ChatGram isn’t happening, so they have stopped showing up. Because of this, attendance over the past few months has been going down. I’ve tried different ways of posting the tweets, scheduling them in different tools, posting them live, and so on, but nothing seems to work. 

Another issue ChatGram is facing is with me, myself, and I. Hosting and running this every week is time consuming, and it’s difficult balancing the time it requires with the time I need to run and operate my business, WatsonKS. I knew going into this it would take a lot of time and energy to run ChatGram, but I couldn’t know how much until I started running it. Between finding topics, lining up guests, creating questions, getting the graphics set, creating all the tweets, and doing recaps afterward, I spend a great deal of my time with ChatGram. Rebecca Councill does an amazing job getting all the tweets together for the recaps, which is a major time saver for me each week, but I still have web work to do to get the recaps ready for publication. 

So, for the Live, I discussed all of this and a few other issues. The first active outcome from the Live is that I have decided to put ChatGram on vacation for March and April and aim for a relaunch in May. While ChatGram is on vacation, I will be hard at work examining if running it as a Twitter chat is the right format. Maybe I need to move ChatGram to a different platform like Live or something similar. I will be changing the frequency of the chat from weekly to either once or twice a month and also looking at how I can simplify the process. Then, if I do a format change, I will need to look at rebranding and getting all the graphics redone. There’s a lot work to do. Basically I am potentially redoing ChatGram from the ground up. 

Lastly, why did I say, “Sort of”? 

Well, if I am going to move to a Live format, I need to test tools, so there will be unofficial ChatGrams here and there during its vacation. Don’t worry, I’ll let y’all know when I’ll be doing a test and will keep y’all fully updated on the progress I am making with ChatGram during its vacation.

https://youtu.be/gk2gkGCaubM