Brands that live tweet dur­ing big TV events enjoy high­er con­sumer engage­ment. And, in order to ful­ly cap­i­tal­ize upon the oppor­tu­ni­ty, experts say brands should, in part, plan ahead, enhance the con­tent and review their efforts after­ward.

With dis­tract­ed view­ing on the rise, live TV events with large audi­ences present an oppor­tu­ni­ty for brands to cap­i­tal­ize upon hash­tags, nab con­sumer eye­balls and con­nect with poten­tial cus­tomers as they check their Twit­ter feeds on var­i­ous devices dur­ing pro­gram­ming.

In fact, Ad Age com­piled a list of brands that par­tic­i­pat­ed in NBC’s live Peter Pan broad­cast and found brands as diverse as DiGiorno Piz­za, Charmin, Ritz, Sut­ter Home Wines and Wal­mart chimed in.

And there’s good rea­son.

Accord­ing to Twit­ter, live tweet­ing increas­es fol­low­er growth and retweets. To wit: among MLB teams, Twit­ter says its research has shown live-tweet­ing boosts fol­low­er growth 1.6 times and retweets 1.9 times.

So what do brands need to know about live tweet­ing before the next big TV event? Here’s what the experts say:

1. Pre-Promote

Twit­ter rec­om­mends spread­ing the word in the days lead­ing up to an event to ensure the biggest pos­si­ble audi­ence.

In addi­tion to ben­e­fit­ing from pro­mo­tion, Kristin Kovn­er, pres­i­dent of K‑Squared Strate­gies, said it will also oth­er­wise be strange for con­sumers to see a sud­den influx of tweets from a giv­en brand.

“Give users the heads up so that they can choose to fol­low along with you — and your hash­tag — or come back lat­er. It will also help make sense of your feed, for users who scroll through at a lat­er time,” Kovn­er said.

2. Enrich The Conversation

“Brands should con­cen­trate on enhanc­ing the event by adding some­thing use­ful to the online con­ver­sa­tion, be it humor or help­ful infor­ma­tion,” said Tes­sa Wegert, com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor at dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing agency Enlight­en. “Mar­keters should always ask them­selves if what they’re tweet­ing is on-brand to avoid get­ting caught up in the excite­ment of the moment.”

Kovn­er agrees brands shouldn’t just tweet what hap­pened, but add their own gloss and brand voice.

“Pull the most salient quotes, stats, or sound bytes from any event,” Koven­er said. “Add your opin­ion on what’s tran­spir­ing.”

3. Do A Little Heavy-Lifting Ahead Of Time

Depend­ing on the nature of the event, Wegert says craft­ing some brand-approved tweets in advance is one way to alle­vi­ate pres­sure and save time dur­ing a live TV event.

4. Include Pictures, Videos Where Possible

Twit­ter also notes that pic­tures and videos add col­or and tex­ture. In addi­tion, tweets with media typ­i­cal­ly get more retweets and favorites.

5. Reward Consumer Participation

This can include a brand ref­er­enc­ing users who are fol­low­ing along and chim­ing into the con­ver­sa­tion in tweets, as well as respond­ing to com­ments and ques­tions, Kovn­er said.

6. Tweet When The Spirit Moves You

There’s no set for­mu­la for how many tweets to send while live-tweet­ing, Twit­ter says. In oth­er words, when a brand feels moved to tweet, it should go for it.

7. Remember That Any Event Is Game

Any event that stirs up antic­i­pa­tion is a prime can­di­date for live-tweet­ing, espe­cial­ly events with mul­ti­ple moments of sus­pense — speech­es, awards cer­e­monies, sport­ing events, or hot TV shows, Kovn­er added.

8. Analyze Results After The Event

For live in-per­son events, Hub­spot rec­om­mends mak­ing sure to ana­lyze which tweets got the most favorites and retweets after the event so the brand can improve next time around.