Information visualization of Twitter data for co-organizing conferences

The aim of this research is to explore what kinds of insights information visualization of social media data can provide for co-organizing conferences. Our paper focuses on Twitter in ‘during-conference’ use. We present a case study based on CMAD2013 conference and on the tweet traffic during the conference day. We applied the process of data-driven visual network analysis for providing insights on Twitter use during CMAD2013 conference day. By analyzing the network of conference participants and the conference’s discussion topics, we were able to identify e.g. influential conference delegates, most interesting presentations and discussions, similarities between interests of the conference participants, and several development and information needs of conference co-organization derived from the information visualizations, which have implications for the planning and co-organizing of conferences, as well as for Twitter use in communicating during conferences.