Don’t get me wrong, attending and participating in actual events is a great way (arguably, the best) to stay up to date on all your industry happenings;  however, if you find yourself without the time to fly across the country or if you’re cash-strapped, there’s no shame in following the event Twitter hashtag to gain some high-level insights and tips.

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to follow the Twitter hashtag for the PR News show #Big3PR – a one day affair on all things Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. I watched the tweet stream for just a couple of hours and was able to glean some incredibly useful stats and insights from PR gurus and reporters like @jswartz (USA Today), @wtneary (Comcast),  @sallyfalkow, @jonbird_video (American Airlines), @mariapoveromo (Adobe), @spokalou, @krisleighh, @dallaslawrence (Mashable), @callanpaola (Sony), @oldnavy, @crocs, @ramseydiver, and of course @PRNews.

Here are my TOP 15 TIPS & STATS from the show (in no particular order):

1. Pinterest is driving 2x as much traffic for Sony compared to Twitter via @callanpaola

2. Twitter is the most useful wire service I have ever seen via @jswartz

3.  Pinterest: Use hashtags in the description…hashtags aren’t just for Twitter via @crocs

4. Don’t just pin about your products. Pin about the lifestyles of your customers via @crocs

5. 3 ways to do paid advertising on Twitter: promoted tweets, promoted accounts, promoted trends via @spokalou

6. 70 percent of #big3pr attendees think Twitter DMs to thank new followers are like spam via @PRNews

7.  Don’t want reluctant exec on Twitter. Can lead horse to water but can’t make it check into 4square via @wtneary

8.  Take advantage of Facebook feature COVER PHOTO – It’s big… Capture the feeling of your brand! Puppies sell! via @oldnavy

9. 400 million tweets a day, 70% outside of the U.S. via @dallaslawrence

10.  Facebook: Only 5% of ppl who liked your page come back, only 16% of fans see updates. Use promoted posts via @sallyfalkow

11. Twitter is the single greatest crisis tool in communications @dallaslawrence

12. In response to me being on the fence for Facebook for B2B: “Yes all co have a variety of audience. You have to map the social graph via @sallyfalkow

13. Can you pitch reporters on Twitter? If you just tweet your press release with an @mention forget about it. Have personality via @PRNews

14. We need to stop measuring impressions and start measuring expressions via @dallaslawrence

15. Here’s a term we haven’t used in years: beat calls. Twitter replaces beat calls for reporters to find stories via @ramseydiver

BIG THANKS to @PRNews, to all the great speakers, and to all the social media mavens out there that allowed me to follow along. 🙂

RT @jennymoebius: What I Learned from #Big3PR: bit.ly/MHf1Ui / thanks, appreciate the sumary & and the mention

— Walter Neary (@wtneary) August 13, 2012