NBC17 News engages audience with Twitter
Twitter on NBC17
In what may be a TV station's first, NBC17 is using Twitter to gather feedback from the local community in the greater Raleigh, NC area. I was fortunate enough to be included in this experiment, although I was unaware how my tweets were going to be used.
@MyNC, mync.com's twitter presence, asked about pay as you go (PAYG) cellphone plans. Some of @MyNC's Twitter followers responded with their experiences and suggestions. The responses were not just casually included in their report, but specifically called out and highlighted on the air.
All in all, this is a bigger deal than it may seem at first. TV stations are realizing that embracing the near instantaneous interactivity that social media users are enjoying is an important step in preventing their own irrelevancy. By targeting the younger always-online audience and taking advantage of social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook, traditional media is not only proving their ability to adapt to new technologies, but it could very well rekindle interest to watch the evening news in the next generation of viewers wanting to see their own messages featured.
Additional benefits for TV stations to embrace tools such as Twitter, Qik, etc. is the ability to reduce response times to local key events and augmenting their reports in cost effective ways.
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