photo courtesy of EraPhernaliaVintage
We all have heard about Twitter's usefulness in building local relationships for business, but what about for blogging?
The other day, I was driving through a neighborhood near my house (Village In The Woods, between Mainland Rd. and Guilbeau Rd.) and I noticed something strange. There on the corner of Olde Village and Mainland road sat a bunch of construction vehicles, a camera crew, and Councilman Justin Rodriguez. Of course, I passed by it kind of quickly, so I wasn't 100% sure I had just seen the District 7 Councilman, but I was pretty sure it was him. I also heard him speaking over a loudspeaker, so I assumed he was giving some sort of important speech about something in the area (and perhaps explaining all the construction vehicles). When I got home, I hit up Google for the information I needed. I couldn't find anything. So I turned to Twitter and one of my favorite follows - @ksatnews. I've been following them for awhile now and have tweeted back and forth a few times when I was looking for an update on a news story.
Following your local news?
KSAT 12 News here in San Antonio is my preferred news channel, so you can imagine I jumped at the chance to follow them when I found them on Twitter. By following them, I've been able to learn about news stories before they hit the airwaves and ask questions when I needed some more info. Not every town is going to have their local news on Twitter, but if your community does, you should be listening. Imagine being about to get the scoop on something happening that could affect real estate in your area. Or just an idea for a great post. Or an interesting bit for a piece in Localism. Whatever it is, you'll find yourself more informed and ready to answer questions or write new blogs of community interest.
KSAT not only gave me the info I needed, but provided some extra.
I asked @ksatnews if they would be running a piece about what I had seen and they did confirm that it would be on the 5 o'clock news. A few minutes later, I got a tweet that the story had been pushed off the 5 o'clock news, but they wanted to send me the press release since I wouldn't be able to see it on the news. I now know exactly what all the commotion was in my neighborhood and will be blogging about it shortly. it pays to know someone in the local news department - even if you don't have access to them on Twitter, maybe you should get a relationship started. You never know when you'll need the scoop for a great blog post.
Special thanks to @ksatnews for being forward-thinking enough to get involved in Twitter. You were already my news of choice, but your involvement in social media only makes me like you more.
Comments(12)