Check out this story by Nancy Thomas in GoLocalProv. Excerpts:
The idea takes what may have been considered an annoyance--theater or concert attendees using their cells during a performance--and flips it upside down. Now, Providence performing Arts Center will reward you for tweeting... by offering "Tweet Seats" to a small group of attendees who promise to tweet during the show.
Normally, tweeting at a cultural event is frowned upon by those around you, especially at a musical at PPAC, but on this night we were fully sanctioned. We were given a hashtag to use, a key part of tweeting effectively. A hashtag identifies tweets around one particular topic. For this night it was #MemphisPPAC. We were required to include that hashtag in each Tweet. We were given seats in the last row of the lower level. We respectfully turned our sound off, and our screen brightness to low, and waited for the production to start.
This is a great marketing idea, and you can already imagine the application to other venues--art exhibits, other types of performances. Perhaps restaurants would move you up in the waiting queue if you promise to tweet during dinner.
We certainly wouldn't want it to be used to get priority in the emergency department triage process, but I wonder if there are some parts of health care delivery systems that might consider giving expedited service for tweeters.
The idea takes what may have been considered an annoyance--theater or concert attendees using their cells during a performance--and flips it upside down. Now, Providence performing Arts Center will reward you for tweeting... by offering "Tweet Seats" to a small group of attendees who promise to tweet during the show.
Normally, tweeting at a cultural event is frowned upon by those around you, especially at a musical at PPAC, but on this night we were fully sanctioned. We were given a hashtag to use, a key part of tweeting effectively. A hashtag identifies tweets around one particular topic. For this night it was #MemphisPPAC. We were required to include that hashtag in each Tweet. We were given seats in the last row of the lower level. We respectfully turned our sound off, and our screen brightness to low, and waited for the production to start.
This is a great marketing idea, and you can already imagine the application to other venues--art exhibits, other types of performances. Perhaps restaurants would move you up in the waiting queue if you promise to tweet during dinner.
We certainly wouldn't want it to be used to get priority in the emergency department triage process, but I wonder if there are some parts of health care delivery systems that might consider giving expedited service for tweeters.
Some conferences (I wish I recalled who) have begun inviting skilled live-tweeters to attend, basically as real-time journalists. In essence, they "broadcast" the event live, which, given the nature of Twitter and the usefulness of hashtags, does a great job of raising awareness of the event.
ReplyDeleteIt's a real skill, though, and to do it hour after hour is no small chore.
I'm waiting for some conference to leverage this by offering a 40% discount for registration to NEXT year's event if you register while the live-tweeting is going on. :)
e-Patient Dave makes a good point in that the people tweeting need to have skill and like to do it - you definitely get into a "twitter-brain zone" doing this. As with all new technology, innovation begs for experimentation and evaluation.
ReplyDeleteI'm encouraging my nonprofit clients to use this at their social fundraising events - walks, galas, etc. I've also see local politicos experiment with it from an economic summit - so if you couldn't go you followed the highlights on twitter from the comfort of home.
Combined with posting on Facebook and checking in to an event, the format can be quite powerful....give it a whirl....and watch out for twitter thumb.
Nancy