Jul

Twitter and the Nashville media

Over the past weekend, the city of Nashville and the surrounding middle Tennessee area experienced a tragedy. Former Tennessee Titans Quarterback, Steve McNair, was found slain on July 4th.

The cause and details around this tragedy are still yet to be told. When they do unfold, my site is not the place to turn for that news. I write about social media and internet marketing, I turn to the professionals for details on actual news and the tragedy that surrounds those stories.

Within this tragedy, a smaller and admittedly far less important story emerged in Nashville. The cream rose to the top in Nashville’s news media, especially as it relates to social media.

I thought about showing you all the bad examples of how many media outlets still do not comprehend social media. That list is too long. Plus, I remembered: “If you can’t say anything nice …”

Instead, let’s focus on who got it right. Specifically, let’s talk about the Nashville social media scene’s introduction to Christine Maddela. I am now a fan of Christine Maddela.

Christine Maddela is the Weekend Anchor and Reporter for WKRN - TV, News 2 in Nashville. I do not know if Christine Maddela officially broke the story on Twitter, but she broke it to many of us.

However, it was more then just the breaking of the story. News is not always about who gets it first. News and social media can and should be used together to engage with users. Christine used Twitter the right way, by doing the following:

Taking the time to engage in conversation