The Washington Post turned to social media to get ahead of the real-time news cycle as details of a Capitol shooting emerged. Here’s how they did it –
1. Update website and social networks. The editors quickly updated the website to demonstrate they were aware of the breaking news – even though they did not have any details to report.
2. Source generation. Perhaps even better, they gave visitors an opportunity to share a tweet about the news-in-the-making – thereby generating a lead to their website and YouTube based PostTV where news would be available.
Shots fired at Capitol http://t.co/sg6QjpMGyj via @PostTV
— paolo pagani (@ppagani) October 3, 2013
Choosing Twitter is of coarse no accident, Twitter is perhaps the #1 way people are getting, verifying and discussing news these days.
3. Multi-media approach. The Post then live-streamed from the scene of the shooting from PostTV, their video initiative launched this summer. They also kept readers updated online and via Twitter – retweeting and sharing original posts.
Kudos to the Post and their digital staff. Our best regards to the families affected by this event — stay safe out there.