It was a hot day in Dallas when a bipolar driver decided to lead constables on a 90 minute high speed chase.   Local TV stations went to live coverage as the drama unfolded.  It was great televsion - with the driver narrowly missing smashing into a semi trailer, and then sliding through the grass where he knocked down a road sign before getting back on the highway once again.

While the chase dragged on, the local Dallas Fox affiliate streamed the chase live on their website (in addition to their on air coverage) and invited people to join a chat session about the chase.  And that’s the point of this message - in the early afterrnoon on a Monday in Dallas - nearly 3,000 people joined the conversation.  Once again showing the power of social media to quickly draw a crowd.

As in all these instant chats - some are asking serious questions, some are trying to be funny etc.  But the bottomline is that Fox4 got almost 3,000 people to engage on their website at two in the afternoon - out of nowhere - simply by giving them a chat opportunity next to the streaming video of the car chase.   They do the same thing during severe weather - and is also draws a sizable crowd.  So - when we encourage you to interact with people on multiple platforms - it is important that you add this technique to your playbook.

This chase ended when the car ran a stoplight on a surface street - and was t-boned by a pickup truck.  The chase driver is in critical condition.  Using social media in this way is powerful topical promotion to help draw viewers to your newscast because they’ll want to find out the person’s condition, see highlights of the chase again etc.  Don’t let these opportunities pass you by.

Jim

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 1:26 pm and is filed under Willi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.