Live Blogging and Tweeting Special Events
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The live blogging experiment I tried last night was fun. It would have been more fun with an event other than politics, such as an Atlanta Braves game, but fun nonetheless. It also served a practical purpose had I been doing it to increase traffic to my site. There was a sharp spike in traffic during the event and I’ll explain why and how I did it.
First, I installed the Live Blogging plugin. This allowed me to publish a post with the live blogging shortcode included. Then, when I would post a special “Live Blog Entry” from the WordPress Dashboard, it would automatically publish on the original post. Visitors did not even need to refresh the page to see the updates.
Second, I connected the Live Blogging plugin with my Twitter account which is an option in the plugin’s settings. Every time I posted an update on the live blog post, it also sent out a tweet. Of course, I had to be sure to keep my posts relatively short–under 140 characters–leaving room for the #NHPrimary hashtag which I set to append at the end of each tweet.
Most people watching and/or writing tweets during the New Hampshire primary results last night were using the same hashtag and watching real-time tweets using that hashtag. This brought a lot of people together into the same conversation. That’s one of the great things about Twitter. So, I maximized the opportunity by also including a short link back to my live blog post every five or so updates.
I would post this…
Live Blog Entry Screenshot (Click to enlarge)
It would appear on Twitter with the hashtag automatically added and link back to my website…
Live Blog to Twitter
Of course, I did not include a link with each update because that would simply be obnoxious. Also, I should warn that you run the risk of annoying people on Twitter with update after update after update–especially if they don’t care about the event you happen to be tweeting about. However, you come to expect that at times on Twitter. It’s real-time conversation, after all. Personally, I rather enjoy that aspect of the social networking site.
Anyway, that’s what I was doing last night. If you ever have a reason or a need to do the same, now you know how I did it.
About The Author
Jeremy Sarber
I'm the pastor of one of the most blessed churches in all the world. I'm married to the most wonderful woman to walk the face of the earth. I'm host of possibly the most unconventional podcast on the Internet. I am thankful because I deserve none of it. Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email
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