Reflections on a successful short term blog/liveblog
Forgive me for being a little too overenthusiastic but to have an area (whether that be digital or on paper) where people can share thoughts on an event is absolutely essential. I first realised the importance of this when i was devising the strategy for which Impact Magazine would cover the Summer Party event at the University of Nottingham. It was a tricky one, considering our remit didn’t include live event coverage. After some deliberation I decided along with the rest of the senior team to use online liveblogging which would give us both text-based coverage along with twitter integration and images. A few days before the event all the infrastructure was put in place for what was likely to be a mediocre piece of journalism- never had I been so wrong.
The response on the liveblog was fantastic, our coverage far surpassing that of the University radio station, with images being placed online only minutes after being taken and comment aplenty it was professional and it felt right. We knew we had really made something worthwhile when those who didn’t make the event started complementing us on the coverage which, considering the timeframe of implementation, was almost a miracle.
Fast forward a few weeks and I’m at the pub with my fellow Scout leaders at the 5th Potters Bar planning the Annual 10 day summer camp for 30-odd. Having produced a video for every camp over the last 5 years, I realised that we needed a more immediate record of what is going on at camp. Thankfully, with the power of a slow but usable 3G data card the Summer Camp Blog went live. In the same vain as the Impact liveblog the fascination of this new media was enough to attract streams of comments from parents and friends of the scouts, some parents even said that colleagues with no relation to the scouts were logging on to see what we had been up to. It just highlighted to me that regardless of whether your target audience is 36000 students or 100 or so parents, making that extra bit of effort can really pay dividends.
So, if you are planning an event where you need that extra bit of publicity, get yourself a data card and set-up a blog at wordpress.com – it’ll bring your event to life!