How to livetweet a short event that doesn’t REALLY need to be tweeted live.

Between the Hollywood stars & the Premier of the province, I’ve been doing a lot of on-location celeb-related brand journalism this month.

I am the Perez Hilton of Winnipeg.

Ooh, just shook the Premier’s hand! Then I showed him my little video of him on myiPhone

— Erica Glasier ♥(@EricaGlasier) December8, 2011

.@Natchuk It was like meeting Santa!

— Erica Glasier ♥(@EricaGlasier) December8, 2011

 

But my star-studded life aside, what I want to tell you is the trick I discovered for better brand journalism where speed isn’t the be all.

Just-slightly-after-live-livetweeting

What I was showing the Premier was the video I’d shot of him at the press conference. It was a short event—he spoke for 1:59ish, according to my iPhone—so the usual live journalism tactics of posting live photos, quotes, etc would take too long (think uploads & phone-typing). I’d miss the soundbites.

Instead, I got in the way of the press pool & shot a low-fi vid of the speeches, ran back to my desk, slapped on my headphones & transcribed the key comments on Twitter.

Accompanied by a few establishing photos & liberal retweeting of the mainstream media (MSM) coverage after, I was able to convey all the key messages, the calls to action & the personality of the speakers, and give fans a few soundbites of my own for retweeting.

[I'm usually torn whether to shoot video or photos if I don't have ancillary shooter staff. In this case there were videojournalists shooting, no professional photogs, not much action visually, and little chance of being scooped by the MSM.]

Overall, this method achieves better, more thorough brand journalism if your event isn’t being livestreamed & gives the reporter time for accuracy with details like the spelling of names. Having all that video to draw on is awesome. Try it.