Media Future - Birmingham Post Scores In Social Media
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 by Mark Hanson 
Every now and then we should remind ourselves that traditional media brands have a strong part to play in social media.
Newspapers are a big part of our society and we turn to them for help in interpreting the events of the day. The problem lies in trying to adapt to modern expectations of how and when we get that information and how involved we want to be in it.
10/10 to the Birmingham Post for the way they covered a key event affecting their community i.e. the long-awaited announcement from the governement on the help it will give the automotive industry, upon which so many livelihoods in the Midlands depend.
They live-blogged Lord Mandelson’s statement, led by social media guru/journalist, Joanna Geary but drawing in comments from experts on the Post staff such as the business corr, motoring and politics staffers.
And guess what? Readers were allowed in too. Anyone can jump in and add to the conversation with the journalists, rather than them having a dialogue between themselves that the rest of us watch down below.
This is embryonic so I guess if the Post had data on viewership of the event, they wouldn’t release it. But they’ve proved it works as very simple content and it didn’t exactly take a lot of resource. It was largely a conversation that the journalists would have been having in the office anyway.
Take a look at an archive version here
