Dueling Tweets.  A Richmond social media milestone?

Back in the day when you planned events, you checked the calendar to make sure you likely weren’t competing with anyone else for the same audience.  You looked for holidays, the news of the day, etc. and when you were sure you’d lock it in and go for it.

In Richmond this week the landscape changed.  In the future we all need to also anticipate any “virtual” events as well.

The local social media scene passed a milestone of sorts, as two “events” were live-tweeted simultaneously competing for some of the same audience and actually allowed some of the same people participate in both at the same time.

The one that THP was involved in was the first #steakchat of the year hosted by our client Morton’s.  After doing a few of these live conversations last year, this year’s series of six was kicked off with a live conversation featuring a group of Richmond young professionals discussing the ups and downs of the YoPro scene in #RVA.  Short Pump’s own Trevor Dickerson handled the tweeting honors.

At the same time, the Richmond Times-Dispatch held one of its Public Square events featuring Lt. Gov. and job-creation czar Bill Bolling talking about jobs…and how they will be created.

The paper, in its day-after coverage,  proudly proclaimed that “in a first for a Public Square, three local business people volunteered to tweet” from the event.

Frankly I’m not quite sure what to think about all of this other than the fact that it’s great that news organizations and marketers are offering social media options as channels to create conversation and solicit questions and feedback in real time.  It definitely brings more people into the conversation.

In Richmond we selfishly think we’re ahead of the social media curve as is evidenced by explosive growth of SMCRVA.

I’m not sure if two competing live tweeting events in one town our size validates that thought but it’s great to see that we’re all trying new things and exploring new ways to keep the conversation going.

For those interested in seeing all the Tweets from both events.  Go to TweetChat.com, log in with your Twitter password and use the #steakchat hastag for Steak Chat or the #rvapublicsq hashtag for the Public Square.  All the Tweets should appear in the stream for you to review.