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Conference and event attendees have been using the social media site, Twitter for several years to communicate at the event about changes in plans, room reservations, event promotions, jokes about speakers at the event, etc., through the use of #hashtags. Usually, influential people at the event will begin to tweet each other prior to the event, and the hashtag will often develop organically, as more and more people start to use it to make sure other event attendees are able to see their "tweets."
For example, if we had a conference in 2012 called "Burgers and Fries," our #hashtag might be #baf12. Everyone who posted a tweet that they wanted to communicate to crowd at the event would include that tag in their post. All tweets on Twitter are public, so this would not be the place to communicate any sort of private information - but it's a great place to communicate public information.
Well, there are very few events bigger than a Super Bowl, and the folks that are hosting this year's national championship have collaborated with students from Ball State University to up a social media command center," to help those attending the game in person get where they're going and have a good time:
...About a dozen Ball State journalism, telecommunications and information and communication sciences students are participating in the effort to offer the online concierge service, helping visitors around Indianapolis in the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. Nearly half the collegians working at the center are from Ball State with two other local universities supplying student employees.
John Strauss, a journalism instructor overseeing the Ball State group, said the service will operate on official Super Bowl social media channels including its Twitter feed. The service is designed to respond to questions from the public as well as relay questions and developing issues to the host committee, law enforcement and other organizations....(more)
They're going to have their hands full. RTV6 in Indiana reports that during last year's Super Bowl there were approximately 4,000 tweets per second. Whew! FastCompany has a great write-up about how social media is being incorporated into the bowl game celebrations HERE.
If you would like to tweet during this year's Super Bowl, just sign into Twitter, and start by checking out #SBXLVI and #SuperBowl. May the best team win! |
