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David Harris, managing editor of the Metro Unit in GateHouse Media New England, used a trending Twitter hashtag to enliven coverage of a hot topic in one of his communities.
WHAT THEY DID: Harris: "Twitter's new embeddable tweet widget is fantastic for any community with active Twitter users. When Boston Phoenix columnist David Bernstein started a hashtag for what life would be like after the announced retirement of longtime Cambridge city manager Bob Healy, the embedded tweet was a no-brainer for a short story. A great way to point out that Twitter is abuzz with any hashtag is to create a short story and post a sample of tweets from various users. And that's what we did.
"First thing that I did was search for the hashtag in Twitter (using Twitter.com), which gave me a bunch of tweets that contained that hashtag (in this case, #CambridgeAfterHealy). Then, I found the tweet that I wanted to embed and clicked "open." Next I clicked "details." This not only gives me the raw link to the tweet, but it also allows you to begin the process of embedding. Click "embed this tweet." For Zope, you want the HTML code. So copy that code, and then place it in your Zope page by first clicking on "Source." When you're finished, Zope it just like you would any other story."
THE TAKEAWAY: Think about doing this when you cover a hot community topic. Find out what people are saying about it on Twitter, and share that with your readers.
