Socially Speaking…

The use of “social media” has exploded in recent years. Over seventy percent of Americans have a Facebook account, and Twitter is no small revolution, not to mention others like FourSquare and LinkedIn. This means that many Alabamians will get weather information first from their smart phone, computer, iPad, or other device that enables access to these social networks. I thought I would take a little space this evening and explain how you can take advantage of products we offer….

FACEBOOK: My regular account has been maxed out at 5,000 “friends” for over a year, meaning you can’t make a friend request. That is just a limitation of Facebook, and there is nothing I can do about it. So, all of my work is being done over on the “like page”, which has no limits. Right now there are over 28,000 people who are there, and many of them are in Alabama. I push a morning and afternoon update daily, and this weekend I have enabled a link to our @ewarn Twitter feed which contains all Alabama severe weather warnings. Of course, our space on Facebook status updates is very small, and we drive people to this blog, which is our primary way of communicating weather to you when we are not on TV.

Below are the links to the Facebook pages and accounts you might be interested in…

James Spann “like page” – Will provide all Alabama warnings to your Facebook wall, along with short updates twice daily.

James Spann – This is the regular account that is maxed out. I am using Facebook “places” now, so while you can’t “friend me up”, you can see what I am up to.

WeatherBrains “like page” – All about our fun weekly Internet show.

Our weather team members…

Jason Simpson
Ashley Brand
Bill Murray
J.B. Elliott
Brian Peters

Don’t forget to check out Dave Baird, the ABC 33/40 news anchor. It is my goal to get Dave to 1,000 friends sooner than later!

TWITTER: No limits on Twitter accounts, so we could love to have you follow us. I make it a habit to follow those who follow me; I have learned it is a great source of not only weather information, but news and sports info as well. Here are the ones you might consider:

Again, with a 140 character limit, we can’t push much weather information, but it is very useful.

So… time to get social. The great thing about media now is that it is all a conversation, never again one way. Makes the job much more fun!

Category: Pre-November 2010 Posts