TODAY.com
TODAY's main twitter account, @TODAYshow, passed the 1 million follower mark over the weekend. Thanks again to everyone who helped us reach that milestone.
The feed is run primarily by three staffers: Zoe Marcus, a producer on the broadcast; Ryan Osborn, the senior director of digital media for NBC News who started tweeting from the @TODAYshow account when he was a producer for the show; and Steve Veres, an editor for TODAY.com. Researchers Erica Zucco and Wesley Oliver are also key members of the team.
We brainstormed the 10 most notable ways TODAY and Twitter have been linked in the years since we joined the social networking platform in July 2007.
How'd we come up with the list? We aimed for a good sample of interesting moments, lessons we learned and cool experiments.
Here's our list in no particular order:
1) TODAY joins Twitter with a fitting message
We'll kick off the list with the first tweet @TODAYshow ever sent out, starting our march to 1 million followers. It was a message about a wedding — and not the new union of America's No. 1 morning show and the social networking platform.
@TODAYshow tweeted on July 26, 2007 about our popular TODAY Throws a Wedding series, which was hosted that year in conjunction with Martha Stewart. Read more about the 2007 wedding. Here's the tweet:
2) Ann's influential tweet from Haiti
Ann Curry is an avid Twitter user. Her tweet after the Haiti earthquake pleading with the U.S. Air Force to let a Doctors without Borders plane land at the airport was named one of Twitter's most powerful of 2010.
Ann reflected on the message on TODAY after receiving the honor.
"What really made a difference was that people retweeted it," Ann said. "They really made sure that the U.S. Air Force heard it, and they in fact let planes land."
3) Twitter bet ends in unicycle ride
Twitter is a great at revealing behind-the-scenes tidbits and personalities that our viewers rarely get to see. And sometimes the result of those exchanges end up in front of the camera.
Don Nash, the senior broadcast producer of TODAY, bet associate director Erica Levens on March 12, 2010 that if she amassed 500 Twitter followers by July 1, he would ride a unicycle live on the show.
Less than four days later she crossed that mark with the help of @TODAYshow and our anchors.
Don made good on his word. You'll see him riding a unicycle about 2 minutes, 40 seconds into the following video. Follow the Twitter accounts for most of our staffers here.
4) TODAY takes over @RoyalWedding
The @TODAYshow account started with a wedding announcement — but that tweet had nothing on the royal nuptials!
TODAY staffers took over the Twitter handle @RoyalWedding for the months leading up to the event. By the time the big day arrived, the account had more than 100,000 followers.
TODAY's @RoyalWedding account even received acclaim from a British news outlet! That's like being knighted in the Twitterverse.
5) Al tweets from jury duty
Al is a big Twitter user, sending several messages and photos out every day. But one in 2009 got him into a bit of controversy: He tweeted a photo of potential jurors from inside a court house's jury lounge.
The incident caught the eye of TMZ and other news outlets, and Al quickly had to explain his tweet. "I'm not breaking laws...just trying to share the experience of jury duty. One that I think is important and everyone should take part in," he wrote
The upshot? The multitude of articles around the case reminded viewers of the link between TODAY and Twitter. And it was a good lesson that everything we say or do is scrutinized.
Al later apologized for sending out the photos. "Well, citizens of the United States of Twitterville, it was a fun day yesterday, with jury duty and twitpicking when I shouldn't. Now onward," he wrote.
6) Colbert comments on Twitter
Twittering, tweeted, tweeple, tweeps. Let's face it, Twitter has created a whole new language.
But when Meredith was interviewing Stephen Colbert in 2009, and casually asked him if he was a Twitter user, the response was something ... unexpected. The result? A viral video was born.
Watch the isolated back-and-forth here, and check out the full interview below.
7) TODAY finds fan who Enrique Iglesias kissed through Twitter
Who can forget when Enrique pulled an audience member onto his concert stage and kissed her on the mouth. Ladies everywhere swooned.
Despite the mass of humanity on our plaza and TODAY knowing absolutely nothing about this woman, our staffers tracked the lucky fan down after she sent out a series of tweets about the mini-makeout session.
Watch her interview (and relive her kiss!) below.
8) Ann helps family after Japan earthquake
Ann traveled to Japan to report on the earthquake and resulting tsunami that devastated the coastline.
With nowhere else to turn, Megan Walsh reached out to our anchor over Twitter to help find her sister. Against all odds, Ann read the tweet and pledged to help.
As the video below shows, Ann was ultimately successful in reuniting the pair. Read the story here.
9) Kanye West criticizes TODAY over interview
During Matt's one-on-one with Pres. George W. Bush after he left office, the former president called Kanye West's claim that George Bush "doesn't care about black people" one of the most "disgusting moments in my presidency."
Matt interviewed West on TODAY the day after the Bush interview aired to get West's reaction. Read a story about the interview and watch the interview below.
The rapper took to Twitter hours after the taping to criticize how he felt the conversation with Matt unfolded.
Most of West's messages have since been deleted, but The Huffington Post saved a few of them on their blog. Check them out there.
10) Meredith tweets
As more and more people embraced Twitter over the years, the TODAY anchors began to jump on the bandwagon as well. Ann, Al, Hoda, Natalie and Savannah are big users of the social media network, but Meredith Vieira was never shy about admitting she knew nothing about technology. But in March of 2011, she decided the time had come to tweet.
And tweet she did live on the air, sending out her first message to viewers with a little help from her friends.
Here's her first tweet:
Follow Meredith on Twitter and watch the video below.
Make sure to follow @TODAYshow on Twitter — we want to get to 2 million followers sooner than four years!
And after reading the top 10, tell us in the comments which moment or incident you think is the No. 1 moment linking TODAY and Twitter.
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