Updated: Talk about timing, Obama announced the debt crisis deal in between the East and West Coast airings of NBC’s Inside Congress special. Brian Williams and team quickly updated the show, which of course, was captured in a photo and RT’d on the @InsideCongress account.
Earlier: Several months ago, NBC News scheduled a massive, one-day shoot inside the U.S. House and Senate. Little did they know that last week’s shoot — and tonight (Sunday’s) airing of “Inside Congress” — would be perfectly timed with intense negotiations surrounding the debt crisis.
In advance of the production, NBC launched the @InsideCongress Twitter account, asking users to suggest questions for Brian Williams’ interviews with Congressional leaders. Then on Tuesday, over 80 staffers crashed Congress for a one-day shoot, using @insidecongress to post behind-the-scenes photos and videos — some from crews’ personal accounts — which they pulled together into a Storify.
Some Congressional members participated on Twitter as well. Sen. John McCain’s staff tweeted a photo of the shoot with the #insidecongress hashtag. And Rep. Bilbray sent @insidecongress a tweet (below), inviting Brian Williams to stop by — which he did, interviewing Bibray about the debt ceiling. It goes to show how coordinating a Twitter account around a big, planned production can pay dividends, both in content and promotion.
Speaking of promotion, NBC also looked for non-traditional opportunities to plug the show, such as Brian Williams’ appearance on Jimmy Fallon “slow-jamming the news” with Roots — which ricocheted across the internet. They also put together a time-lapse video and a behind-the-scene slide show. The special airs tonight at 7 p.m. ET.
(Full disclosure: I work at msnbc.com, a joint-venture of NBC and Microsoft)