KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) -
Thirty-thousand tweets, 30 screens, 42 volunteers make up the social media command center of Kansas City for All- Star week.
"As far as we know, this is the first time something of this scale has been done for an All-Star Game," said Matthew Staub while he worked in the command center. "We see it as this opportunity to really feature KC in a different way."
Staub works in social media for H&R Block. This week he's hosting the Social Media Club of Kansas City to make sure all the fans in town have the best time possible.
"I think it's the future. With every event we see more and more people turning to social media, more people expecting a response and help in that medium. We'll be there when they need it," Staub said.
If anyone has a question about Kansas City, all they need to do is tweet it with the #kc hashtag and chances are they'll get an answer from the social media command center, located a few floors above downtown.
"We can look down, interact with people on the street, see the pulse on social media and the street from here. There's a real energy seeing what people are saying and what's going on in the street," Staub said.
The social media command center has a map up that shows tweets in real time, which allows them to keep track of everything going on in Kansas City. They use it to see where people are, and alert others if there are problems.
Monday night's boo fest of Robinson Cano spawned 18,000 tweets about Kansas City.
"The Cano conversation continues. We were processing a ton of tweets. People were talking about Kansas City not just as guests, but also just reacting to the way fans reacted in KC both positively and negatively based on their affiliations," Staub said.
Even though the volunteers will be busy Tuesday night, they plan to watch at least some of the All-Star Game.
"We kind of have the best seat in the house to watch all the reaction, not just in Kansas City, but across the world. It's pretty amazing," Staub said.
H&R Block provided the office space for the command center. The Social Media Club of Kansas City, the Kansas City Convention and Visitors Association, and Barkley and Spiral 16 have provided many of the volunteers and technology used to keep everyone online.
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