A recent social media meetup at WGBH welcomed a special call-in guest: Melody Kramer from NPR’s Fresh Air. The release of this Nieman Lab article has put a steady spotlight on Mel in the past months. She’s, of course, the person behind Fresh Air’s successful Twitter and Tumblr accounts (and speaks of gaining 700 new Tumblr followers in one day as the norm.)

It was an enlightening session with rapid-fire questions from WGBH’s own social media people, but here are three points that caught my attention: 

1. Mel Kramer tries to curate the NPR Fresh Air “Aesthetic” - that means not always posting/reblogging content exclusively promoting the show, but rather content that captures the Fresh Air essence, that the average Fresh Air fan would enjoy. This sounds really abstract, but I think the abstraction is a big part of it - spontaneous, suspenseful.
2. She does not interact with negative, controversial comments at all. “It’ll go away”. This guideline is polar opposite to what many social media experts would suggest. Nowadays, they all preach “BE RESPONSIVE, BE BE RESPONSIVE.” Respond to both positive and negative. But the fact that Fresh Air does not respond to negative comments begs the question: do we really need to respond fairly and indiscriminately on social media - and/or feed the troll?
3. She has a background in comedy writing and is not afraid to use it. Develop thy sense of humor.