Many PR professionals – ever seeking new ways to use new mediums – are slowly getting into the social media (SM) pr gig . Well, if you didn’t think the effort of using Facebook, Twitter and other SM was worth it – here’s a great example of why you need to take the plunge. On June 27 the LA Times wrote an article on the probe into Michael Jackson’s use of drugs. The story appeared in the print version of the Chicago Tribune that Saturday. What made this an interesting use of SMPR was that the editor must have asked a reporter to research interesting facts around the news of Jackson’s death for a small sidebar. What appeared in the print version was a box with the headline: 65,000. The text read – “The number of text messages sent per second on the AT&T network after the news of Michael Jackson’s death broke Thursday.” The source – “AT&T Facebook Page”!
Interesting, huh? So AT&T didn’t release that statistic – it just put it on their Facebook page and because it was probably an optimized link to their website – the stat probably showed up on reporter’s search engine first page. What a coup. With just a little use of Facebook, AT&T became the expert source for text messages and they also looked pretty cool in their use of SM. I bet the reporter will use that source again. Anyway, there are many examples of this every day by savvy SMPR professionals.