Offline Media Translates Into Online Buzz
Online PR lessons learned from Mark Zuckerberg's "60 Minutes" interview.
Online PR lessons learned from Mark Zuckerberg's "60 Minutes" interview.
Watching Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg on “60 Minutes” reminded me there is still a place for old school media in the world of search marketing and online PR strategies.
Facebook used “60 Minutes” to announce the unveiling of the social network’s new look and feel during an up-close-and-personal interview with Zuckerberg last night. A great example of new media blending old school media. If it weren’t for the unofficial Facebook blog, I might not have found out about the interview in time since I hardly watch TV. I also discovered in the process that “60 Minutes” is crawling out of the dark ages and now has a Facebook page, YouTube channel, and an iPad app.
While it might not have been the exclusive “60 Minutes” planned (the story seemed to be leaked earlier before the segment aired), the Facebook PR message was still delivered to a captive audience of about 17.7 million viewers from America’s number one news source.
Using one of the most trusted and successful TV news shows like “60 Minutes” to announce news impacting more than half a billion online Facebook users put the search and social marketing industry in a new limelight.
Zuckerberg’s interview gave Facebook a PR opportunity to position, reposition, and clear the air on some hot topics.
He played “nice” in his interview and as a result, left behind some good PR lessons other companies can use:
The Facebook “60 Minutes” PR story didn’t end at the close of the show. The interview can be found posted on CBS.com among dozens of other news websites posting copies of the interview with commentary. As of this morning, just 12 hours after the interview aired, a search on “Mark Zuckerberg” resulted in about 744 related news stories on page one of Google. So offline media translated into online buzz. Old school media is giving online PR and social media more opportunities than ever with measurable results.