Social Media on the Move: San Francisco Zoo sets a Viral Link with Visitors through Twitter

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) November 9, 2009 -- Since its foundation by Jack Dorsey in 2006, the Twitter micro-blogging service has expanded from simply being a way to post small message "tweets" to becoming a viable tool in customer, service, commerce, resource management and even in proposing for marriage in a 140-character word format. However, it can still be quite surprising to see that Twitter has established a viral link between penguins at a zoo and the rest of the world.

One of the most talked-about events in the social media community is the recent "SFZoo Tweetup Event" held at the San Francisco Zoo in San Francisco, California on the morning of November 8, 2009. The event was supposed to be another ordinary "tweetup", wherein Twitter enthusiasts would socialize, take pictures and, of course, send tweets via mobile phone or laptop. However, officials at the San Francisco Zoo heard about the upcoming event and, in what seems to be an attempt to boost ticket sales as well as to create a viral link for the zoo and its constituents, offered "special guest" benefits for those attending the tweetup. In addition to the usual benefits awarded to ordinary patrons, the San Francisco Zoo also gave further perks to the tweetup attendees, which include discounts for both local San Franciscoans and non-residents, access to formerly restricted areas of the San Francisco Zoo such as the Asian Conservation, and an exclusive encounter with the penguins and other animals at the zoo.

The benefits given to the tweetup attendees was not the first time the San Francisco Zoo, which goes by as @SFZoo on Twitter, used the micro-blogging service to improve its day-to-day operations and create a viral link with its visitors. In a Youtube video clip featured on social media aggregator Mashable.com, San Francisco Zoo animal keeper Anthony Brown enumerated the many uses Twitter has for the zoo. Lasting nearly 3 minutes, Brown said that several key staff were subscribed to Twitter and use it to interact with the visitors as well as to provide up-to-date information on what is happening inside the zoo. The service even helped visitors recover items they lost and the zoo, and coordinate with staff in case of accidents. What's more, with millions of people who use Twitter the Zoo uses it as an effective public relations tool, and example of which can be found on the recent tweetup there as numerous websites and blogs have posted articles about the event.

So what importance did the event at the San Francisco have? Will at the outset it seemed like a fun and effective publicity move, the San Francisco Zoo's decision to coordinate with tweetup shows how closer we are in teracting with each other through online social media. Just a few years ago such an event would have been unheard of, but now Twitter and the other online communication mediums have been utilized not only to coordinate and organize but also to create a viral link and gather and mobilize people into one.

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