The development manager of a non-profit I volunteer with, PowerfulSchools.org, recently shared this story with me (see below). Because PS posts recent grant awards on their Facebook page, and because this is setup to automatically tweet their posts at www.twitter.com/powerfulschools, when our local news outlet KOMO was researching on Twitter for an article, they stumbled across Powerful Schools. Because of this, KOMO interviewed PS in a recent article. Pretty cool!?!

After JP Morgan Chase awarded Powerful Schools a $100,000 grant, I posted an announcement on our website and then linked it to Facebook (posted the PS web link onto FB saying that we were thrilled by the grant award).  Since we set up our Facebook page to automatically tweet our posts, this news also went to Twitter.

A KOMO newsradio reporter just happened to be doing research on JP Morgan Chase and our tweet came up in his Twitter search.  The reporter contacted us and ended up interviewing [our Executive Director] Tre for an education story (that also featured the Washington State superintendent Randy Dorn), and in the story he mentions that Powerful Schools was recently awarded $100K by JPMC. Woot!

-Peggy, Seattle Powerful Schools

Woot! Indeed. By taking a few steps to build out your organization's social media presence, you can be more effective at earning traditional media coverage.