What striking feature does William, Kate and Osama Bin Laden have in common?
Yes, they have all been married. Yes, they are all world famous.Yes, they are all religious.Yes, they are all passionate about world affairs.Yes, they all have famous friends.Yes, they're all fans of head-wear.Yes, they are all keen to avoid journalists.Yes, they have all hired people under them to carry out the dirty work.Yes, they all have armed bodyguards.Yes, they have all featured on condom covers.
However, non of the above is the correct answer to my question.
According to US magazine ADweek, the marriage of William and Kate and the death of Osama Bin Laden had one striking similarity: they were massive live news events that were extensively followed online, crushing all previous records.
Lost me at the condom covers? Have a look at this and this.
On the day of Osama's death, there were over two million online references to his name online. The Royal Wedding alone, had just under 1.9 million mentions. Osama attracted more online attention overall and both were subject to massive amounts of tweets; the Royal Wedding beating Osama with 240,000.
The Royal Wedding, however, could not beat how the news of Osama's death was spread. Just as many of us remeber where we were when we heard about the World Trade Centre attack, many will remember where they were when they heard about the death of Osama Bin Laden.
For many, that place was on Twitter.
It has been reported that it all began when Donald Rumsfeld’s former chief of staff, Keith Urban tweeted: “So I’m told by a reputable person they have killed Osama bin Laden. Hot damn.” Another less famous person, however, became the real Twitter sensation at the breaking of the Osama news.
What does William, Kate, Osama Bin Laden and an unknown Pakistani IT consultant have in common?
Yes, I have just added another person to the equation. He does not feature on a condom cover, has no famous friends, no armed bodyguards and has to do the dirty work all by himself.
Sohaib Athar aka @reallyvirtual, is an IT consultant living in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
Just like William, Kate and Osama, Sohaib made social media history, using Twitter to share what he heard as helicopters swooping down on a compound.
His first Tweet read: "Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1am (is a rare event).” At the time, Sohaib only had around 750 followers and used Twitter to chat with people about news, his family, technology and politics. After Obama's announcement on Sunday, just 24 hours later, he was broadcasting his thoughts to 86,000 followers.
Moral of the story? While it took traditional news media such as CNN a while to verify and report the death of Osama Bin Laden, the news was already widely talked about on social media networks such as Twitter.
You don't have to be royal or a terrorist to make social media history. All it takes, is to be at the right place, at the right time- and to write about it.
Recommended: The Art of Breaking News on Social Media
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