| The secrets to The Onion’s social media success Posted: 18 Aug 2011 10:24 AM PDT The Onion is doing a fantastic job when it comes to social media and Twitter in particular — in many cases rising ABOVE real news outlets on Twitter searches even when it comes to real news. What are its secrets? “During the State of the Union address in January,” Mashable points out, “the first Twitter search results for #SOU were not tweets from likely suspects such as CNN, The New York Times, Time or The Economist. Rather, they came from satirical news source The Onion.” The Onion live tweets events like the Oscars and the Super Bowl from its various accounts. Sometimes it queues up jokes in advance, but for unpredictable events like the Super Bowl it has writers contribute in real time. It also uses the platform to report on developing stories, both made up or real. In May, when The Onionreported that a 500-foot-tall Osama bin Laden had emerged from the sea, for instance, the Twitter account kept the public updated with Twitpics and quotes from government officials exclusive to Twitter. The method is not unlike that of a legitimate news outlet's Twitter stream during breaking news situations…. The Onion's most recent Twitter-generated content certainly does fit in with that of major real news outlets. Just as broadcasters are increasingly using Twitter to highlight reactions to news, The Onion has started incorporating Tweets into its video newscast, The Onion Review. "We really try to engage our users even though The Onion doesn't really care about our users — that's kind of our line," Kirsch says.
 
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