Jumping (Secretly) for LinkedIn Author Neal Schaffer

Imagine throwing a party by broadcasting it over an intercom system and trying to keep it hush-hush for the honored guest.

That's exactly what happened when the close-knit social media community in Orange County threw blogger and author Neal Schaffer, an advocate for transportation innovation, a surprise bash to launch his new book on LinkedIn. It was no easy task to keep a surprise on the cost-effective tools of social media that rely on transparency and openness for power to drive information to users.

After a short ruse, Schaffer arrived in awe to the warm wishes of 150 people.

Groundbreaking for 91 Freeway and for Social Media in Orange County

If you live in Southern California, you know about the notoriously traffic-choked Riverside Freeway (SR-91) that connects Orange County and L.A. to the Inland Empire.

Relief is on the way for the 91 freeway with shovels hitting the dirt to start construction.

The Orange County Register's Social Sundays column included the 91 freeway's social media groundbreaking today.

Just days before the groundbreaking, the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) created a new Twitter account – @91fwy – to provide information about Orange County’s largest stimulus project. It’s a construction project to widen nearly 6 miles of eastbound lanes – a chronic traffic bottleneck – on the Riverside Freeway from Anaheim to Corona.

Tuesday’s groundbreaking event was OCTA's first to utilize social media to share instant information via Twitter and Facebook. Orange County’s savvy social media practioners joined TV, radio and print journalists in covering the start of construction for the freeway.

Orange County’s social media community provided live tweets of the groundbreaking by videotaping and conducting interviews posting content as the event was happening.

Tweets from the event reached more than 20,000 people with approximately 194,000 impressions or views. That’s a lot of eye balls online without the associated costs of traditional advertising.

In these times of greater public accountability and transparency, social media is providing impressive cost-effective results for OCTA. The new @91fwy Twitter account comes directly from Fernando Chavarria, OCTA’s community relations officer, who provides the public with firsthand knowledge and up-to-the-minute construction updates. He will tweet the widening project’s progress – and its impact – so the public can be in-the-know before they go.

Most importantly, @91fwy will help enhance OCTA’s public involvement program to help us listen to the public and address questions and issues as they are posted. Social media along with traditional outreach strengthens OCTA’s ability to communicate with residents, businesses, the traveling public and other stakeholders to provide the information they need.