The story of Nonja, the snap-happy Orangutan from the Vienna Zoo was pretty much everywhere by Friday:
An Orangutan who snaps pictures of her surroundings from a raisin-dispensing camera has attracted thousands of fans on Facebook. [...] The ape captures her companions and their habitat in Vienna Zoo on a specially adapted Samsung ST1000 digital camera, which then rewards her with the sweet treat.
It follows a relatively long line of ‘animals doing cute human stuff‘ in Zoos, only this time with added social media.
It’s a very clever PR stunt, and the number of fans for the Facebook page has swelled to well over 41,000 as of today, up from about 500 fans when I first saw the story break on Wednesday and 4,000 on Thursday.
I think it’s a nice demonstration of how international media coverage can propel a clever digital tactic far and wide. I certainly doubt that the Facebook fan page would have been even a fraction as successful were it not for good old fashioned media relations.
In any event, it’s a very cool idea worth following.
