All companies are looking for big numbers - at least when they relate to revenue and profits that is.
For a UK-based consultancy and IT services group called Morse, which recently commissioned some research into the effects of social media on workplace productivity, 'good' big numbers lay elsewhere.
For the commissioned research to be of any interest and generate any widespread publicity, it needed to reveal a big number with regards to the cost of social media on business. And it did - £1.38 billion.
The news was picked up by a plethora of reputable websites, including the BBC in their article entitled: Twitter 'costs businesses £1.4bn'.
The coverage will have generated a great deal of beneficial online PR for Morse as well a likely increase in click-throughs.
Morse's research was a cleverly targeted and well-thought-out combination of two of the most headline-grabbing topics currently doing the rounds in both the British and worldwide media - social media and business finance.
With sites such as Twitter and Facebook now household names and the general finances of companies in light of the recession and wider economy of public interest, an article combing the two is going to be of huge interest.
By cleverly playing on this combined level of interest, Morse has worked up a significant amount of online PR without having done anything extraordinary.
Indeed, only 1,460 office workers were canvassed, making for minimal effort in comparison to the ultimate returns of the research.
Speaking of the results and the effects of social media on the UK economy, Philip Wicks, from Morse, described the loss of productivity as a "black hole".
He said: "The popularity of social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook has grown considerably over the last couple of years, however with it has come the temptation to visit such sites during office hours.
"When it comes to an office environment the use of these sites is clearly becoming a productivity black hole."
Morse's research revealed that more than half of UK workers log on to a social network site during their working day. With such wide-reaching stories as this, there may soon be an increase in the number of businesses logging on to Morse's own site.
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