This College Student Is the King of Snapchat PR

Until recently, Matthew Hanson had been the media point of contact for Snapchat, Inc. Seems like a pretty good gig for someone who only recently received a degree in public relations, right? The only problem: He doesn't actually work for the company.

During the fall 2012 semester, Hanson was enrolled in "Strategic Writing for Public Relations" at the University of Southern California. For the course's final project, the 21-year-old had to create an online newsroom for a company or product of his choice. He picked Snapchat, the popular mobile app that lets users share videos and photos that disappear within seconds of being viewed.

In December 2012, Hanson published his final assignment using WordPress. The site featured "Ghostface Chillah," Snapchat's mascot, prominently in its background. It also contained a "Facts and Questions" section, the biographies of founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy and a page with contact informationfor media inquiries. The email address Hanson provided was fake, but the telephone number wasn't. It was his own.

"I never thought that anyone would find the site," Hanson told the Daily Dot. " I guess I didn't think it would show up on Google."

Not only did Hanson's class assignment — and his real cellphone number — appear in a cursory search, but it constantly ranked in the top three search results. In fact, according to him, it actually beat out the startup's bare-bones page for a period of time.

Soon thereafter, he started receiving constant calls about Snapchat. The first came from a Los Angeles-based agency that represented app designers and was interested in signing him on as a client. Media outlets like Fox News also reached out to Hanson for more information about the company. In fact, our first communication with Hanson stemmed from us trying to get a comment on the app's controversial new "best friends" feature.

"Those weren't the weirdest ones, though," he said of the press-related calls. "I started getting calls from actual Snapchat users complaining about the app, or from people who wanted to know how to save a picture."

"I don't know what I was thinking publishing my real number on the Internet."

Moments after we first spoke on Friday, Hanson finally removed his telephone number from the site and published a disclaimer noting that his WordPress site was in no way, shape or form associated with the company.

As for his grade? The USC senior says he got a B. Clearly Hanson's professor wasn't as impressed — or confused — as the rest of us were.

Mashable composite, image via iStockphoto, Ornelas; logo courtesy of Snapchat