COEUR d'ALENE - Citizens and law enforcement officers are turning more and more to social media in order to track down criminals.

On Monday morning Meagan Pattis, 27, left her Jeep Cherokee Sport, affectionately named "Wilma," running in the driveway of her Coeur d'Alene home. Just minutes after she walked back into her residence, she heard the engine of her vehicle revving. By the time she got outside, the car was gone.

"I contacted the police and then went to work," Pattis said. "When I got to work I decided to send out a Facebook post with a picture of the car so people would be on the lookout. My roommate did the same thing."

It wasn't long before the Facebook post turned up a lead on the missing vehicle. One of her roommate's friends called and said a vehicle with matching plates had parked in the driveway of his Hauser home.

"The guy was apparently asking for directions to a storage unit place in Hauser," Pattis said.

The thief left the driveway of the home in the stolen car and when Pattis got off work, her friend drove her to the area to look for her vehicle.

"On the way up there we saw some guy driving my car," Pattis said. "He was having the time of his life, rocking out and smoking cigarettes."

Pattis' friend was unable to keep up with the stolen vehicle. However shortly after, they received another call from a Facebook friend who had seen the Jeep.

"They saw him get out of my car and approached him," Pattis said. "When they did, he got back in the car and left."

After one more run-in with the thief, Pattis was told by the Coeur d'Alene Police Department to return home. At 7 p.m., she got a phone call saying her car had been recovered.

"This guy kept getting confronted by my friends," Pattis said. "My social network kind of saved me. I don't think I would have gotten my car back if it wasn't for us putting that information out there."

Coeur d'Alene Police Sgt. Christie Wood called social media a "highly effective medium" and said that residents who follow the department on Facebook and Twitter often give them vital information in emergency situations.

"We develop a tremendous amount of leads on active cases in a very short time period due to our use of social media," Wood said. "We use our Facebook site for all types of crimes, but almost daily for photos of wanted subjects and stolen vehicles. People message us back, email us or call us as a result of our Facebook and Twitter sites."

Wood added that, because of the success of social media, the department is looking to expand its use of Facebook and Twitter.

"It is such a highly used communication tool by the general public," Wood said. "In the near future we hope to have all supervisors utilizing it in order to let the public know what safety issues are happening in the city at all times of the day."