Friending Man’s Best Friend

Friending Man’s Best Friend

In this crazy world of emerging media there aren’t a lot of rules. This is one of the reasons why I find it so much fun. You are rewarded and encouraged to be creative and innovative in your uses of the new technology platforms and it can often reap big rewards for businesses to do so.

At PUNCH we recently stumbled across a very active community online of dogs. Yes, you heard me correctly. Dogs are now being given their own Twitter handles, Facebook pages, and even Facebook Fan pages. These dogs are using the pages to speak to other dogs, expand the audience for the companies they are associated with, and incorporate a fun sub-culture that people are very passionate about.

Richmond has a vibrant community of avid dog lovers. This is visible in many ways across Richmond:
• Restaurants such as Café Caturra and Ellwood’s Coffee having dog-friendly patios complete with water bowls for the furry friends
• Stoney Point Fashion Park is another welcoming venue for dog-lovers and their dogs. They can even compete to be Next Top Dog.
• Local dog walking service, River City Rover, even uses an iPhone app to send personalized photo emails from the dog to the owner during their workday
• Valentine History Center hosts History Hounds Dog Walks during warm months
• Popular blog, Young House Love, devotes an entire blog to their dog Burger where he clearly displays a personality people want to engage with (@hamburgershouse has 1474 followers on Twitter)
• RichmondPetLovers.com is a very popular site for local dog resources
• Richmond SPCA hosts an annual FurBall each year and we actually friended our first dog on Facebook as a result
• Joey Stanley is the SPCA mascot this year and had used his Facebook Fan Page (170 fans and 613 friends on his personal page) to promote charity events and raise funds to help sick animals in our area. By becoming a fan you have the opportunity to gain insight into the daily life of Joey, the dog, and create a bond that is surprisingly easy to gain with a lovable dog

This is by no means an extensive list of active dog communities in town, but it illustrates the interest by the people in this community to support these types of events. So how can a business leverage that passion and interest and convert it into a benefit for their business? Take a look at a few examples below.

Young House Love drives traffic to their blog through Burger’s blog, Twitter account, and creative contests such as finding a girlfriend for Burger.

The Obama Administration uses @Obama_dog (5592 followers) to develop another layer of the first family’s persona and make them feel more accessible.

Purina capitalized on people’s love of their pets and social media to create Petcentric, a Web site for pet lovers, pet blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and even an iPhone app to locate pet-friendly places near you. (Oh, and once they’ve got you on their site, they will learn invaluable amounts about your habits, concerns, and purchases and be able to create new products that will be very successful based upon inside knowledge of the community.)

Remember: in emerging media creative content can be a powerful force for engaging your audience. Don’t be afraid to have some fun!