Are You A Human or a Chew Toy?
We are helping one of our own select a social marketing profile today, so is Barb human, or is she a Chew toy?
One of my email delivery clients and has been swayed over to the social marketing side as email delivery continues to slide with Conficker delivering spam by the boatload and spam filters cranked up to an all time high.
So Barb asked me “Should she use @BarbSalisbury or @VirChewAll on Twitter. You know what I said and of course I asked her, “Well are you a human, or are you a chew toy?” You see Barb owns Vir Chew All, and makes just about the coolest pet toys on earth.
Her reply was “People will be looking for VirChewAll, not Barb Salisbury.” Those of you in the Google Wave Surf Club already know what I will say next…
If they are looking for you, then they already know your site, the job is done. They will go to the site.
You are not looking to meet people who know about the site.
You do care about NEW people who never heard of Vir Chew All. These people will be looking for other pet owners, not someone trying to sell them something.
Those people DO NOT want to get to know a business, they do want to get to know ANOTHER pet owner.
When they have gotten to know Barb Salisbury, THEN they may consider the business behind the person.
It’s time for a Chris Lang “What If…” story!
Let’s say you are standing in line at Petco. Like me, you take your dog with you when you go shopping for pet stuff or to Lowe’s, HomeDepot, etc. (mine is usually the one taking a crap in the isle BTW)
So here you and I are standing in line for the cashier. (AKA the last minute pitch isle from hell where for some reason you feel you just HAVE to buy one last thing, we don’t know why…)
Our eyes meet as we just happen to be looking over some of the plush puppies. (I myself love the turtle one and they are NOT available at Petco)
Now I chime right in as I am a WAY overly friendly kind of guy. (those who really know me understand this) I say “Hey, my dog loves those things, they last forever….”
Good stuff for any product, huh? Some random person just happens to endorse the impulse buy a random pet owner is considering, while our two dogs happily sniff each other’s butts in line. I mean how much more friendly do you get than that?
Let’s Say the Conversation Continues One Step Further:
You and I continue to chat and the dogs do things to each other I won’t describe, as we now wait, the cashier waits and the WHOLE store seems to wait in line for the manager because of some high level decision that only a Petco manager could possibly make but who is right now smoking a cigarette out back and texting his girlfriend who will never text him back.
We chat on and you ask me “So what do you do for a living” and I say “I help people learn how to use Google Friend Connect to make money.” I say help, because I give the thing away darn near for free.
You ask “Really, are you on Twitter” I say “Sure, my name is @VirChewAll, we make those Plush Puppies your basket is loaded with…”
So, my question to you is this:
Do the Plush Puppies stay in the basket? Of course they do!
We know each other.
We are both real people and have stood in line with each other at Petco. (boy, I love standing in lines)
Our dogs know what each other’s butts smell like.
WE ARE NOW SOCIAL FRIENDS! YES!!!
Would any of this have happened if I had been wearing a VirChewAll T-shirt and been in the store stocking my ends caps and checking on a corporate display? No, I definitely don’t think so and you should not either. Would you have walked up and asked me what my Twitter name was?
We became friends BEFORE you knew I had anything to do with VirChewAll. A search for VirChewAll would return your Twitter profile no matter your name. But if you added anyone as a friend on Twitter how likely would a @VirChewAll name be to pull return followers?
Barb returned via email this saying “For the sake of argument – customers will be looking for Petco, not ‘Janice-the-cashier’ “.
Customers look for you on Google, people look for people on Twitter.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Exactingly! We want “Flo the Cashier” my favorite #1 example of how social marketing should be done via a commercial entity. Janice the cashier is exactly what I would say would be the middle road, if you must be commercial. She is only second to Vince the Slap Chop / ShamWoW guy.
We could talk about Flo all day but let’s get back to Barb. What is her Twitter name going to be? I say we all vote in the comments below and you all help her decide!
I vote, well who cares what I think, what do you have to say? Are you a chew toy or a person?
