Pets hold a special place in people’s hearts - and on their social media pages. I chose to look into a small company called ReelRaw, which I never would have discovered if I didn’t follow the popular page on Instagram, ‘Juniperfox’. The fact that I found a small company through the hashtags and posts of another page demonstrates how influential social media can be through ‘word-of-mouth’ marketing.
ReelRaw is a company that portions, packages and ships raw pet food that is USDA inspected, and approved for human consumption (ReelRaw). The company was founded in 2002 by Alissa Zalneraitis who partnered with an experienced Sushi Chef, Richard Reel IV. Together, they “[...] founded [the company] under the belief that dogs are healthier when fed an all natural, grain-free, preservative-free, and [on a] holistic diet” (ReelRaw).
Researching the company, I found that they seem to spend little on advertising, and are mostly a web based company. Instead, the primary form of advertising I could find was through hashtags on animal pages on Instagram. This connected to the reading “Not Just A Crock: The Viral Word-Of-Mouth Success Of Instant Pot” by Grace Hwang Lynch. Lynch described the Instant Pot’s success due to being “savvy enough to know that social media is now part of word-of-mouth advertising. While the company does not sponsor paid content or promotions, it has provided free Instant Pots to 200 bloggers and cookbook authors who represent many styles of cooking, including Chinese, Italian, sous-vide and vegan” (Lynch). While I could find many private accounts posting Instagram pictures of their dogs with the hashtag ‘ReelRaw,’ usually these photos had around 100 to 200 likes. In comparison, Juniperfoxx’s account is the most public - and with only one year of being an active account (and already 1.3 million followers) it would not be surprising if Juniperfoxx’s account was one of the reasons for ReelRaw’s national success. I do not know for sure if ReelRaw sends free samples to Juniperfoxx,but they definitely have a mutually beneficial relationship. Juniperfoxx tags ReelRaw in a post and ReelRaw shares the same photo of Juniper. Both actions bring attention to each accounts, so whether or not ReelRaw is paying the Juniperfoxx account for tagging, they are still benefiting from the attention.
In Lynch’s article, she describes sleeper marketing “which gets a product in front of a small, influential group of people, instead of targeting the masses. This type of marketing is a method that may work for companies that don't have a big budget to do an advertising blitz when a product first rolls out” (Lynch). Instead of trying to advertise to the masses, ReelRaw can advertise to pet lovers through the accounts of pet lovers.
Works Cited
"J U N I P E R (@juniperfoxx) • Instagram Photos and Videos." Instagram. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2017. <https://www.instagram.com/juniperfoxx/?hl=en>.
Lynch, Grace Hwang. "Not Just A Crock: The Viral Word-Of-Mouth Success Of Instant Pot." Not
Just A Crock: The Viral Word-Of-Mouth Success Of Instant Pot. NPR, 18 Jan. 2017. Web.
06 Mar. 2017. <http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/01/18/509675621/not-just-a-crock-the-viral-word-of-mout
h-success-of-instant-pot>.
"ReelRaw | Facebook." ReelRaw | Facebook. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2017. <https://www.facebook.com/reelrawdog/>.
"ReelRaw (@reelraw) • Instagram Photos and Videos." Instagram. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2017. <https://www.instagram.com/reelraw/?hl=en>.
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