I teach clients how to improve their social media, but I haven’t blogged anything about it in a while… but this, I could not resist.

One of the first things I tell everyone is to monitor your brand– use Google Alerts, use Search.twitter.com — whenever someone talks smack, provide good customer service.  When someone talks nice, reward ‘em.  Well…  here’s an awesome example of that:

Tabitha Hancock (@fox_girl313) posted , “AAAHHH Im outta wheat thins… Mi life is officially over,”- and Wheat Thins brought an entire giant palette of wheat thins to her house.

Initially I was going to call bullshit, because while twitter gives you location, it’s pretty vague… not an actual address. Also, her only tweet was that wheat thins tweet.

I went on her facebook, which does not have privacy turned on, and the story seems to be that she wrote it on Facebook (which is definitely indexed by Google), the Wheat Thins folks saw it, and contacted her aunt to shoot the commercial… so… what you see IS bullshit, because she tweeted that for them, as they are promoting twitter…. but she did write it on Social Media, and did get a crate of crackers.

Whether bullshit or not, it’s a brilliant campaign.  It makes people smile, and is getting people to talk about Wheat Thins again.  Remember– you get a lot more mileage out of PR than Advertising.  Meaning, no one cares about your ad, but if people are writing about you, then people care.  This case of the crackers has made it to the New York Times already, and has over 470,000 views!

The big questions that come to my mind though-

Will her career now change from Medical Assistant to Actress?

Will consuming a crate of Wheat Thins destroy her slim figure and good looks?  That would make for a counter-productive ad for Wheat Thins. (Those things are solid carbs with lots of salt…. all good things in moderation).

Will Tabitha get bitten by the viral video fame bug, and start making additional viral videos such as Wheat Thins wrestling, Wheat Thins construction, Wheat Thins fashions, etc?  I mean… what the hell do you do with that many Wheat Thins?  Personally, I’d donate them to the homeless (except maybe 4 or 5 boxes to munch  on)