Social Media Success Story

You never know who's reading your tweets!

About two weeks ago I was tweeting for my sustainable butcher / charcuterie client, @SwineryMeats, about the bacon chocolate chip cookie dough they were testing. Unbeknownst to me at the time, New York Times columnist Charlotte Druckman was just then scanning The Swinery's Twitter feed.

Ms. Druckman had just found The Swinery through an online search for merguez (lamb sausage) with the thought of writing a column about the stuff. Some initial poking around on The Swinery's site led her to their Twitter feed, whereupon she saw my post about the mouthwateringly delicious, above-mentioned cookies.

The next day, The Swinery's owner got a call from Ms. Druckman. She explained that she'd been intruiged with the company upon reading about their merguez, but simply had to know more when she learned they were making such things as those cookies. Naturally, the Head Swine Guy immediately sent her some samples, including the merguez which had originally piqued her interest, some cookies, and also a taste of something new he was working on: smoked bresaola.

The bresaola was the undisputed show-stopper, and Ms. Druckman called to say she'd like to write about it. After the interview, the piece was ready to go, with one hold-up the evening before press time: there was no photo to accompany it. The author had some bresaola left to shoot, but couldn't find her camera. The Swinery had a camera on hand, but over the weekend had completely sold out of bresaola, which takes about two months to make.

The deadline was that day, and The Swinery really wanted the story to run that week because they were just about to reopen from a two-month remodeling closure. So the Swine Guy got on the phone to his marketing consultant--me.

"Can you help?" he begged.

"I don't know what I can do...I don't have any bresaola either!" I said. "Are you sure you sold it all?"

"It flew out the door over the weekend. People loved it."

"I'll try to think of something," I promised. It was already nearly 5 pm on the East Coast; I assumed that it was a lost cause.

But something struck me in what he had said. The entire batch had sold out over the past weekend? It was only Tuesday. Maybe someone who'd bought it still had some. Maybe they'd be willing to take a picture for us.

So I went into the Swinery's Facebook page and posted an emergency call to action. "HELP! If you bought any of our smoked bresaola recently, and still have any, and you could take a high-res photo of it today, please let us know ASAP! The NYT wants to run a story on it but they want a pic... and meanwhile we've sold it all!"

I admit I did not expect this to work. But I underestimated the power of social media. In one hour I got a response from a loyal customer who said she still had some bresaola and would be happy to photograph it for us. But we had to wait until she got off work... in a couple of hours.

Unbelievably, though, it happened. I received the photos and sent them on to Ms. Druckman and, miraculously, she was still up. The next morning, thanks to not one but two miracles of social media, The Swinery was in The New York Times.

Next time, I've gotta get my name in there!