Sideways Marketing Founder Louis Sideways sat across the table from Fred Needles, a small business owner who ran a cactus farm that used the name Fred’s Needles. Sideways spent the first half hour of the meeting trying to figure out why the profitable cactus farm needed more social media engagement. Overcome by frustration, he decided to turn his attention to a new tactic for the cacti.
“Wow, it looks like a desert on your social media,” Sideways said.
“Thank you, that’s kind of the aesthetic of cactus farms,” Fred said. “Glad I’m nailing it.”
“No, I mean no one’s showing up,” Sideways said. “The site isn’t getting any likes, shares, comments, views. It’s almost like asking the question, if a cactus falls in a desert, would anyone notice?”
“A lot of desert species build their habitats around cactuses, Fred said. “So it could destroy an entire ecosystem.”
“Look,” Sideways said, “I understand that you have lots of facts. You’re very knowledgeable, but we need to get you some views, I guess.”
“So what should I do?” Fred said.
“Do you have any very online friends? Do you know people who post all the time, get lots of likes, maybe even get a lot of attention?”
“Yeah, my friend Paige!” Fred said.
“Okay, we’re going to build an entire social media campaign around Paige.”
“You mean like hire her as a spokesperson?”
“No, you’re just going to ask her to come to the cactus farm and take a lot of pictures with cactuses. Then you’re going to post a lot of those pictures on your social media.”
“Why?” Fred asked.
“Because she’ll repost them,” Sideways said. “People who are very online love sharing posts from other people that are about them.”
“That’s actually true. I always repost pictures from the Armadillo farm’s social media that include me.”
“So there you go,” Sideways said. “Let me know how it goes.”
“But what is Paige reposting going to get me?”
“I guess likes,” Sideways said. “Do you want to debate the merits of a cactus farm’s social media presence again?”