Why SubtweetCat is better at Twitter than your brand

BY KRISTIN BOND

Her name is SubtweetCat. She lives on Twitter. She is a cat who subtweets. She’s surprisingly good at social media—for a cat. My first introduction to SubtweetCat was about a year ago. SubtweetCat is a social media genius. She has a very distinct brand voice, and she’s written an ebook about social media.

SubtweetCat is one of the weirdest Twitter accounts I’ve ever seen. She’ll subtweet people all day long. She has managed to build a very engaged online community via Twitter, which few brands have done successfully. And she’s a CAT.

Here’s why she’s better at marketing than most brands.

1) Strong brand voice

Her voice is funny, and it’s consistent. Lots of CAPS LOCK. Lots of run-on sentences. (She is a cat after all—they don’t allow cats in most American schools). I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if she has some kind of formal style guide. She sticks to her “I’m a cat” persona, and even posts selfies (of cats). While her voice obviously wouldn’t work for every brand—it works amazingly well for her.

Her followers know specific things about her: She’s a lesbian. She hates Chipotle. She likes sushi and pizza. She doesn’t like Kale. She loves Warby Parker (more than Just Salad—right, CAT?). She’s a cat. She’s, um, really into 420. She has a questionable relationship with the Poncho app. The thing is—it doesn’t even matter what’s in her brand bible. Her fans know all these things about her. And they actively interact with her about all of her interests. Every post she makes gets tons of faves, retweets, and replies. Every single one. And the really amazing part—her fans just get it. They play along, and even speak to her in her brand voice. And she rewards them with faves and retweets.

2) Social media engagement

On that note: She has a serious cult following. She’s on Twitter pretty much all day. I honestly don’t even know if she ever does anything else. Her fans tweet things that they think she would like, and she often retweets or faves them within seconds. (At least, that happens with MY tweets, but I’m probably her most important follower.) This makes her fans feel special, and they keep coming back. Or they spend $10 on a 15 page ebook.

Ahem. But anyway.

3) Consistent messaging

An important aspect of marketing is consistent messaging. While SubtweetCat is pretty much on Twitter all day, a few things are certain: At 11:11am and pm, she’ll tweet “11:11 HUG A CAT.” At 4:20pm, there will be a stream of tweets about pot. Sometime around midnight, she’ll tweet “GO TO BED.” Her fans have come to expect all this, and again—they play along. If she misses an 11:11, tons of people tweet at her about it. While 11:11 and 4:20 probably aren’t right for every brand, SubtweetCat’s consistent messaging and timing have given her followers expectations, and they look forward to these times to see what she’s going to do. How many other brands have something like that?

She also does this great thing when other brands mess up on social media. She’ll repeatedly tweet at them “Hire me to do your social media.” (Although, when US Airways had that incident with the pornographic picture on Twitter, she re-posted it so many times that I had to stay off Twitter for the rest of the workday. So thanks for that, CAT). At the end of her ebook, she included a hashtag about hiring her to do your social media, and it kind of became this whole big thing. It doesn’t stop there. She will make photoshopped images of a cat using the brand’s products. Or she’ll tweet the link to her ebook to a brand suggesting that they buy it. And then SubtweetCat’s cult will chime in, most likely amplifying whatever mistake the brand made, and showing their support for their favorite internet cat. But she doesn’t just interact with brands that make mistakes. She’s built relationships with several brands. The smart brands tweet back at her and become her friend.

Last week, she announced that she was going to start sending an email newsletter. So naturally, this tweet had to happen:

But it turns out she doesn’t even need me. Her emails are perfectly on brand for her, and an on point extension of her Twitter persona. She encourages her subscribers to submit cat pictures for the newsletter via a hashtag. This gets people to 1) Generate her content for her and 2) Open the newsletter every day to see if their content got in. Brilliant. She’ll also post 5 tweets of the day, so again—everyone’s reading and clicking to see if they made it in the newsletter.

Once you sign up (here. It’s worth it.), this is the confirmation page:

The overarching lesson here is that good marketing is good marketing, no matter WHAT you’re marketing. If you’re doing it right, you can market just about anything.

This article originally appeared on Email Snarketing. Republished with permission.

Image via SubtweetCat/Twitter