Cats gone wild — on Twitter
It can be a business for some enterprising pet owners
There’s a golden retriever in San Francisco who loves Giants baseball and runs on the beach. An overweight Siamese in Vermont who tried to sell a dog on eBay. And a tabby in Waltham, Mass., who fights with his adopted sister Pennycat.
No, it’s not some new wacky TV show about pets.
It’s the Twittersphere, where thousands of people are impersonating their pets, some who have been tweeting for a few years now. Some are now even making money at it, while tweeting about their favorite treats and naps on the couch while making fun of their owners.
How do I know this? Several months ago, I thought it would be funny to set up a Twitter account for my cat in honor of her 22nd birthday, and see if she got any followers. I have followed a few people who impersonate dead people, like architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and if the person who is tweeting knows their character, they can be hilarious.So I attempted to impersonate my senior-citizen pet, Tatina Louise, who was getting a bit cranky in her old age but was of course still adorable to me.
Little did I know I would not be alone. I soon discovered, while tweeting as @TatinaLouise, I found @Sockington, the most popular cat on Twitter, with more than 1.4 million followers. The “Socks Army,” as the followers of Jason Scott’s most popular cat are called, are entertained by tweets like this recent one: “WHY LOOK WHO HAS ARRIVED hello hero I SEE YOU BROUGHT ME SUSHI hey where you going WHY LOOK WHO HAS LEFT AND GONE TO HIS ROOM goodbye loser.”
Scott is perhaps too busy dealing with all his followers, and the demanding Sockington. He didn’t respond to a request for an interview.
Some cats, dogs and other pets who tweet also have their own blogs. It has become such the phenomenon that a few pet bloggers got together to form BlogPaws, now a community of more than 700 pet bloggers. BlogPaws helps fellow bloggers make money in social media and even hosts conferences. It recently formed a partnership with BlogHer to create a pets section of the popular women’s blogging network, where pet bloggers will get additional exposure and more opportunities to sell ads on their blogs.
One of the founders of BlogPaws is Caroline Golon, who was working in health-care public relations in 2009 when she started a Twitter account for her cat Romeo as a joke. When a co-worker mused that she was afraid Romeo the cat would get more followers than her on Twitter, Golon decided to take the challenge and offered to donate 5 cents for every follower her cat got on Twitter to the Humane Society. She quickly got thousands of followers, and now@RomeotheCat has more than 11,000 followers.
Golon has raised north of $60,000 in donations for animal rescue and she left her full-time job and started her own company.
“I am now helping companies with their social-media strategy and I write for some pet-related outfits,” said Golon, whose company is called High Paw Media.
Like the huge community of “mommy bloggers,” pet bloggers are starting to have influence among consumers in recommending products, spreading news about product recalls, helping animals get adopted or alerting the media to important stories with via Twitter or Facebook, such as the tragic tale of Jack the Cat, the Norwegian forest cat who was lost by American Airlines when being transported to a plane’s cargo compartment. Jack the Cat was found two months later at JFK, but subsequently died of complications from his malnourishment.
The U.S. pet-supplies industry alone is estimated to reach $51 billion in revenue this year, with $20 billion coming from pet food, and $14 billion on veterinary care, according to the American Pet Products Association.
“The companies that are successful are the ones who are engaging in an authentic way,” said Golon, “and that is just being a pet owner next to the other pet owners, as opposed to being a corporation.”
There is now a daily-deal site called Pawpons, a Groupon Inc.-likewebsite of discounts for pet owners, which started up this year. Pawpons gives a portion of each sale to an animal-rescue organization. Software developers are also creating pet-related smartphone apps, such as where to find pet-friendly hotels, a pet health app to keep track of a pet’s medications and a pet first-aid app for medical emergencies, such as Jive Media’s Pet First Aid app ($3.99).
So yes, pets tweeting is more than just cute photos and fun and games. Topics range from pet-food debates to best toys to animals in need of a home. But my favorites on Twitter are those who adopt a personality of a seemingly real animal. Leigh Anne Varney, a San Francisco public-relations entrepreneur, tweets for her golden retriever Callie as @FeartheFur. Callie, she said, is a big San Francisco Giants fan.
“She thought up the @FeartheFur handle after being on Sportsnet TV and was mentioned by local broadcasters,” Varney said. She was surprised that more cats tweet than dogs. “Maybe cats tweet more because they think they can catch a bird.”
One hilarious favorite of many pet lovers is a very fat and lazy cat named CatFoodBreath, who describes itself as a 17-pound Siamese with a sushi habit, and has more than 10,500 followers.
CatFoodBreath, who has not specified a gender, said in an interview that it started tweeting to sell the family dog on eBay Inc. “I stumbled on Twitter because I thought it was a site about bird snacks,” CatFoodBreath said, adding that it is still trying to sell the dog. “The dog is completely stupid, it’s a labradumb.” One of its most recent tweets shows this kitty’s remarkable cat-titude.
“I am staying under this tree until Santa brings me everything on my list. Or until I get hungry. Occupy the Christmas tree. #occupytree,” CatFoodBreath tweeted. Is CFB making any money yet? “I am trying to grow the brand” and contemplating writing a book, was all this arrogant cat would say, pointing out that CatFoodBreath is also on Facebook. The human behind CatFoodBreath did not want to be identified.
As for Tatina Louise, her Twitter career ended abruptly with her death after only a few months of tweeting. Her cranky tweets about her arthritis, high blood pressure and empty food bowls didn’t get her too many followers, but occasionally she is still picks up a few, even though she is not tweeting from the other side of the Rainbow Bridge. Maybe people (or animals) should read her last tweet.
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(Source: Therese Poletti, MarketWatch; Photo:readpole.blogspot.com)
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