A Twitter Tale: Snow, Trends and Pixie Lott
There’s a lot of talk about Twitter and how we can leverage social media for business but what we often overlook is that these are social tools for social people. I’ve long maintained that Twitter is little more than a glorified chat room; it just so happens that it’s a bloody great big glorified chat room. We meet people, we forge relationships, we chat, we help each other.
Last week, a little girl in Sheffield faced a cancelled birthday. Eighteen inches of snow. Party cancelled. Meal cancelled. Cards stuck in the post. Presents stuck in the post. Her dad wanted to do something, so thinking on his feet, he tweeted this:
So what happened next? I chatted to the superstar dad and MD of Steel City Marketing, in question, James Biggins (who coincidentally I met after sending a tweet at a business exhibition to see who was around) to find out.
“I forgot the tweet and carried on working. Ten minutes later it was going nuts. People were retweeting it, people were asking celebs to get involved. None did, but it was insane.”
So people do care. They cared enough here to make the tweet go viral – so much so, James was trending!
”I realised it was going slightly viral, but left work early to spend some time with my girl. I got a tweet within an hour saying I was trending. By the time I got home, I was at number 2! Radio 5 Live had seen it and called me and asked me to keep in touch for the rest of the day. They wanted to run the story at 10.30 – even if no one called me!”
Being retweeted is always nice, but how does it feel to trend?
“Trending felt amazing. We all want to have a tweet go nuts and in a perfect world I would so want a “promotional gift tweet” to trend – but things that touch people are the ones that hit home. It is possibly a once in a lifetime chance to trend and I’m doubtful it will happen again. You can’t make it happen… I didn’t think it would, but that is maybe when something magical happens: when you don’t try and make it happen.”
What happened next is nothing short of awesome (and indeed, magical). A young actress in London sent James a Direct Message asking for his number. It turns out that said young actress was best mates with the delectable Pixie Lott. It turns out that Pixie Lott rang James up and spoke to his little girl. It turns out that Pixie Lott discovered she lived in Sheffield so offered tickets and a meet for her.
For James, things went from incredible to surreal, when they interviewed him and broadcast the phone call he’d between his girl and Pixie Lott (which you can listen to here – skip to around 56 minutes and melt at the cuteness of Rosie, the little girl).
What’s very important here is that Pixie Lott had no idea this was trending and no idea that Radio Five Live were keeping tabs. This makes it human. It makes it endearing and is a wonderful testament to the power of Twitter and how it engenders an often caring community.
We know that Twitter is incredible for business. Now we know it’s good for us humans too.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Hannah Baldwin, Tom Stables. Tom Stables said: A Twitter Tale: Snow, Trends and Pixie Lott http://bit.ly/fDrutI Twitter isn't just for business, see! (@Pixiemusic [...]
I love this story and it completely proves what I’ve been telling people for ages: that people do things just out of the goodness of their heart.
Boo to those people who think that there’s always a hidden agenda, and Yay to Pixie Lott for being so sweet
Indeed. I genuinely never thought I’d be blogging about Pixie Lott but this story definitely warranted it.
I’ve found that there’s a real altruistic culture on Twitter. People like to help people; sometimes it might be to demonstrate their expertise but often it’s to get that nice fuzzy warm feeling to top up the karmic bank!