What I Learned from Hootsuite's holiday Hoax:

HootSuite has managed to sucker me into reading their emails, and probably forever. While usually I cannot delete corporate blasted emails from my inbox fast enough, HootSuite's clever April's fools prank convinced me not only of their reign over the realm of twitter add-ons, but also of their marketing teams prowess.

On April 1st, I received the following email with the subject "HootSuite Pivot - CONFIDENTIAL & INTERNAL"  from a Mr. Ryan Holmes, CEO of HootSuite, which reads:

Board, Investors and Friends,

Things have been going really well at HootSuite for the last while, but after watching the massive growth of Zynga and the likes, I've been thinking a lot about if we are in the right business? Building on top of third party platforms can be challenging, and the team and I want a change. I know that this will come as a surprise, but as of today we're pivoting business models with the launch of Happy Owls (screenshot and link to private beta below). This game is really addictive and I think we stand a great shot of making an even bigger splash in a really fun market. 

As always I appreciate your support, and please keep confidential until our public announcement on Monday. 

Ryan
______________________________
Ryan Holmes, CEO
HootSuite - Social Media Dashboard

It was shortly followed by a request to ignore:

The prior email entitled HootSuite Pivot was sent to you in error. It was intended to be sent only to our Board, Investors and Advisors and is highly confidential. Please delete and ignore. 

Thanks for using HootSuite, and have a great day!

Ryan
______________________________
Ryan Holmes, CEO

HootSuite - Social Media Dashboard 

Normally, I wouldn't care about what HootSuite is doing with the direction of the company- but the fact that I had somehow stumbled on illicit information made me feel suddenly intrigued. So when I received another email a few days later, I was inclined to open it.

And Now, instead of Junking the email from Hootsuite about their new TwitterBar (the one they actually wanted me to read in the first place) I opened it and not only looked at the pictures, but I actually read it! I had to know if it was another tasty piece of unintended HootSuite gossip. And even though it wasn't and they sheepishly confessed to their misrepresentation, I was amused! Even impressed that they had managed to trick me. 

As internet marketers, we are even more inundated with "click here to win" contests, and other gimmicky call to actions make us chuckle as we hit the "send to spam" button. So when a marketing email does get through my bullet proof spam filter, and actually intrigues me enough to open it  I have to take notice, because these guys obviously have their thinking caps on, and have thought of something  unique and valuable, not only to me as a consumer, but as a marketer as well.

The marketing genius of HootSuites' Holiday "Blunder"? They Joked with me! They used a common joke to charmingly and wittily "trick" me, the reader, and more importantly consumer into reading their email, I feel a little more tied to the brand, because they showed a relate-able human side to themselves (and I have to give them props for being able to pull one over on a Savvy internet marketer like myself). In the future, I will probably read their emails because I expect them to have more valuable content than just a sales pitch, or the latest information about Hootsuite, but some engaging content that related back to ME, the human reader.

HootSuite has discovered the secret to modern internet marketing: drop the act! Quit speaking to your customers and prospects like they are generic robots, and remember that they are humans too- and while they like they the simplicity of computers, they are not going to trust your brand until they can see through the web of technology to the human behind it.