ThePet.net. Social networking site

"Qube really gets social networking on the web and has the expertise to make it work on a business level."

Marc Abraham, Director, ThePet.net

The Challenge

ThePet.net is a major new social networking site which aims to revolutionise the pet industry by becoming the most trusted and up-to-date source of pet information available anywhere.

Social networking sites rely on their communities. As the content of ThePet.net is contributed by its members, getting pet owners and business alike to be aware of and contribute to the site is fundamental.

The Results

  • The number of unique users is increasing by over 50% each month
  • The number of members, businesses and reviews posted on the site is increasing exponentially
  • There is wide engagement with the new proposition with discussion on blogs and forums, both within the pet industry sites and on personal sites
  • Coverage and discussion has been achieved in wide range of online press ranging from vetsurgeon.org to Our Dogs magazine
  • A thriving and active pet community engaging with ThePet.net on social networking site Twitter

What we did

ThePet.net worked with Qube to launch a website last October rich with active members and user-generated content. Qube now runs an ongoing social media campaign to cultivate the community around the brand. We delivered:

  • Social Media Roadmap
  • Community Builder
  • Marketing Campaign
  • Customer Service

Roadmap

Community mapping

We understand people are passionate about their pets and many are already involved in conversations all over the web. We segmented the target audience and mapped the communities and websites where each spend time online. We then spent time listening to what each group was talking about before developing a strategy to engage with them.

Technical plan

The technical plans focussed on building the community website with agile development processes.

Marketing & PR plan

We devised creative marketing and pr plans to inspire and motivate the audience to get involved in this exciting new community project.

Business plan

We created a detailed business plan for the project focussed on monetising the community through areas including advertising, online booking, premium tools and sponsorship.

Community Builder

Community website design and build

We managed the design and build of the community website using an agile, iterative development approach. The site was created with Ruby on Rails.

Finding influencers with outreach

ThePet.net is a website with an opinion and lots of passion. We utilised this to connect with like-minded people on blogs, forums and social networking sites such as Facebook.

We have developed a number of talking points for the outreach activity. These include:

  • Competitions, eg win a weekend break with your pet
  • Year of the Rescue Pet, an campaign focused on encourage people to adopt rescue pets
  • Looking after your pet during a recession

Before the launch we invited people to become part of ThePet.net's mission to help people get the best their pet can get. They were offered the chance to win a luxury holiday with their pet when they signed up.

Online PR

We used an online press toolkit to provide content to make it even easier for interested parties like websites and bloggers to talk about pets and ThePet.net. All press releases are optimised for search and seeded on relevant PR and news websites.

Social networks

Cultivating community groups within existing social networks in a key part of the strategy. We focus on developing groups round the key belief of putting the pet first which forms the basis of ThePet.net brand.

Community management

We use customer relationship management techniques to mange the community ongoing, both on ThePet.net website and beyond. We provide regular updates on the social networking groups and run a monthly community newsletter.

Customer Service

We run an online customer service for ThePet.net using a website called GetSatisfaction. Pet owners are able to report problems, ask questions and even suggest ideas all in a completely transparent manner.

Check out ThePet.net's Facebook page.

Follow ThePet.net on Twitter.

Email us or call us on 01273 689 672 to see how we can help you with your online pr or social media marketing.