A 3-legged dog called Scrap changed my life.
Or at least I thought he did.
That was way back in 2009, when, as an independent filmmaker in Los Angeles, I posted on Twitter:
“Searching the world for a 3-legged dog to turn into a movie star. Woof! Pass it on!”
I posted this tweet on a whim.
Without really having much of a strategy or a plan.
I had written a screenplay that starred a 3-legged street dog called Scrap… and someone had told me that this dog would be almost impossible to find.
That person, as it turns out, didn’t know their ass from their elbow.
I opened my laptop the next day, in some dodgy digs on the outskirts of Hollywood…
I swear my Twitter account was smokin’
People from all around the world were sending me pictures of their 3-legged dog…
There was Red, a farm dog in outback Australia
Rocky, a boxer in LA.
Torpedo, an amazing Bull Terrier tripod in Kingston, Jamaica.
Within a week, I had 111 3-legged beauties from all around the world applying to be in my film.
I put pictures on my free WordPress site, and I had 50,000 people vote for their favorite in a single day.
News items on KXAN, MSNBC, and Channel 7 in Australia all followed.
Here’s the really crazy thing?
It was just me, a boy with a dream, sitting on a free WordPress account and running my mouth off on Twitter.
For a minute, I felt like I had cracked the code.
I had gone viral.
But the reality was far more sobering.
I had found my canine movie star, but I did not have the people.
It was a tough lesson.
All the attention in the world will never be enough.
Because I did not have the people, I never got to make my movie.
I learned so much in the process, though…
That 3-legged dog never used his missing leg to gain attention; he just hopped around looking to make friends wherever he went.
The attention game is fleeting, the people game is real.
So I transformed my approach with social media and built out an entire system that didn’t just get people attention and then leave them hanging.
Instead, it’s a whole new way of using social.
One that starts conversations and builds real relationships.
Because once you have the people, anything is possible.
Geoff. x
If the story resonates, then I’ve put together a page on how I am helping people do this - Take a look here