Turn your pet into an Instagram star
Trick to fetching followers is to have good story
Pretty much right after I adopted my elderly shih tzu kid Prince, people told me he should be an Instagram-famous dog. His kind eyes, relaxed stoner demeanor, babe-magnet underbite and small limp with his front right leg make him almost overqualified.
Quite simply, he’s got a double-tap friendly look. Any photo or video of Prince, either at the beach, at the dog park, or asleep on a pile of my clean clothes, deserves a like — and receives several.
Anyone on Instagram probably follows at least a handful of celebrity dogs with names like TobyLittleDude, Ollie, Marnie, Jiff the Pom and Norbert, my own personal favorite. They have more followers than everyone you will ever know combined, but not as many as a stray Kardashian.
There is a rescued stray in Los Angeles named Popeye the Foodie Dog that poses with food and wears cute clothes. That’s literally all he does. He has more
than 315,000 followers.
Come to think of it, that’s what most Instagram human “models” do anyway.
TobyLittleDude’s owner, Joyce, tells me that the origin of the 12-year-old Canadian hipster dog’s internet fame is rather simple.
“Toby and I were sitting at Starbucks on a sunny day. I put my sunglasses on Toby for fun and noticed he didn’t mind wearing them,” she says. “I took a photo and posted it to my Instagram page.”
This was before Toby had his own Instagram, she notes, and that photo got more likes than any other photo she had posted of herself. He now has over 156,000 followers for his own account.
“He’s been recognized a few times in public, but it doesn’t happen that often,” she says. “I think people are used to seeing him in his dark-framed glasses.”
But how does one go about making a dog a celebrity? How do I turn my 13-pound roommate into a celebrity so we can get invited to hot parties at bars in Midtown and Chick-Fil-A store openings? How do Prince and I become millionaires for the rest of his life?
Believe it or not, there is an expert, of sorts, on how to make a dog Instafamous.
Richard Wong, vice president of marketing and creator relations at influencer marketing platform #paid, tells me that the key to setting a dog apart from other IG dogs is personality.
“Your dog should represent more than just a cute photo. Help convey what your dog loves to do, create a central theme around what your dog does, eats and where it travels to,” Wong says.
Prince sleeps, pees on trees and tires, listens to Grateful Dead bootlegs, eats carrot sticks and Beggin’ Strips, and usually travels abroad to such exotic locales as Pearland and Friendswood.
Can we get some sort dog food/Nike/Red Bull thing going? Maybe a line of toys that look like him?
“Sponsorships can work in many different ways, although the most successful campaigns are both monetary and product,” Wong says. “The team behind every account should have the product to try, test and include in the content, but monetary compensation ensures they’re compensated fairly for their work and ensures there’s a contractual agreement in place.”
What sort of dogs do the best on Instagram? Should they be palm-size or at least purse-size?
“The type of dogs don’t matter as much as the storytelling behind it,” Wong says. “Aside from that, unique-looking dogs are some of the top-performing pet accounts on Instagram.”
Unique? Like an elderly toy shih tzu with a prominent underbite being lead around by a tattooed bald guy typically dressed like a roadie for Keith Urban?
To steal a line from Pastor Joel Osteen, I think Prince and I are about to start living our best lives now.