The duo thought it'd be a great idea to make a spice which made everything taste like bacon and began working on the product, now known as Bacon Salt.
Once production of Bacon Salt got underway, the two posted a MySpace profile dedicated to it. They then spent countless hours mining MySpace data, sending messages and "friending" anyone who declared an affinity for bacon in their profiles. Allegedly, they found 37,000 MySpace members mentioned bacon in profiles.
The "spamming," as Esch initially called it, generated a surprising result: not only were people adding Bacon Salt, they were ordering the product even before Lefkow and Esch had ramped up production. Their "cute side project," as Lefkow described it, suddenly got serious.
Before long, the word on Bacon Salt was spread virally on other social networking sites. One of those friended on MySpace wrote a lengthy post about the product on Phog.net, a message board for University of Kansas sports fans. The one post alone drew over 2,000 comments - and another spate of orders.
Now, they're branching into advertising in social media. They've found success with Facebook ads and were early testers of MySpace's MyAds self-service banner system. Esch said the ads end up amplifying the buzz Bacon Salt has generated through blogger outreach. What's more, the social buzz has leaped into mainstream media, including a prominent placement on the MSN home page, Entrepreneur magazine, as well as several US TV and radio segments.
Via: Adweek
