posted by delano

If you’re like me, you woke up today thinking May 5th was Cinco de Mayo. What people like us didn’t know is that it’s also Louise Hendy Day. This is probably the first and last time you’ll hear about Louise Hendy Day, but the implications of it are pretty interesting.

A Fictitious Holiday

Louise Hendy Day is a fictitious holiday created by a single person, earlier today, in an attempt to get into the trending topics on Twitter. And it worked. At least for a few hours (it’s no longer a trending topic as of 16:00 EST but the flurry of messages continues).

Why is this important? It’s important because we’ve heard a lot about the power of the web, “social media” in particular, to reach out to build and maintain networks of clients and customers. Rarely however, do we see this power in action, in real time. One person generated a massive buzz literally out of nothing. The product is a faux-celebration for a holiday that doesn’t otherwise exist.

A New Way to Do Business

Now, there are two ways you can view Louise Hendy Day: a useless, passing fad or a completely new way to do business. You can communicate with current and prospective customers in real-time. It’s like having a conversation with thousands of people at the same time.

Twitter won’t do this alone – there will be other service providers – but already today, right now we have a tool more powerful than any PR agency ever had. That’s pretty exciting.