So... One of Our Reels Went Viral
- Carrie Maria
- 12 hours ago
- 3 min read
If you had asked me a month ago whether one of our Instagram Reels would ever go viral, I would have laughed.
We've been sharing photos and videos from our walks for years. To be honest, I'm in my mid-40s and should probably hire a kid to do our social media. Most of the time I'm simply sharing photos that make me smile. When I see a Minder post a particularly lovely shot to a Visit Report, onto the grid it goes. I don't usually overthink it. (But I have been trying to learn more about the landscape! A business owner never rests.)
A few posts get shared around Philadelphia. Most quietly do their job, giving people a glimpse into our day day before the algorithm inevitably moves on to the next thing. (We post some dang cute photos. We think they should all go viral.)
Then one very silly pug had other plans.
The Reel itself couldn't have been simpler. Lindsay caught a moment where Zia seemed to struggle to wake up from her afternoon nap. We added a few captions about the dog "rebooting," posted it, and thought, "Well, that's cute."
The internet apparently agreed.
Over the next few hours, the views just kept climbing. Every time I checked, there were more comments, more shares, and more likes. Then the likes hit the tens of thousands, which is not a sentence I ever expected to write about one of our posts. It was exciting. It was surprising. Mostly, it was just funny.
One thing that made me laugh was where everyone was from. The vast majority of the people enjoying the reel weren't anywhere near Philadelphia. They were from all over the country and all over the world. I saw one story share in German. We started seeing comments from places we'll never walk a dog, all because one little pug looked like she needed to reboot her operating system before going on a walk.
Did it bring us a flood of new local clients?
Nope!
And that's okay.
The Monster Minders has always been a local company. We spend our weekdays with local monsters, learning their routines, and all the wonderfully weird little things that make each one unique.
What the reel did remind me of is why we've shared these moments all along. It isn't really about social media. I've never really viewed social media as a converter for new clients. To me it's more social-proof that we love dogs and everything about them. It's about celebrating the quirky and weird monsters we get to spend our days with. (It's really cool that we get to do this.)
Our clients trust us with an important part of their dogs' lives, and over the years we've been lucky enough to witness thousands of hilarious, sweet, and completely unplanned moments. Most never make it beyond a Visit Report. Every now and then one ends up on Instagram. Once in a very great while, one somehow ends up making hundreds of thousands of strangers laugh.
I think that's because dogs are wonderfully universal.
Whether you live in Philadelphia, Perth, or somewhere in between, you've probably known a dog who did something completely ridiculous that you wish you had video of. Every dog owner has a story like that, and I think that's what people connected with. The reel wasn't really about a sleepy pug. It was about the goofy, unpredictable little monsters we are so lucky to know and love.
And to our client, thank you for letting us share your delightfully glitchy little monster with the internet.
To everyone else: We promise Zia is still operating normally... at least most of the time. We'll keep posting the funny and tender moments. After all, when you spend every weekday surrounded by hundreds of dogs... something wonderfully ridiculous is bound to happen eventually.
But most of them won't go viral. And we're totally OK with that! We like our corner of the world. (Philly is the best.)
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