Tweeting with cats and hamsters: How Petco uses networks

The pet-store chain solicited staffers’ ideas for its foray into social media

One of the challenges a company faces when approaching social media is how best to integrate it with its business model and its internal culture.

Petco seems to be in an enviable position. It provides products and services for family pets, so why not include the Petco “family” in sculpting the online conversation?

“It was quite easy—definitely people were excited and enthused,” Natalie Malaszenko, director of e-commerce at Petco, says about employees’ feedback. “When people saw the Facebook page go up and the Twitter account go up, a lot of people were already on those sites in their personal time. We actively looked for who internally was working on them.”

Petco is a relatively recent adopter of social media—it began about seven months ago—and is still figuring out how best to use its Facebook account, its Twitter feed and its blog.