This is a real-life, personal story of great social use that was too great not to share. Our friend, Rosemary O'Neill, calls these stories "social in the wild."

My youngest daughter and I were out last night running a few errands, and one of them was to go to Target because she had $40 in gift cards burning a hole in her pocket. (Actually, the REAL truth is that I forced her to clean her room the night before, and she found them buried in the rubble.) As we were wheeling our cart around looking at all the fabulous things that an 11-year-old could buy with $40, we stopped in the toy section where she feasted her eyes on a stuffed toy from the Minecraft game selection. At $29, this was pushing her $40 budget (remember at 11, it's about quantity, not quality...), so I suggested she add it to her "wish list" for Christmas. Since this is 2014, instead of pulling out paper, I pull out my iPhone and snap a picture to remind us exactly which one it was...

Next, we found ourselves in the clothing department (of course!) where we saw these super cute Minion pajamas that would absolutely NOT fit her 16-year-old sister who is a Minion freak. So what do we do? We take another picture to send it to her to taunt her. Because that's what little sisters do, right?

But the best part of our journey was about to happen. We started to head for the front so we could check out and, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a HUGE display that had a bench on it. With a dog. A bench, with a dog, that was perfect for a photo opp! Tell me this isn't the happiest kid ever?

But Target took this one step further... look at the top of this "photo booth":

Target has not only put this really cute photo booth in the middle of their kids section, but they have also told you what they want you do with it. They want you to "pose and post" your photo on Instagram or Facebook using the hashtag #TARGETDOG. And guess what we did? We did exactly what they wanted us to do—we took a picture and shared it with our friends and family—which in turn, gave them the coveted user-generated content. Just check out how many people have already put their photos out there using the hashtag. 

This is what I have been telling our customers who don't have Target's billion-dollar marketing budget. If you put the idea out there for your customers in a cute and engaging way, they will know what to do with it, and then they will DO IT! You don't have to be Target to do these kinds of marketing ideas...  you just have to be willing to think outside the box and make it fun!

This was a definite win for them in my book and, as you may know, I'm pretty hard to impress!