The Monthly Social Index Spotlight: Petco, PetSmart, Sprint, T-Mobile

There are other nuances as well. In general, Petco’s approach focuses heavily on community. It regularly runs just-for-fun caption contests and features the winning caption by superimposing it on the photo, posting it as a brand post and crediting the fan who authored it (Meme, anyone?). The pets in its photos could be anyone’s pets, while PetSmart identifies the majority of its pets as residents or visitors to its “pawfice.” The instinct is good: show fans the brand loves pets too. A smattering of these posts is a great idea if they’re cautiously mixed in with posts that have little or no obvious brand message.