Ridiculously jumping on a trend without knowing anything about the trend. What's a bloody chiazard?

Remember PokemonGo? Course you do, it was HUGE. But a trend that didn't last long even though they made an absolute fortune from it. In the month of July 2016, PokemonGo generated more than $160 million dollars, averaging $10 million dollars per day during the summer frenzy of wondering in search of these strange looking characters.

So why am I writing this article? Well I just would like to start, I NEVER actually downloaded PokemonGo, not even once, I wanted to share my idea of fun and how I simply rode the wave around the popularity of the app. Obviously this was going to be a fad, a trend and it wasn't going to last forever, it was inevitable were going to get bored. And we have, well most of us. Kudos if you still play it.

My idea was simple. To OWN all the social media of PokemonGo in my hometown of Cheltenham. Yes, it did go through my mind, 'But George, you don't even play Pokemon Go', 'you literally don't know anything about the characters', but that didn't phase me, sod it, let's give this a whirl so I googled how the app worked and created various Facebook Groups for Team Red, Blue and Yellow and formed a general page + Twitter. Again, just like my last LinkedIn article, this project was for no reason whatsoever, I just wanted to see if I could tap into community/trend and be part of it in someway, my way. This kind of thing got my juices flowing more than actually playing the bloody app.

However, it went deeper than just posting tips and tricks about these odd looking fictional characters. What excited me was the ability to move people in quite a 'Black Mirrory' kind of way, but I needed a following to be able to do this. So I positioned myself as the voice in order to grow this, I'd see a group of people in town and ask them what's the rarest Pokemon they've caught today and where ("oh I caught a charizard outside waterstones")...oh did you now ?? . I'd also ask them if they had heard about this group that spills the beans on the best spots in town to catch them! They wanted in for obvious reasons, the page grew quickly through people talking because this was the exact intel the 'trainers' (people who play Pokemon) wanted.

3 hours later, there's an announcement on Facebook.

"THERE'S A FREAKING CHARIZARD OUTSIDE WATERSTONES NOW. GET THERE AND GO CATCH IT"

Guess where I am when I post this? Outside Waterstones and literally 10 minutes later I had group and individuals flocking to that location because rumour had it there apparently was charizard here (a very rare Pokemon). I did this multiple times to my amusement and found it incredible I was able to influence people where they go. It's all well and good posting content online but if you can physically move a following, now that's a different kettle of fish and very cool. Remember I had no formal association with Pokemon officially, I just positioned myself as the voice/online forum within this niche community.

The people drove this massively because the trainers wanted to know where they'd find all the best Pokemon around town BUT didn't have that GO TO place to interact with the community. The Facebook Group was the solution to get better or rank up on the game.

I was the mystery person behind it for a while and nobody knew it was me until the BBC contacted the Facebook page asked if they could join one the meet-ups/marches (over 100 people attended them, see image below) to film which they did and my identity was revealed. Let's just say it was probably the most embarrassing moment of my life, appearing on television, declaring I'm the organiser of PokemonGo Cheltenham. Probably why I run a dating app now to restore my reputation and self worth, there's a reason why I haven't posted this article for some time. I'll never forgot that awkward moment when somebody asked me about 'Pokeballs' when they met the anonymous person behind the group and I didn't have f**king clue what the bloke was on about. Apparently, it's what you use to catch 'em'? Oh well.

So I was officially the organiser of Pokemon Go, Cheltenham and positioned myself as the expert without having even downloaded the sodding app. To conclude, this just shows jumping on the opportunity or a trend, doesn't mean you have to be an expert at all, just carve out a way to be part of it and in my case within a couple of weeks from this cheeky growth hack I generated over 900 quid from deals with bars/venues/clubs even milkshake shacks from driving footfall.

The latest trend means everybody is new to it therefore nobody knows who's the expert.

And this is where there could be a potential opportunity...

Thanks for reading, now back to dating apps.

George

P.s might go download PokemonGo, apparently it's pretty good. ??