People looking for examples of how social media can be leveraged to create a brand typically think of cutting-edge technology companies, not housewives exchanging cleaning tips. They haven't heard of Flylady.
Which is getting increasingly hard to do these days, especially now that Flylady -- the nom de mop of Marla Cilley -- has joined Twitter, as @theflylady. While Cilley's cleaning system was based on the Sidetracked Home Executive books, her fame has far eclipsed the original books, starting with a mailing list in 1999 that now boasts 502,704 members, and a website in 2001.
The system isn't perfect. Anyone who's come to my house can attest to that, and I've been on her mailing list long before she ever had her website -- long enough to remember when she hit 100,000 members. But it's insidious. I still think about cleaning using her terminology, and I'm still subscribed to the list, even though I haven't checked it for months.
At this point, Flylady is like the Oprah of the online networking world. Whereas Oprah has spawned Dr. Phil and Bob Greene, and launched a book club empire, Flylady has launched the Saving Dinner Leanne Ely and a host of cleaning and household management products, as well as a radio show. Not to mention a whole new way of talking about and looking at the household, which transcends cleaning to become a whole new way of life.
(For example, if you have seen women online refer to their husbands as DH and their children as DS and DD -- for 'dear husband,' 'dear son,' and 'dear daughter,' respectively -- that's a Flylady thing. Oh, and 'Flylady'? It doesn't refer to flies in dirty households but to Cilley's love of fly fishing.)
And unlike some Web denizens who used the website to promote their books, Cilley was the opposite -- it wasn't until her website had been around for several years that she produced a book of her work and ideas, Sink Reflections.
Actually, the Flylady system is tailor-made for Twitter, and in a sense she's been using a Twitter-like system via mailing lists for many years. Her system features a number of automated reminders every day, ranging from morning routines to daily and weekly chores to bedtime routines -- perfect for Twitter.
Where, one day after joining, she has 2,247 followers.