From the Editor's desk

THE below picture was taken of my husband Greg and I one sunny afternoon at Rosehill Races. As I smiled into the camera, little did I know that just a few months down the track, my silly cheesy grin would feature on the pages of just about every news outlet across the county, and a few overseas ones to boot.

If you recognise me, you probably already know the story.

If you don’t, here’s the background. I was rushing around last Saturday to get ready for the Music 4 Life Ball. I decided to duck over to Westfield to look at some dresses, and as I walked past a hair salon, I thought I could save some time if I got a shampoo blow-dry.

In hindsight, had I gone in search of a dress first, I would have discovered before the point of irreversible embarrassment that I’d left my wallet in my other bag. But alas, it was not to be.

I entered the salon, and I left there so incensed that I posted the following rant on facebook.

Rant over, I headed off to the Paceway for the function. When I took out my phone at the end of the night, I couldn’t understand how the battery had gone flat so quick when it had been fully charged a couple of hours before.

There’s a little thing called ‘facebook notifications’ that eat away at your battery life.

Puzzled, I put my phone on charge and went to sleep. When I awoke the next morning, I rolled over and looked at my phone, and, thinking I must still be dreaming, saw I had 312 friend requests. Then I saw the post I’d made the day before had more likes and shares than I’d ever seen in my life!

Fast forward to the end of the weekend and my post had gone absolutely out of control. People were sharing it and posting comments quicker than I could possibly read them.

It had gone viral.

Some 20,000 likes later, I received a call from the owner of the salon. He apologised, and said he’d be putting some staff training in place.

At 5am Monday morning I began getting hounded by the hungry media. By the time I’d had my morning coffee, I’d fielded calls from just about every news outlet I’d ever heard of.

I decided if I was going to do any engaging at all, it would be with my good friend Mark Geyer on Triple M. MG is the only interview I did.

But that didn’t stop the media frenzy. They printed and posted the story regardless, and before I knew it my head was everywhere. By the time I stopped the post it had reached in excess of 54,000 likes and 22,000 shares.

It has certainly been a lesson in the power of social media. My goodness, it’s still hard to believe how it spread like wildfire. People were calling “walletgate” and calling “Drew for Prime Minister”

Today I was not only in the Daily Telegraph, I was the subject of the editor’s editorial. I guess the story struck a chord for some reason and people were calling me from all over the country to say it was the talk of their town. Drew the security guard had become a household name, God love him.

It has been the most bizarre ride ever.

As I typed this there was a knock at the door. When I opened it, there was a delivery man holding a vase full of red roses and an apology note from the salon.

The “story” has now gone full circle and will die as quickly as it formed. But it has certainly pointed out the enormous

power of social media.

Your thoughts? kerrie@nepeannews.com

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