Stalking the Stalker

Who sees you when you're sleeping, who knows when you're awake?

Who knows if you've been bad? Who else than Santa Claus himself!

Since the task here is to stalk someone famous I thought to myself: who else could be more famous than Santa himself! Surely there aren't many people who don't know him by name, but not so many of them might know that he actually comes from Finland and -drum roll- from a small Finnish city called Rovaniemi up there somewhere in the north. You might have heard of the place, possibly multiple times, from my mouth actually. Dunno why. Totally not because Santa here is my homeboy and practically a neighbor.

Jokes aside, Santa Claus who years and years ago was a myth told to make children behave is nowadays in all honesty a celebrity. Santa Claus' Office, which is a tourist attraction in Rovaniemi, Lapland, consists of Santa himself and his energetic group of elves who are always ready to tackle a new exciting day! To make sure Santa stays up to date in the current social media trends the Office is active on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. Of these Facebook and Instagram take the cake in follower counts with 24,318 likes in FB and 15.8K followers in Instagram. That's more Instagram followers than many fashion houses like Vogue and Chanel have, and even beats Emma Watson's follower count. Not bad, old man.

Since for me Instagram is the most natural stalking area I moved my goggles to that direction. To be honest I have been a follower of the Santa Claus Office (@santaclausoffice) for a long time but hey, it didn't need to be a completely new target! Santa Claus Office's Instagram career started on 29th of August 2013 and since then it has gained much popularity with people all around the world.

Santa's Office posts fairly regularly, almost weekly during quieter times and more often when the tourist season peaks up. Posts mostly consist of the elves taking different activities, like nature trips, practicing for the Olympics and taking part in what is the biggest hype a that moment - latest Pokémon GO. But of course, since the most important part is Santa himself he is also given plenty of picture time! What is common in all the pictures is that its all about having a good time. Santa's Offices pictures are a refreshing mixture of professional photography and personal pictures which all are filled with warmth and happiness. The post descriptions are often a short story of what's happening in the picture, sometimes accompanied by a question, like:

With small questions like this the posts prompt interaction with followers. During the "quiet times" (aka. anything outside of summer holidays and Christmas time) the comments are scarce, but when we peek back to last Christmas...

Most of them are wishing Santa and the Elves a merry Christmas. How sweet is that!

Otherwise Santa's Office interacts with its followers by answering to comments that want to get more information about Santa Claus, Rovaniemi or Finland and also by liking photos it has been tagged in. Now that's some nice interaction from a bigger profile! Companies should consider the same because that makes you feel a little bit special (even if there were fifteen thousand other similar pictures liked that day).

Why is it important for someone like Santa Claus to interact with his followers? People who come to see him consider it as a chance to step into a fairy tale (literally, you should see the Office) and even if they don't believe in Santa Claus, meeting and getting response from him is a little bit magical and makes you feel nice and warm inside. Of course it's even more critical when it comes to children who come to the Office with stars in their eyes to meet the real Santa: they believe it when Santa does reply to them. Santa Claus is a well branded image full of warmth and love, and everything he does in social media must only strengthen that image.

(For those of you who are wondering am I for real with this post: yes, I am. I have been working in the Santa Claus Village for nearly five summer and Christmas seasons so inside of me I feel to some degree proud over the whole tourist attraction business. You can doubt the realness of Santa's legendary past but you can't deny his reputation all around the world.)

#santaclaus #instagram #mediaobservation #stalking