Along with the ingredients of Coca-Cola, the recipe for the seasoning for KFC’s chicken is one of the most closely-guarded and legendary secrets in America.
And now, the company has built an amazing social media stunt around their famous ’11 secret herbs and spices’. Though they never alerted anyone to their genius move, the subtle ploy was eventually spotted by eagle-eyed Twitter user @Edgette22 on Friday morning.
The official KFC Twitter account has 1.21 million followers, but only follows 11 people – though not just any 11 people.
KFC follow six men named Herb plus all five of the Spice Girls. In other words, 11 Herbs and Spices!
Twitter user @Edgette22 sparked an online avalanche after cracking KFC’s social media secret
KFC only follows 11 other Twitter accounts – 6 men named Herb and all five of the Spice Girls
Twitter users have found the gag so awesome they want the person responsible to get a raise
Within nine hours, the tweet had been liked 187,000 times, reTweeted 91,000 times and attracted almost 2000 comments.
Twitter users have gone crazy over the ‘genius’ of the KFC social media manager, demanding they be given a raise – or in one case, even offering them a job.
One of the Herbs being followed – Herb Scribner from DeseretNews.com – actually tweeted about it in September, as did Green Bay Packers cornerback Herb Waters, though the joke only went viral after @Edgette22 sent it out into the online world.
Twitter user Bryler Duerden has said ‘KFC following 11 herbs & Spices is absolutely genius’
One user called it the ‘Best. Tweet. Ever’, while another said he was ‘proud to be a Kentuckian’
Andrew Nathanson wrote on his Twitter page, ‘We’re here in 2017 while @KFC is living in 3017’
The stunt attracted at least one customer, with Kyle Ayers writing, ‘I am going to eat at @KFC’
KFC is no stranger to social media stunts, expertly tricking users on April Fool’s Day in 2013
Included with Scribner and Waters are UC-Santa Clara head coach Herb Sendek, MMA referee Herb Dean, Los Angeles city council president Herb Wesson Jr and legendary jazz musician Herb Alpert.
All five Spice Girls are followed, too – Scary, Posh, Baby, Sporty and Ginger.
This follows another highly amusing marketing stunt by KFC where they invited users to click on a link to reveal the secret recipe, only to reveal that it was just a clever April Fool’s Day prank.
On April Fool’s Day in 2013, KFC trolled Twitter followers by pretending to reveal the recipe…
…but when people clicked on the link, they were taken to a page that exposed the prank Tweet