Dog Pics Turn Wood Floor Pro Into Media Superstar

Third-generation wood floor pro Fred Josephsen always worked hard but in relative obscurity at his business in Northfield, N.J.—until Aug. 1, when his son tweeted out pics his dad had posted on his company Facebook page showing his employees of the week. The catch? The “employees” are homeowners’ pets Josephsen meets while working on his jobs.

Most are dogs, but cats and even a donkey have made it onto his Facebook feed as “employee of the week.” The tweet went viral and was retweeted by BuzzFeed, and Josephsen rapidly became a media darling, being featured in news outlets across the United States and even in Ireland and Germany.

“Before the tweet we had 241 likes, and that was basically our general community and maybe a few relatives here and there,” Josephsen says of his company’s Facebook page. “I got excited when it hit 5,000 likes.”

As of today, his Facebook page has 27,668 likes and 29,317 followers. His son Dillon’s original tweet has more than 113,000 retweets and 320,000 likes.

Josephsen didn’t set out to do something clever for his marketing on social media. He said he used to post typical before-and-after photos, “and it was just boring,” he explains. He’s always loved dogs and other pets, so one day as he was working alone on the job and a dog wouldn’t leave his side, he posted the canine’s photo on Facebook as his employee of the week. Since then, he’s posted all shapes and sizes of creatures, including one donkey.

“Every time I would go to empty the dust out, he would come across the field to me. It was great,” Josephsen says.

So far all the attention hasn’t translated into a flood of business, but that’s fine, he says: “I’m pretty booked as it is through September into October. I’m usually pretty busy anyway.”