Steak-umm Finally Gets Twitter Verified, but Is Still Mad as Hell and Not Going to Take It Anymore

Steak-umm, the frozen sliced cheesesteak meat brand, has finally found the promised land, earning the blue checkmark of Twitter verification that it's coveted so desperately. But it's still kinda pissed at Jack and company. [kickout id="1"] The brand has been angling for verification for four months, running a whole #VerifySteakUmm campaign that's included conspiracy theories and pot shots at Twitter itself. That has continued even after verification. For example: [kickout id="2"] This acerbic tone toward Twitter, mixed with comical, inspiration-style posts about being positive and living your best beefy life, have defined the @steak_umm Twitter account lately. Written by 26-year-old Nathan Allebach at Steak-umm agency Allebach Communications, the account is now at a crossroads. Where does it go from here? We emailed with @steak_umm this morning. Here's what they had to say. On finally getting verified: The truth is that the power of the people and the magic of our meat finally tore down the corrupted corporate walls of twitter. We've been mounting pressure for months with our followers doubling in size every few weeks, celebrities getting involved like William Shatner and Joey Diaz, coverage from press like HuffPost and Philly Inquirer, as well as a constant outpouring of content every day. We broke them. [kickout id="3"] On the poor timing, in their view, of that verification: They've been saying that their "verification department is down" ever since they got in trouble for verifying nazi's this past fall, but we've known that wasn't true since accounts were still getting verified, one of which being a goat that Juicy Fruit introduced with less than 500 followers and 100 tweets. So clearly, they were still playing the pay-to-play game and blocking out the little guy. It was always a beefspiracy. We believe they strategically verified us in the dead of winter, early in the morning, and on MLK Day with no prior contact to catch us off guard and suck the wind out of our steak sails. It only makes sense. Twitter is all about protecting their image and avoiding uprising. This way they gave the people what they wanted in a way that worked in their favor to avoid further uprising. It was after the holiday hype when everyone was hoping we'd get verified. It was before Valentine's Day, the Super Bowl, and Cheesesteak Day, all of which would have given us more momentum. And it was on MLK Day when everyone was focused on commemorating one of the greatest heroes in American history. With the deck stacked against us we still rose up like a beef phoenix through the power of the people. We're planning to push the envelope now more than ever. Twitter finally verified us, now lets see if they let us keep it. Either way we win. If they let us run rampant criticizing them, they look weak. If they choose to remove our blue checkmark, it will only feed the fire more than ever. [kickout id="4"] On its other focus, community building: As fun as it is to troll the system and the corporate accounts that feed into it, we still plan on keeping our twitter a place for community to thrive. It's rare to see so many different walks of life share in something like this—we had people from all across political, social, and cultural spectrums joining together to accomplish this goal and we want to continue giving back to show our appreciation for that. Since the beginning we've been building relationships with friends on twitter and creating content that we think is fun and unconventional for brands to be posting. This whole thing has been as anti-marketing in the traditional sense as possible. We don't do paid ads, fancy designed content, or big buttoned down team brainstorming. We've been seeing this more and more with companies on social media where breaking the fourth wall seems to be the best approach in order to create genuine relationships and communities online. We aren't pretending that we aren't a brand or trying to sell something. We post about beef every day. We've just been doing it in a way that's fun and relatable for people, so we like to think that even with the journey of #VerifySteakUmm coming to an end, the relationships we've made will continue growing as long as we're true to ourselves. [kickout id="5"] On what's next: The possibilities are endless. We'll be doing giveaways, planning a celebration, a 2020 presidential run, and maybe even starting our own cryptocurrency. It's time to unleash the beef. Steak-umm also seems to have a new spokescreature of sorts—a blow-up dinosaur that recently roamed the streets of Philadelphia, giving out coupons and encouraging people to follow the brand on Twitter. See that video here: [kickout id="6"]

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Steak-umm Finally Gets Twitter Verified, but Is Still Mad as Hell and Not Going to Take It Anymore

Blue checkmark does little to mellow the frozen beef brand

Tim Nudd

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Tim Nudd