Walking into a penguin trap!

EVERYONE loves penguins, and we found out just how much this weekend on the Otago Polytechnic Facebook Page!

After hosting a successful pop-up Penguin Hospital at our School of Veterinary Nursing, we decided to set up an April Fools post asking for volunteers to walk fat penguins.

For the first time, we can say it was great that the penguins went viral!

The stats speak for themselves:

209,000+ people reached from all over the world (including China, Philippines, South Africa & UK).

8,700+ Reactions, Comments & Shares

3,300+ Comments.

Some of the comments are mint! Including:

“Imagine this job on your tinder profile”

“I got so excited, I had already planned to quit my job and never come home from NZ until I realized it was April Fool’s!”

“I will never trust anyone ever again. This has affected me on an ontological level”

We particularly like the comment from one person who offered to walk them when she wasn’t busy teaching synchronised swimming to turtles (complete with a photo of said turtles) .

A couple of media outlets contacted us for a follow up story … they shall remain nameless.

Compared with some other high profile NZ tricksters (who have a much larger follower base than us), we reckon we did pretty well!

All Blacks (bringing a real Lion on tour) – 148 shares, 1.5K likes, 177 comments

Trade Me (shake me) – 54 shares, 148 likes

KFC (sushi) – 3.6k likes, 626 shares, 260 comments

Sky City (another sky tower) – 279 shares, 1.2K likes, 534 comments

Check out the post on our Facebook page here.

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