Facebook Timeline Cover - Good Tip to Promote Your Brand

I was tempted to relate this blog post to nonprofits but I think this idea is good for any brand - Facebook timeline covers! It might seem obvious yet I am really glad to see some really good case studies of how this area of Facebook can be used for creative engagement around your brand or organisation. I am personally supporting WWF this year so you can imagine how happy I was to see their fan page tab with timeline covers;) We all like to customise our devices and on-line spaces so why not to make it easy for the fans of your brand and provide them with few visuals to use on the same network? 

Here is the area I took my cover from:

Here is the end result (all took about 10 sec):

Launching your new product in social media - Cadbury UK and Moo UK case studies

There were two interesting product launches in social media recently in the UK. First of all let me mention Cadbury's new chocolate bar launched on Google+ (because I like both chocolate and Google+;)). On the 11th of January on the official G+ page of Cadbury UK this message was posted followed by series of reactions and pretty good moderation from page admins:

From what I see this links appeared only once in my Google+ stream, but it is difficult to judge the results of this particular campaign yet, since the product is not available on the market yet.

It has raised an interesting question between few of my friends working in social media marketing - do we appreciate the notion of "the first product launched on Google+", do we really get excited about innovation or do we rather focus on the value of the product itself? I would love to know what @MostlyAboutChoc will have to say about this product and see how the campaign develops. I personally appreciate any type of attempt to use new social media spaces and I like the way the admin consistently handles various reactions. 

Another example I really liked was the release of new Moo Cards (ok, I am a great Moo Cards fan, so obviously I will post about those as often as I can;)) - Facebook cards. What I really like about this one is the move of releasing the product with no initial costs at all! 

Many of us, geeks, bloggers, Facebook users, were genuinely surprised to see this promotion. Actually most of us even posted:

If you look at the Moo fan page you will notice that the message is continued in a smooth but not too pushy manner. Admins time to time remind users that the promotion is still on and ask users to upload their photos of their cards. I like the gentle continuation of this narrative and I really like the fact that the new cards, in this initial stage, are free. When I ordered them at the beginning of the month the delivery was also free - which is not only a great gesture, but simple idea of removing the entry barrier for any new customer. Well thoughts of and brilliantly executed promotion targeting the right audience (the idea of the new cards is that you can simply pull in all the info from your Facebook profile, edit it fast and order the cards) - but most importantly a very good quality product! Well done!

Honestly for now I talk more about Moo than Cadbury, but this might change as soon as I get hold of that new chocolate bar;) 

My take on SOPA/PIPA

Polish bloggers and other Internet users were there before and also reacted creatively - but in the end it was the common stand against the government that led to a meeting with the Prime Minister and not only putting the suggestion aside (in our case the proposal related to gambling, not copyright but would have led to censorship too), but actually collaboration between IT professionals and government on open data solutions. So I am looking at the U.S. today worried but full of hope. I see many industry leaders speaking up and I really, really hope that this dangerous proposal will open the discussion about the future of the open Internet, not close the access to it for us all. 

My Top Blogging Tips 5: Be a Trust Agent

This it my last post with top blogging tips and I think that most of my remaining points can be combined in one - becoming a trust agent. The term was coined by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith in their book on the topic. Here is the core of the book:

"1 – Trust Agents are digital natives using the web to be genuine and to humanize their business. they are interested in people (prospective customers, employees, colleagues, and more) and they have realised that these tools that enable more unique, robust communication also allow more business opportunities for everyone.

2 – They are the power users of the new tools of the Web, educated more by way of their own experience and experiments than from the core of their professional experiences. They speak online technology fluently.

3 – Trust Agents use today’s web tools to spread their influence faster, wider, and deeper than a typical company’s PR or marketing department might be capable of achieving.

4 – Trust Agents care about the people in the equation. They work to grow relationships that eventually influence people’s experience with an organization.

5 – They make people feel comfortable, all the way, building deep relationships before ever asking something of of others.

6 – We don’t need to make another team lose to win ourselves. There’s plenty of room.

7 – No matter whether you have lots of connections or few, don’t use this as a measure of your success online.

8 - Trust Agents are being in the center of a network and being able to spread ideas.

9 – Trust Agents build networks, then build circles, and then include others in those circles.

10 – Part of what you do as a trust agent is realising that everyone else has great ideas, that they are professionals, and that they have angles you’ve yet to consider."

Becoming a trust agent as a blogger means having consistent, trusted and genuine voice. It means giving much more to the community than asking from it. It also stands for collaboration and contribution as opposed to self-praising, talking about others, not so much yourself. It means talking about our inspiration and showcasing who we are through our work and values we represent not empty words or titles we come up with.

Start with moving away from talking about who you are to what you do. Move away from talking about your own achievements to showcasing others - inviting them to write a guest post on your site or take part in an interview. Share case studies, good tips and interesting learnings. Care for your readers and provide them with content that has a potential to change their lives for better. 

With this attitude you will have more genuine relationships with fellow bloggers. You will extend your on-line networks to off-line events. If you work with brands, your voice will be trusted. Your audience will come back with great ideas, support and they will stand behind you. You will feel that your blogging is actually changing your own life for better too! 

My Top Blogging Tips 4: Various types of content and social media networks

Maybe in some cases the design of our blog is awesome and drives a lot of traffic to the site but its real value lies in content. Now, most of us - the second wave of bloggers I happen to belong to - start our blogging with textual content, but it's worth reaching out of our own comfort zone and adapt new tools, devices and share various types of content. Our kids are using digital cameras for fun so why would we not use it to bring more value and provide additional, visual experience to our readers? Our friends are using their iPhones to record short audio memos so why can we not use iPadio or Audioboo to run blog interviews and embed them on our site? And video content - it seems to be still the most popular type of sharing simply because it takes no times to view it and digest all messages. 

But in some case we think that it's not really worth the effort. Let me just suggest small steps. Try one of two new technologies. Ask your friends and family what is there, what they are using to share news and daily updates and adjust it to your blog, your needs. keep in mind that for the sake of promotion it's better to use dedicated social networks and link to those from your site - this way you will reach multiple and well targeted audiences. So embed Flickr widget or gallery on your site and keep uploading photos to your Flickr account. Start taking photos with your phone, share to Instagram and set it up to share to Flickr. This way they will also appear on your blog in Flickr widget. Saves you time and does the promotion for you. 

Just one note on content: if you use photos or other types of content from various sites it's a nice habit to mention the source - it also contributes to your own credibility! I strongly suggest using one of many and very flexible Creative Common licences for your texts, photos and other pieces of content. Add the licence to your sidebar - it means you are giving readers clear directions on how they can use your content. It also makes you look professional! 

Be brave, engage and provide valuable experiences to your readers!