Social Marketing Mondays: Facebook Cover Photos

Fun Stuff- Holiday Matinee Facebook Cover Photo
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Facebook Cover Photos

A few months ago this change was new to us, now we know it as the large picture in our Facebook profiles everyone first sees when they land on our page. There are a few rules to live by — such as you cannot use your own contact information or CTA’s (calls to actions) such as “Like our Page”, “Buy my new book”, “Tune in Sept 3rd at 7pm” because this is what Facebook Ads are for… Yet I enjoy these rules. It makes limits limitless and the beauty of rules is that they were always made to be broken. Simply put, I love finding examples of how companies are embracing these boundaries and in turn trying to tell their story visually.

Here are a few examples:

Fun Stuff- Holiday Matinee Facebook Cover Photo

Inspire // Holiday Matinee

My initial reaction to this image and message was inspiration and that’s exactly what Holiday Matinee is — a blog for creative inspiration. It tells you everything you need to know about the company from a single image.

Lomography Facebook Cover Photo

Show Off Your Community // Lomography

Lomography just did an update that showcased: A.) Their product — analog cameras with analog film quality and B.) Their community of users. I’m very familiar with these shots better known as photography workshops, which are always the best.

3rd Ward Facebook Cover Photo

Tell a Story // 3rd Ward

I am familiar with 3rd Ward but maybe not everyone else is. There’s a lot of tools going on here leaving me curious to find out more about what they do. Which if you explore further, is perfectly fitting for them.

Tasting Table Facebook Cover Photo

Creative Approaches // Tasting Table

I have mentioned Tasting Table‘s Custom Guest Editor Facebook landing pages in an earlier article. Yet I’m still impressed by it, it’s such a creative way to showcase content while also putting a face to them. Brilliant!

New York Road Runners Facebook Cover Photo

Motivation // New York Road Runners

If this image of seasoned runners doesn’t get you motivated to run, I don’t know what else will. Not only that, but it makes me feel good that there’s a community out there that supports a range of runs in NY for a wide range of people on all kinds of levels.

Open Sky Facebook Cover Photo

Leave Me Hanging  // OpenSky

I would have to include this as my bad example. I have never been too familiar with what OpenSky does — but I know this image doesn’t help either. Are they cooking supplies, lessons, lifestyle? Nope, actually they are “a shopping experience that matches individual taste with the exceptional finds of industry insiders.” — but you wouldn’t really know this from this image.

Social Marketing Mondays: iPhone 5

Apple We'll Be Back Message
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The announcement of the iPhone 5 — biggest tech news that came out last week.

It certainly couldn’t be ignored on my news feed, so this week I am bringing you my favorite and not so favorite social media updates on it.

Mashable

Mashable and iPhone 5 Facebook Updates

Mashable‘s never and I mean NEVER ending updates. Without a doubt, this announcement was very fitting for their brand, but it felt overwhelming to me… Like Black Friday or a college textbook store when they know this is it! This is their big day and they only have a small window of time to market — Yeah I’d say that’s what it felt like. Yet, in all honest it’s not their single biggest day. They have so many channels from tech, to business, to social good.

Stretch it out, I felt like I was walking down a perfume isle the day before Christmas. It’s too much!

BuzzFeed

BuzzFeed iPhone 5 Facebook Update

BuzzFeed on future predictions for the iPhone. I love how the photo says it all here — saying so much with so little.

Society6

Society6 New iPhone 5 Cases

Society6 embraces a problem that the new iPhone 5 will face (besides the new charger outlet) — cases. They are already a step ahead of the game by saying, hey we’ve thought about this, they’re available and can be shipped to you in about a week. Not the same day as when the actual iPhone ships, if you pre-ordered, BUT it is better than this next solution….

Threadless

Threadless iPhone cases- Get rid of the old

This was one of Threadless‘ responses to the iPhone 5. What I get from this Facebook update is sheer panic to get rid of the old cases. It may not be conveyed in the copy but the timing on this was the day after the announcement. Compared to Society6’s response, the feel of this makes me uneasy. Maybe I like a brand that will provide me with a solution to a new change. I think that’s called trust and thinking ahead for your customers.

Curators Conference Recap: Curate your Life

Curators Conference 2012
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Curator's Conference Banners of Speakers

Last week I participated in the Curators Conference. As I did not want to pay $400 for admission, I decided to take what I like to call the “Hustler Approach” and volunteer for the event. To say the least it was a gruesome 12 hour day, but well worth not having to shell out the cash for the conference. Another positive was getting to experience the inner workings of running a conference, something I’ve always wanted to do.

While being a volunteer does face the disadvantage of being able to seeing every speaker, a few speakers I did manage to see stood out to me. Specifically Soraya Darabi, who is the co-founder of Foodspotting and was formerly in charge of NYTimes’ Social Media. As most speakers took the approach to talk about their company and what they do, Soraya instead, walked us through an hour by hour snapshot of her day with the apps and websites she uses daily– curating her life through social.

Her day consisted of this:

Cir.ca: News, re-imagined. (New app -not yet released.)

Path: Staying connected with family & close friends.

Reading websites: Portable, Brain Pickings, Cool Hunting

Work Flowy: Organize your brain. This tool helps organize personal to-dos, collaborate on large team projects, take notes, write research papers, keep a journal, plan a wedding, and much more.

Sparrow:  Combining email and social at the same time.

BrandYourself: Curating SEO results, your personal brand, and Google results.

Foodspotting: Visual guide to good food and where to find it.

Spotify:  Digital music service that gives you access to millions of songs.

Google + Hangouts: Video chatting, face to face.

Vimeo Staff Picks: Online videos, handpicked by the staff at Vimeo.

Art Stack: Social platform for art – the best way to discover art is through people.

Highline Park + Think + Paper: She uses this hour to get offline. Reflecting on accomplishments you made today or want to make in the future.

Brewster: Your personal address book.

Highlight: Gives you a sixth sense about the world around you, showing you hidden connections and making your day more fun.

Svpply: Online shopping. Helps you find the products you love, from the people and stores you find interesting.

This break down left me wondering– is this even true? Does anyone have a breakdown hour by hour of applications they use? Probably not, even Soraya mentions she only uses specific apps and only the most productive ones that meets her own needs. Perhaps it isn’t possible, but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have productivity in mind.

Continuing to thinking about this concept I asked myself —Is anyone this organized? What is my daily routine?

Looking at my past few days, weeks, even months I realized I honestly don’t have one. I love to stop what I’m doing to help others but I haven’t really helped myself. Feeling completely unorganized with managing my own priorities, this is something I need to start changing.

Last night I stumbled upon a few TED Talks for inspiration and came across Matt Cutts’ speech, “Try something new for 30 days.”

“Small sustainable changes are more likely to stick.” I may not have a solid play-by-play of every hour of my day, but I can start by making small sustainable changes.

Things I would like to try for 30 days:

Dedicate an hour a day to:

  • Writing
  • Reading
  • Learning Italian
  • Gym time
  • Personal time– Including everything I need to catch up on in life, from Twitter updates to planning my birthday trip.
  • Cooking one new recipe a week
  • Trying one new restaurant per week
  • Meet 5 new people per week

Like Matt says, “the next 30 days are going to happen whether you like it or not, why not do something you’ve always wanted to try.”

What is one thing you would try for 30 days?

Social Marketing Tuesday: Visual Marketing

Fish Shoes
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Hope everyone had a great Labor Day break. Because of the holiday, this usual Social Marketing Monday will be dubbed Social Marketing Tuesday!

This week’s examples take a look into how brands are using visual marketing towards their social media efforts. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Visual Marketing. According to a Wikpiedia definition, Visual Marketing focuses on the study and critical analysis of the ability of objects to be ‘protagonists’ in a visual communication scenario. More simply put, a means of using visuals (i.e photos) that drive your marketing efforts forward.

Call to actions and elegant copy are certainly necessary, however it is the visual that speaks before the text.

Personally, this has always been a favorite task of mine on any given project. I enjoy finding the right visuals that will fit a particular piece of content ever so perfectly, it’s like a puzzle for me.

Here are some examples I found this past week that are driving the conversation forward, leading with the visuals:

Lost in E Minor:

Fish Shoes

This is a cool visual. You can’t tell me you wouldn’t stop and have a double look at this photo. Better yet, Lost in E Minor then asks its audience to think of a great one-liner for it. Visual Marketing can be used as a conversation starter, and usually isn’t that how things go viral?

Indiegogo:

Indiegogo Picture Over Text Quotes Motivation

Indiegogo is a global platform for crowdfunding, empowering anyone, anywhere, to raise money for anything. This post is what is known as texts over image. Admittedly, pretty pictures and inspiring quotes is a weakness of mine. I post similar visuals on my own Facebook every Monday for motivation. Many people do it, it’s a cliché but everyone needs some motivation and this example is particularly fitting to the brands core values.

Tasting Table:

Tasting Table Guest Editor Takeover

As most of you know, a new feature to Facebook is endless updates. This includes when a friend or brand updates their cover photo. This example of Tasting Table’s latest cover update immediately caught my attention. Mostly, again, for the visual. It is classic, very fitting for their brand, overall I thought it was a unique idea. Showcasing one of their guest editors while doing a complete ROS (in this case run of social) take over.

Thrillist:

Thrillist Facebook Post Always Be Batman

Another example of text over image. It is a very quick and engaging method that never fails to start a conversation.

More importantly, it serves as a reminder to all. If given the choice, always be Batman.

Warby Parker:

Warby Parker Where's Waldo Glasses

Here is an example of Visual Marketing at its best in Warby Parker’s Where’s Waldo Facebook post. Mixing a notorious icon to promote their product, Where’s Waldo inspired frames.

Takeaways

Visual Marketing can be approached in a number of different ways. Whether it be used to promote a product, promotion, event, or even if it is just to get the conversation started in your social community. I find the way brands are using visuals to market limitless. This is a passion subject for me so there will definitely be further research in the future.

Are there any examples of brands using visual marketing that have stuck out to you? I would love to know, send your best examples in the comment section.

Social Marketing Mondays: Back to School

Back to School
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Back to School

It’s almost Fall, kids are going back to school, and brands got the message. This weeks picks includes an interesting mix of approaches to using social media marketing for a back to school audience. Going into this research I was faced with the idea that everything would be marketed like on the Today Show with free haircuts, penny pencils, healthy lunches, angry bird backpacks. You get the idea. However I was pleasantly surprised at how these brands were thinking outside the box.

Biggest Takeaway: There is no single approach to marketing for back to school nor just a soccer mom audience anymore. 

Here’s what happened on social this week:

Twitter: Back to School

Knowing your audience

Who is on Twitter? According to Quantcast the majority isn’t moms or children, the highest age demographic is between 18-34. This demographic tone is easily recognizable in these two Twitter back to school campaigns.

MediaBistro’s #TeacherStories

Having taken numerous MediaBistro classes, I am definitely a supporter of their classes and teachers. Thus I was happy to find out about MediaBistro’s Twitter contest which asks users to Tweet @mediabistro and share a story about your favorite teacher or best teacher experience using #teacherstories. It’s not targeting to moms or teens but instead anyone who has an inspiring story to tell about a former teacher.

MediaBistro Twitter Contest Teacher Stories

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon #MyCrazyTeacher

In contrast, Jimmy Fallon uses humor as his weapon of choice, while asking fans to Tweet something funny or weird about one of your teachers using #mycrazyteacher. It isn’t that these two twitter campaigns can’t target teens or parents but I get the thought process behind it. Both are tapping into an experienced yet still youthful audience. Both want stories from people who have had a number of experiences with teachers worth remembering and sharing.

Here is the video of the best #mycrazyteacher submissions.

Jimmy Fallon #MyCrazyTeacher Tweet

Facebook: Back to School

Below are four different example from brands that demonstrate multiple approaches to Facebook Marketing. Target’s Give with Target campaign uses Facebook as a landing page to support schools in need. Gilt City has a Back to Fall Sweepstakes. Mashable is surrounding learning through their editorial content, and The Container Store threw up a Facebook post on customers shopping for back to school supplies.

Target: Give with Target

Give with Target Facebook Campaign

Gilt City: Back to Fall Sweepstakes

Gilt City Back to Fall Sweepstakes

Mashable: 10 Must-Have Apps for Successful High School Students

Mashable Back to School Apps

The Container Store: Facebook Fan Appreciation

The Container Store- Store Customers Shopping Back to School

Inbox Overload: A Weeks Worth of Email Marketing

Flavorpill Email Newsletter
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This is a look into a weeks worth of email newsletters.

I have had to do similiar competitor research at an internship for an online publication where emails are the core to their business. I used to look into everything from advertisers, contests, events, to even design work. Admittedly, I miss that weekly research report. It was so interesting to see what others are doing out there.

So naturally I let my emails pill up just to explore a weeks worth of newsletters.

Publications explored included: Flavorpill, DailyCandy, Urban Daddy, and Tasting Table.

An Email Subject Line:

First things first, it doesn’t matter what you’re selling or if you have the best peice of content you’ve ever written. If no one clicks to open your email, all that stuff doesn’t matter anymore.

Make it count by providing a subject line your readers will be sure to make the next move on.

Here are recent examples that have caught my attention lately.

DailyCandy’s:

  • Draw Men Naked

Any and all from UrbanDaddy my favorites are: 

  • There’s a Stranger Making Dumplings in your House
  • When You Think of Guacamole, Think of This
  • Murray Hill’s Best Hope Yet
  • 24-Hour Beer Delivery to Your Doorstep

Tip:

  • Be funny. Be creative. But most importantly know your audience and who you’re taking to.

Tip:

  • Try A/B split testing. This allows tracking such things as subject lines. Two different subject lines that you want to test out will be sent to a certain percent of your audience. The results of which subject line performed better, based on open rate will be sent back to you, go with the better one.

Continue reading →

Social Marketing Mondays: Typography and Image Edition

DailyCandy's August Summer Picks Guide
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Back from vacation and back into the social goodness.
My first pick for this week goes out to Seamless’ Lunch for a Month Sweeps. I am personally a sucker for typography and lunch. When you combined the two it looks like a classy meal I can’t help but enter to win.
Seamless Lunch for a Month Contest
Second pick goes to DailyCandy’s August Things to do this Summer. Again the typography is what really drew me in first, I am a visual person and it worked. Plus I am a huge fan of DailyCandy’s content and the way they curate it, very tailored and polished while hooking you in.
Daily Candy 31 Days of Summer
DailyCandy 31 Days of Summer List
Third goes to Tom’s Shoes. Visuals for the win! While quickly scrolling through my Facebook news feed, this sunset really caught my attention. The timing was just right, as I saw the Facebook post at around sunset my time. As Tom’s asked their fans, “what’s the view like from behind yours?”,  the whole concept was certainly intriguing and engaging. I also noticed this post got many likes (around 7K), something I haven’t seen from them in recent posts.
Tom's Shoes Sunglasses Facebook Post

Takeaways:

A great takeaway from this week’s examples is that visuals are key and will hook your audience in. Combined that with the right timing based on your content and audience, makes for a sure fire way to successful engage with what you’re marketing. For example the Seamless was posted right before lunch time at around 11am. I noticed DailyCandy’s guide a week ago just as I was searching for last minute end of summer things to do. And as I mentioned, Tom’s I noticed yesterday at around sunset.

Social Marketing Monday: Good Complexity

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Top Social Media Marketing Campaigns for the Week of: 7/30/12 to 8/6/12

This weeks top two contenders that caught my eye were GOOD and Amstel Light. GOOD with it’s good at heart nature approach to a contest and Amstel Light for making beer and tales more complex than ever.

GOOD: Make Food More Awesome

GOOD is a personal favorite publication. This image originally caught my eye as I am a big foodie who soon realized that I don’t go on enough picnics. When you click through to more information about the contest you will find GOOD doing what it does best, making the world and in this case food, good. This contest is a challenge to those with big ideas on how to make food awesome in the world. The prize isn’t too shabby either, with a chance to win a $1,000 grant to make your idea happen, a tour of Food Network, and lunch with an Awesome Foundation trustee.
What worked for me:
  • The image, I am a visual person.
  • The cause behind the challenge, very motivating and inspiring.
  • The prizes! They relate to my personal interests.

Amstel Light : Savory Complexity

   

From experience through working with Amstel Light as one of our clients back at my old internship, they are no joke a complex brand, but in a good way! Very particular in the message and audience they want to reach and I think they really nailed it with this campaign. It a complex beer but doesn’t initially tell you why or talk about themselves. They highlight random things from meat, umbrellas, darts, to even this whistling one. It makes you read, it makes you think, and it is something to talk about because these ads are everywhere! Bus stops, subways, magazines, I see them constantly. It’s almost like a scavenger hunt to find missing pieces of a book. If there is one thing I love it’s a good adventure and a good story to tell.
What worked for me:
  • The stories. The randomness. The imagination.
  • The fonts and text, from a non-designer it’s easy on the eyes and pulls you in to read more.

     

Personality in Brands: P&G’s Take on the Olympics 2012

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While watching the Olympics and all of its glorious ads, one of the very notable “Thank You Mom” commericals would constantly come on. Not only would I ponder, what about thank you dad, but I started to wonder what were P&G’s other brands? Once I looked into their company’s brand page, I noticed tons of other P&G products were squished together between commercial breaks. Since they are sponsor of the London Olympic 2012 games, I wanted to break down these individual brands and steer away from P&G’s big corporate scope of “Thank You Moms”.

Here is a look into how some of P&G’ household brands are covering the Olympics:

Old Spice:

Old Spice kicks the games off by what it does best, incorporating their own quirky humor into the games. First step, setting up a spot light on Table Tennis player Tim Wang and really talking to their audience.

Thank you Old Spice. Here’s to American pride, table tennis, and photoshopping. Old spice continues to challenge and question the games especially when it comes to smelling good.

Mr. Clean:

P&G Brand: Mr. Clean Facebook Message 2Mr. Clean best encompasses brand voice, which I like to think is an old man’s voice or perhaps the voice on anyone on Facebook that shares way too many useless status updates. It’s like he is a real person! Mr. Clean really doesn’t try to do anything different for the Olympics except continually asking lots and lots of questions about it, as only an annoying Facebook friend would probably do.

Charmin:

    

Charmin’s Facebook page is usually up to some kind of bathroom humor, yet with the start of the Olympics I noticed a challenge that faced them. How do you package together the Olympics and bathroom jokes? Charmin had to accomplish this by thinking outside the box.

The result: Bathrooms with London flare. Engaging fans with their finds on some posh terminology and British bathroom culture.

Duracell:

Technology and Powering up the Olympics, this is Duracell’s angle for the London games. Duracell has created a Virtual Stadium where Olympians and their families are able to view videos, photos and messages from online fans on a screen using Kinect sensor technology. They are using Facebook to not only promote the campaign but to engage their audience in the real-time interactions with the Olympian’s family members, as shown in the above Facebook post. I only wish there were more than just one of these post, I love behind the scenes photography.

Takeaways:

I have learned quite a bit about this company after this research. Not only did I have no idea some of these brands were nestled under P&G but I have found that what their brand’s are doing within social is very different. I would have naturally expected every brand to have the same structure, same voice, same social media strategies, but no. To my surprise they have executed each product differently taking on an individual personalities. Looking beyond P&G’s core “Thank you Mom” campaign, this experiment helped me see each product differently, while understanding the importance of having a unique brand voice.

4 Top Campaigns of the Week | 7/23/12 – 7/30/12

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Campaigns killing it this week include social “geo-targeting” snack giveaways, a hide and seek social twist to an old school game, what store locations have to do with branding, and a retail partnership I never saw coming. Here is a look at the top campaigns that caught my eye this week:

Clif Bars “MojoGo” Campaign

I am going to kick things off with Clif Bars “MojoGo” Campaign. Clif claims that this is the first geo-location Twitter campaign , the even sweeter deal is that Clif will give away Mojo bars. All you have to do is go on an outdoor adventure and tweet your geo-location to @ClifMojoGo. In return you will receive a coupon to get a free Mojo bar. I really want to go hiking now, I love free snack bars. Here’s the video for more details.

Birchbox Hide & Seek Pinterest Campaign

Birchbox is at it again for the second week in a row. Who thinks of these ideas? I must know!

I feel Pinterest is becoming a shrinking platform, that caters to a very specific target group of women. And yet Birchbox just gets it, they know that’s their target audience and they just go for it. I also love the Hide & Seek approach, it’s a classic game with a new school social twist. This approach also forces fans to search all of their Pinterest content. This can only mean one thing… they will get distracted by other amazing Birchbox product and will want to buy. While at the same time getting a discount. Genius, Birchbox.

Chobani SoHo Store:

This is not so much a campaign unless I were to include all their new Olympic Ads. This is about Chobani’s store in SoHo. How many people have opened only greek yogurt stores? Only best idea ever.

What I would like to point out that really connected with me was one of the many reason most restaurant succeed or fail… location, location, location. I was blown away when I saw this in SoHo. Instantly what came to mind was the last branded stores I’ve been to, which was M&M World and PopTart World. Both in Times Square, or as I like to think of it as nightmare city, yet just a hair above Chinatown. Given, yes, tourists go to both Times Square and SoHo, but there’s something about SoHo. Maybe it’s the fancy high-priced shops and restaurants, but I instantly associated Chobani with this higher quality with higher standards brand. While I think of Pop Tarts and M&M’s as being cheap and kid friendly, which are also other ways to think about Times Square.

Chobani SoHo Store Front

Gap + Threadless

This partnership blew my mind as I walked into the Gap. I have gone so far back with Threadless, like high school back. I remember the only times they would ever do sales was during summer and right before Christmas (now there’s one every other week). They were exclusively online and only had one store in Chicago where they are based. The uniqueness and rarity of their shirts is what really made me fall for the brand in the first place. Sadly, I can now get Threadless shirts at the Gap for $25 now.

I am still one of those that wants a Threadless store in their town. But a store or even Threadless vending machines are way better approaches than partnering with a specific brand. Now you’re limiting yourself to that brands specific style, it doesn’t seem like a Threadless thing to do. No bueno.