Social Media Monday + Tattly

December 18, 2012 ~ Nicole Monahan ~ Leave a comment

Social Media Campaigns I’ve loving this week:

1.) Patron’s Cocktail Share:

Love this concept and cocktails.

2.) GiltCity: #LoveYourCityMore Instagram

Amazing way to connect their community with their brand by asking fans to share photos on Instagram using hashtags #LoveYourCityMore and #NYC. I’m also loving how they highlight members on their Facebook Cover photo:

3.) Here comes the Advent Calendars:

The Yield 2012 Meme Calendar:

If you’re into Memes.

Wildfire by Google: Social Media Advent Calendar

If you’re into facts.

4.) Tasting Table’s: Food Fight Debate

Tasting Table gives their fans the chance to vote for the ultimate food debates and then throws an amazing party to reveal the results.

And the results:

5.) Foursquare’s 12/12/12 Robin Hood Relief Badge

Combining an opportunity to partner with Samsung Galaxy around the 12/12/12 Concert for Hurricane Sandy Relief.

6.) SiriTalks Instagram:

Creative finds-love this idea.

Bonus: My part-time gig at Tattly.

I was so fortunate to spend a few days at Tattly last week. Dream gig come true, I am the biggest Swissmiss fan girl- ask anyone I know. Over the week I ended up learning way more than just how these temporary tattoos are made and produced. The whole experience went above and beyond my expectations. I was initially dreading having to deal with the hour commute to Dumbo each day but the more I stayed the more I loved it.

Everyone was so sweet and welcoming. Daily coffee and lunch trips together were a must, then we would gather our food and eat together back at StudioMates. All this actually made me realize how miserable I was at my last job. How much I despised office politics, eating at your desk, and everyone only talking to you when they needed something. More companies should have the Tattly mentality. When you communicate and do things together is creates a much better working environment. Personally, I’m sick of working along side of people who are willing to throw each other under the bus — This was an epiphany. An epiphany of what I am and am not looking for in my next job.

Additionally, in my short time there I’ve learned a good chunk more about design then I ever had prior to walking in there. This is a piece of what I am looking for in my next job. I must be surrounded by creative and passionate people. The wealth of ideas was overwhelming.

Finally, I ran into mini celebrities. I don’t know the ‘who’s who’ in the design world, but many designers came in… so did author Jonathan Foer… and wandering photographer named Shantanu Starick who is on a journey around the world while spending no more, everything he gets is based on trade. It was quite an amazing story and definitely encourage everyone to check out his trades.

Many thanks goes out to Swissmiss and the amazing people at Tattly and StudioMates! You not only made my job dreams come true but you showed me there are amazing companies out there doing amazing things. I know now I want to be apart of that.

Social Marketing Finds: Classes, Contests, and Partnerships Oh My!

October 16, 2012 ~ Nicole Monahan ~ Leave a comment

The week started off with a class themed overload, just forewarned, but these contests, partnerships, and content finds just couldn’t be ignored. However, there’s more than just classes, I promise.

Here’s a few examples of partnerships and contests from my favorite brands, in addition to extra goodies I wanted to share with you all. Enjoy!

Of A Kind + General Assembly: Get Schooled Giveaway

I was first introduced to Of A Kind a few weeks ago, when I found out they were having an event at their limited time only Pop-Up store. While checking out the company I fell in love with the concept. It felt exclusive, like buying something truly unique. I saw this back to school set on the site before, which I loved and seemed like the only reasonable thing I could afford. However, I’m also one of those indecisive buyers. That’s why I’m glad I found this, and this is such a great partnership.

General Assembly: Private Class Giveaway

I’m not sure what the reason is for so many giveaways with General Assembly but I’m not complaining. Who wouldn’t want a private class. Keep ’em coming. You have my attention. I’ve enter to win both. Pick Me Please!

3rd Ward Brooklyn: Creative Speed Networking

Why must 3rd Ward be so far away. I’m in need of more class based companies in Astoria. This image instantly caught my attention first and then I looked at the description. Now that’s a creative event concept, especially since I don’t really like networking. This is a great solution; it’s quick, easy, and if it’s awkward you can move on in a few minutes.

Warby Parker Class Trip + American Express

This is simply well executed. More than anything, I love A.) A creative campaign or event and B.) Attention to detail. Check out the full site to get the whole experience. My personal faves: Their Facebook Class Rep Video Contest & the on the road blog. Now I’m super bummed I missed out on NYC- I’m due for a new pair of glasses. These old ones need to get off my face immediately!

ModCloth: Awe & Order Contest

This contest works because it makes me realize how much I need to spruce up my space and put more order in my life. These entries provide great visual examples of organizing your space while putting my apartment to shame. Then it hooks me into ModCloth– Could they be the answer to my clutter? Now I’m on their site…again. Brilliant. Just wish there was more buzz and promotion on it. As you can see I caught the tail end of the contest and I’m not the only one, they only had a handful of entries.

Seamless: It’s Raining

Clever, funny, simple, and doesn’t have to go too far on the design to get its message across.

Orbitz & 5 Gum Micro Pack – Freebies

Hustler Tip: Stick around Midtown for awesome street promotions and marketing ops, like these free micro gum packs I scored. I tend to avoid Midtown (and Chinatown) like the plague but I forgot about the freebies. I may need to rethink this.

Enjoy the rest of your week! Share your favorite social media brand posts, contests, partnerships, freebies, anything at all, in the comments.

Social Marketing Mondays: Facebook Cover Photos

Fun Stuff- Holiday Matinee Facebook Cover Photo

October 1, 2012October 3, 2012 ~ Nicole Monahan ~ Leave a comment

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:

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

September 17, 2012October 3, 2012 ~ Nicole Monahan ~ Leave a comment

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

Society6

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

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.

Social Marketing Mondays: Back to School

August 27, 2012October 3, 2012 ~ Nicole Monahan ~ Leave a comment

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.

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.

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

Gilt City: Back to Fall Sweepstakes

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

The Container Store: Facebook Fan Appreciation

Social Marketing Mondays: Typography and Image Edition

August 20, 2012October 3, 2012 ~ Nicole Monahan ~ Leave a comment

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

August 6, 2012October 3, 2012 ~ Nicole Monahan ~ Leave a comment

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:

Mr. 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.

Top 3 Campaigns and Promotions of the Week | 7/13/12- 7/20/12

Image ~ July 20, 2012 ~ Nicole Monahan ~ Leave a comment

I thought I would try out something new and find the most intriguing campaigns and promotions of the week. Hopefully, turning this into a more weekly occurrence.

To kick things off, this week’s picks include an e-commerce brand’s Facebook approach to achieving more “likes” and customer interactions, a foodie favorite of mine whose Summer Cookbook snagged a collaboration with Apple and Starbuck’s “Pick of the Week”, and a beverage brand hitting the pavement in your local borough.

1.) Birchbox – Facebook Promo Code Photo Hunt Campaign

While Facebook no longer allows you to “Like” before entering Facebook contests. I love Birchbox‘s approach in thinking outside the box to get more “likes” and customer engagement through their Facebook channel. Now I will have to wait until Monday to learn more about promo code. Oh the suspense!

2.) Tasting Table Cookbook – Summer 2012 – Starbucks and iBookstore Promotion

I am such a huge fan of Tasting Table, so when I saw this at Starbucks today I literally did a double take. I am so glad that they were able to do this summer cookbook campaign with Starbucks and Apple, more people need to know about this brand.

3.) Vitamin Water – Guerrilla Marketing, Hitting the Streets

Vitamin Water brings the product offline and into the hands of the community. I saw them passing out Vitamin Waters last week in Fort Greene, Brooklyn and now Astoria in Queens. I love how they have been using this summer’s heat to their advantage and getting face to face with consumers. More importantly, they’re not taking it to Times Square, they are hitting the local community, which I find to be a great strategy since now I remember and am writing about their brand which means it’s working.

Nicole Monahan

Digital marketer, brunch enthusiast, passionate about building relationships and inspiring others through connection and great experiences.

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Top 3 Campaigns and Promotions of the Week | 7/13/12- 7/20/12

1.) Birchbox – Facebook Promo Code Photo Hunt Campaign

2.) Tasting Table Cookbook – Summer 2012 – Starbucks and iBookstore Promotion

3.) Vitamin Water – Guerrilla Marketing, Hitting the Streets