Category Archives: Twitter
Profile Pics – Your New Key Messaging Property
Making creative use of profile photo space on blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other social media channels is nothing new. It’s just become a bit more advanced.
Human beings thrive on visual association (I assure you that the hot spot on nearly all Match.com profiles is not the “Interests” category). It’s natural. We look at a Twitter profile photo, then read the bio. We glance at Facebook friend’s photo, then dig in on where they went to school. In that sense, the social space continues to evolve as marketers dig up new, fun and creative ways to utilize visuals on social media sites to deliver messages.
Earlier today, I caught this tweet below by @BrentDPayne that utilizes a QR Code for his profile photo. I’m sure Brent isn’t the first to implement this tactic but I loved the creativity. Brent recently joined 435 Digital as SEO & Social Media Director and utilized the QR code to drive followers to this article about his hiring announcement.
Smart. Very smart.
Not only creative and fitting for the job title but keeps followers and new followers alike intrigued. It also gives Brent an easy updated bio outlet without needing to continually tweet about his new gig. Furthermore, QR Codes are incredibly versatile and there is no reason Brent couldn’t leverage this asset in a blog post, as his Facebook or LinkedIn profile photo and even printing on a small run of business cards during the transition.
In another example, Facebook’s recent changes to user profiles, has prompted a variety of opportunities to put the new layout to use. My old coworker, @tylerschnaidt, opted to get quite clever with his own tagging scheme. Check out a few screenshots of his efforts.
I love seeing examples like these in action as my mind immediately drifts towards brand frameworks and applications across client projects and campaigns. As a digital strategist, I typically take these little nuggets and store them away in my arsenal for later use in a strategy plan or brainstorming session.
Great work Brent and Tyler!
Are you seeing any other creative uses of profile photo properties? Post links below!
Let Pathos Drive Your Digital Storytelling
Pathos.
Sure, it may be a word that you haven’t thought about since half hearing it uttered by a droning professor during a random communications class back in college. But, as communications professionals, “pathos” or the art of emotional appeal, is something we all embrace as a core function of our job. Whether drafting a press release, brainstorming around a campaign brand or developing a video script, we are constantly working to build a strong emotional connection with our target audience.
Emotional Appeal = Audience Action.
I could repeat that line five times but I’ll spare you the eye strain. When it comes down to it, building a connection with your target audience takes work. A lot of work. Your messaging and storyline needs to be authentic, aligned with the core values of your brand and most of all – you need to strike the magical chord that resonates across your audience base.
You see this strategy implemented by nonprofits across the board. On the corporate front, I frequently reference Google’s “search stories” campaign. The original “Parisian Love” ad generated a lot of buzz when it was shown during this year’s Super Bowl. In my mind, the ad is stellar. In a sense, Google represents a creative whiteboard, serving as a portal to churn up a wealth of information around whatever topic a user can imagine. In this case, the creators of the spot did an incredible job of building out a storyline around the notion of love – a theme they knew would connect with everyone.
Beyond this initial spot, Google’s real genius is expounded upon through the way they further developed their Search Stories channel. They’ve even incorporated a search stories video creator tool that allows any user to build out their own Google search story within a matter of minutes.
G-e-n-i-u-s.
Lock people in, provide them with the tools that will allow them to easily participate in your storytelling and make it easy to share the content. Search is our entry to content discovery and Google does a great job of bringing to life all of the moving parts behind their simple interface. Kudos Google.
I had a bit of fun with their video creator tool last night and love the creative door this opens to groups and brands hosting contests or other fun storytelling projects.
How to Land a Job in Social Media
and a bit of cheese to top it off…
Let’s not forget that Facebook also utilizes a similar tool to acquire user-generated content that helps them demonstrate the value of their platform. In addition, Mashable announced today that Twitter has jumped on the bandwagon with their own version of user story sharing with Twitter Tales.
In essence, it boils down to igniting your brand supporters and advocates to make the shift from being joiners, spectators and critics to actual content creators. Especially from a communications perspective, we want to know how our users are being creative about engaging with our product or brand and how those ideas will influence others to engage with us.
Take a tip from Google, Facebook and Twitter. Now, what can you do to simplify your next storytelling initiative?
Twitter Visuals for Nonprofits?
The extreme excitement around the #WorldCup had everyone a’ Twitter with supporting their favorite teams. From live tracking to replays, there were a host of Twitter tools that helped create community and channel conversation around one of the biggest sporting events ever.
I particularly enjoyed the fun integration of tiny flags that were embedded into tweets when a user incorporated a country’s hashtag.
Flags in Tweets
The added visual element was a nice addition to helping make a tweet pop in a user’s stream. Unfortunately, it does seem that a user had to be on Twitter in order to see the flags which was a bit constraining since most users access and interact with Twitter via third-party desktop clients or via their mobile phone.
I imagine Twitter was treating this as a test ground around the World Cup but they would be smart to consider how this technology can be applied for nonprofits. Unlike YouTube, which has their own nonprofit program or Facebook which integrates causes and pages, Twitter has yet to launch an official nonprofit program or general guide to assist nonprofits in maximizing use of their platform (note – they have done this with their business center). Outside of Twitter, nonprofit consultant @johnhaydon has created this Twitter e-book guide for nonprofits that is worth checking out.
How simple would it be for Twitter to coordinate with nonprofits to integrate ribbons or other images to appear in accordance with assigned hashtags? I for one, would love to see a yellow ribbon associated with #livestrong, green ribbons tied to #organdonor, a #humanrights symbol, etc. The images could even hyperlink over to a specified site for users to take action without burning up precious Twitter characters.
4th of July Visual
Check out the visual above and think about the possibilities (without Twitter turning into a graphic frenzy like MySpace).
What else could be done to help Twitter ramp up their engagement with nonprofits? Could they help isolate some real estate at the top of streams and on applications around certain days to generate attention for a cause? What about integrating key links into the Twitter.com sidebar?
What are your ideas?
