Oreo, The Superbowl, The Applebee Crisis and Vine Inspiration

This week I take a closer look at Vine, how marketers took advantage of the blackout during the Superbowl and how to show your community love.

Oreo, Blackout & The Superbowl

The SuperBowl used to be something that happened in the US, I was vaguely aware of it because of all those movies I’ve watched but it’s not until I started getting in to Internet marketing that I really started to pay attention. This year it seemed to be even more widespread. I’m not sure if this is because Twitter and other social media have made the world smaller, because there are a lot of sports fans on my timeline or because it’s become almost as big an event for social media marketers as it has for sports fans.

I didn’t stay up to watch it evolve but apparently there was a black out during the event and some of the more creative brands used this to their advantage. One of those was Oreo, here’s what they did as reported on by Krishna De.

5 Ways To Drive Traffic To Your Blog Using Pinterest

If you are a regular reader of this blog you will know I’m taking a stronger interest in Pinterest this year. I’m still finding my feet so this article from Ching Ya on driving more traffic to your blog using Pinterest was very welcome. There’s a WordPress plugin amongst her tips that I will be trying for sure.

8 Ways To Show Your Community Love

Social media couldn’t be social without our followers, some are customers who will keep coming back to us, others will share our content and our story drawing in new leads and customers. It’s important for us to nurture these contacts, to reward them and encourage them to share more. This great article from SteamFeed is full of ideas of how to give them the love they deserve.

How 15 Real Businesses Are Getting Creative With Vine

If you have somehow missed out on the phenomenon that is Vine it’s an amazing new social network powered by an iOS app. Some are calling it the Video version on Instagram. The app allows you to record six second videos. It sounds short and complicated to start with but as soon as you download the app you’ll be hooked. I think the biggest selling point is the interface that allows you to record short shots by touching the screen of your iPhone. Still confused? Don’t be here’s some examples collected on the Hubspot blog. I particularly like the Animate & Create flipbook.

The First Ever Vine Contest?

It hasn’t taken long for us marketers to try and find marketing ideas for Vine. I’m not sure if this is the first ever Vine contest but the Cavendish Hotel have been very clever to be so quick off the mark. It’s getting lots of attention on social media but I’ve seen very few entries. If you have an iPhone and could get to London by the 15th of Feb it’s worth giving it a go.

Six Tips for Managing an Out-of-Control Social Media Crisis

It’s only when a brand has a really big crisis that news spreads this far. Yes there are small disasters all the time on social media but it seems when it hits a big brand in a big way we all like to take a closer look. This time it is American restaurant chain Applebee that is in the spotlight. The crisis started when a staff member was fired after posting a photo of a receipt and the message scrawled on to it by a customer on social media, it got worse and worse after this. Here’s a good outline of what happened and how it could have been avoided.

For Those Who Love Chain E-mail

Do people still send chain emails or have they migrated to those viral status updates we see on Facebook? Either way this video from “Weird Al” Yankovic made me smile.

And From Spiderworking.com This Week

Filter Your Twitter Timeline – Cool Tool

I’ve been looking for something like this for ages, it’s a tool that filters my entire Twitter newsfeed meaning that when I need to take a break from business stuff I can focus on the fun Tweeps, or when a breaking news story unfolds I can watch it easily without having to jump in and out of search. Tweetdig acts as a full Twitter client and is great fun to play around with. I can’t see me abandoning Hootsuite for it but it could become a handy addition.

Video Tip – Get Consistent Sound On Your Videos

My second tip for video casters is about sound. I’ve been having issues because I record my video on two different devices and cut between them. I found a solution and here it is.