In a new media world, staking your claim online goes well beyond reserving a web address or two. Even companies and public figures without firm plans to participate in the social media space should be aware that consumers will still be looking for them and plan accordingly. Today’s Friday Five reflects five tips to help your clients (and yourselves) own your brand online.

Primary Twitter Account

Choose a Twitter handle that clearly reflects the company name and/or division. If you do not plan to activate Twitter immediately, ensure that the profile links to the company website and that the first tweet states that consumers can check back or links to a more active social forum (like a Facebook page).

Referring Twitter Accounts

While this isn’t always the case, some brands have been known to claim multiple twitter names, directing to the singular one in use.  This prevents squatters from taking over an official-looking presence but it’s impossible to claim all possibilities.  The best way to ensure your voice is the one consumers are hearing is to participate in the conversation whenever and wherever possible and appropriate.

Facebook

Similar to Twitter, find a unique URL for your company’s Facebook page that clearly reflects what will be represented there.  If possible, this should match the company’s or program’s Twitter handle for consistency.

LinkedIn

Just as candidates represent themselves on this popular professional networking site, companies should keep their profiles updated as well.  Establishing open positions and keeping up with industry accolades is more than just an effective recruiting tool. This is especially important now that LinkedIn allows users to follow company updates.

Blog Commentary

Commenting on blogs is a sticky process for many large companies and requires the consultation of a company social media policy and the participation of a designated spokesperson.  One of the best ways to continue owning a brand online in this arena is to identify natural brand ambassadors proactively so that in times of trouble, they have the correct information to distribute within their invested community.

Zuckerberg Addresses Privacy Concerns and Rolls Out New User Controls

While these new controls certainly make it easier for users to update their personal privacy settings, it’s unclear whether users will perceive these changes as deep enough to address the larger question at hand. Whether private or public to general audiences, how much access are users comfortable sharing with the online publisher and under what timeframe and parameters are they willing to trade their data for social experiences on that publisher’s platform? Additionally, whether it’s personalized recommendations or exclusive rewards and offers, what are users willing or not willing to trade specific information for?

71% of Young Adult Social Networkers Limit What They Share and 57% of Adults Use Search to Test Reputation

Mary Madden, Senior Research Specialist for Pew Research reports, “Search engines and social media sites now play a central role in building one’s identity online. Many users are learning and refining their approach as they go–changing privacy settings on profiles, customizing who can see certain updates and deleting unwanted information about them that appears online.” She also reiterates, “Contrary to the popular perception that younger users embrace a laissez-faire attitude about their online reputations, young adults are often more vigilant than older adults when it comes to managing their online identities.” This study from Pew could not have come at a better time as the whole industry debates privacy issues and weighs the value of “a web where the default is social” against a growing concern by users surrounding their online reputation and access to personal data.

A Chatroulette-Style Alarm Clock

This social alarm clock allows users to request that family and friends (or strangers, hopefully clothed) to submit videos that wake them up at their set time each morning. While this seems like a simple, novelty concept, I would be interested to test it out and see if there are other means of integrating social media to wake up the world.

Twitter’s Jack Dorsey on “Making Ideas Happen”

This is a great presentation from Twitter and Square founder Jack Dorsey at The 99% Conference. He says his three keys to making ideas happen are:

1. Draw: Get your idea out of your head and share it
2. Luck: Assess when the time (and the market) is right to execute your idea
3. Iterate: Take in the feedback, be a rigorous editor, and refine your idea

For anyone in digital, his advice is straightforward and a helpful push to try and test new ideas.

Traditional News Sources Provide 99% of the Stories News-Oriented Blogs Link To

According to this report, BBC, CNN.com, The New York Times and The Washington Post all accounting for 80% of the source stories for news-oriented blogs. This study is an important resource to understand how news is shared between traditional and online sources on a variety of key topics like health, economics and politics. Additionally, as Jeff Bercovici of The Daily Finance reports pay walls may spark a shift in this trend.

eMarketer just released a study showing an 11% increase in online advertising spend – a sharp increase from 2009’s 3.4% decrease in spend. For those of you that think display advertising and search engine marketing is going away anytime soon, think again. If you are working on any components of a social media campaign for a large brand, having a holistic understanding of how online advertising works will serve the campaign.

For the purposes of this post, we are going to use the fictitious example of Red Shoe Company. Let’s also assume that Red Shoe has a Facebook page and an active Twitter handle. What other elements could Red Shoe use to help bring traffic to these social media elements?

Search Engine Marketing

Setting up a keyword campaign via Google or Yahoo! can not only assist Red Shoe in selling shoes online – it also enables Red Shoe to geo target specific offers to a small population of folks that live in Small City, USA. Both types of strategies could drive traffic back to Red Shoe’s website OR the traffic could be sent to one of Red Shoe’s social embassies, like Facebook.

Wherever the traffic is sent, the learnings one can acquire from a keyword buy can inform future campaigns. For example, what search terms did people use to find the Red Shoe site? Should these terms be used in future keyword buys? Is there something about a string of terms that can facilitate an upcoming consumer conversation? Perhaps there are so many people searching for the keyword phrase, ‘Size 11 red patent flats’ that Red Shoes decides to dedicate a whole tab on Facebook to those consumers.

Display Ads (aka Banners)

Gone are the days where banners were static and only lived on major portals. I don’t see this form of advertising going anywhere any time soon. From having the ability to play video, facilitate engagement or capture survey insights in real-time, display ads are getting technically savvier. Ad networks and advancements in content targeting are enabling advertisers to display their message on the most relevant sites possible (ever notice banners running on your favorite blog lately?).

If Red Shoes has a new product launch in 2012, they may conduct a robust media buy on multiple sports sites. From there, they may decide to drive 50% of traffic to the Red Shoes site. The other 50% may be sent to the Red Shoes Facebook page. Is one converting better than the other in terms of conversations?

Banners can be a dream for folks that enjoy A/B split tests. Back in my Orbitz days, we used to run the same ad, but point it to various landing pages on our site. Which ad converting better? Did we have more exits from one ad versus the other? Why did 10 consumers start the hotel booking process and drop off from this ad versus the other? Do you find that your engagement increases on your Facebook page when the bulk of an ad’s traffic lands on the wall? Does one tab get more interaction than the other?

Technology providers understand the importance of adding a two-way component to traditional banners. Sixapart recently announced their “Conversations” product, enabling blog comments to appear in ads accompanying blog posts. Consumers are savvy – they understand that they can connect with a brand on an intimate level. The expectation for an ad to ‘be more than an ad’ is why we are seeing cars pop out of a box and why we are seeing videos playing within a frame. Red Shoes could ask a question about heel sizes for an upcoming shoe line and receive responses in an ad real-time.

If your team isn’t responsible for these types of online activities, it’s more important to know they are taking place. An uptick in traffic to your client’s site or number of Twitter followers may be a direct result of an online advertising buy. If you are keeping a close eye on the new followers your client obtained on a given day, where did they come from? Was there a specific type of advertising creative that compelled those consumers to be fans of the brand?

As you can see, there are numerous ways to slice and dice the data – that’s why we do what we do, right :) With more money being spent on online advertising, this demonstrates the shift in accountability. Brands are more confident in justifying their online budgets.

What are you doing to keep up with this shift? What developments have you seen? Any stumbling blocks along the way? Let us know!

Originally posted on Sports Grid.

In 1993, Tom Weir penned a column for USA Today stating his thoughts on this country and fútbol: “Hating soccer is more American than apple pie, driving a pickup, or spending Saturday afternoons channel surfing with the remote control.”

Things have changed in the last 17 years. For one thing, North America hosted a World Cup. In another, as with most things, soccer has become less maligned around the States because the home team has actually gotten competitive. The 2002 World Cup featured the best performance by the Americans ever; last year, the US squad almost pulled off the win of a lifetime before falling to Brazil in the finals of the confederation cup . Dave Eggers once tongue-in-cheekly noted that, “When children in the United States are very young, they believe that soccer is the most popular sport in the world.” For maybe the first time since the Cup has been in the U.S., though, there is a reason for everyone around here to get excited beyond the youngest among us.

I’m a soccer fan living in America, born in America (aside: even if I have cheered for England in World Cup’s past and potentially even have St. George’s Cross hanging in my workspace, I will be rooting for the right team come the opening game for Uncle Sam’s Army on June 12th). But even stateside, faithful fanatics like me have nothing on the global tenor surrounding the beautiful game. The good news, though, is that the global network of social, digital media may bring us all together in just three weeks time.

I kind of believed that we’d catch on to this game this year, but in the last few days, the excitement really feels like it’s catching on. For example, there’s this outstanding Nike commercial that’s gained nearly a million views in just a few days’ time.

From the minute I saw the first post of the video over on Yahoo!’s Dirty Tackle, I passed it to every soccer fan within my social networks I could. I promise that this entire column is more than an excuse to post the clip, though. I did some digging of how quickly the video reached the various parts of the Internet. As of 9:30 this morning (May 21), the Bit.ly stats have it at more than 15,000 clicks and 16,000 shares on Facebook (updated: 49,000 clicks and 263,000 shares on Facebook as of May 27) – not shabby for one day at all. Here’s to American innovation and Nike!

But wait, of those 15,000 clicks? Our country of 300 million? We account for about 2,000. Our former colonial oppressors? Actually, a little bit more than that, and Brazil has as many, too. An American company’s three minute commercial spread throughout the world massively quickly – and relatively none of us noticed.

Twitter and Facebook are going to play an amazing role in this year’s Cup – even if only has a fractional impact in America. The universality of Twitter is absolutely something new to this lap through the World Cup, and there’s an interesting viewpoint about its reach shared on Twitter’s Media blog:

Okay, so it’s uncontroversial to say the World Cup is a big deal.

It is, in fact, the biggest deal: the most widely-viewed sporting event in the world. In 2006, 700 million people watched the final match.

So it’s not surprising to suggest that the World Cup will be big on Twitter. Let’s take the Super Bowl as a data point. At peak moments, nearly half of all tweets created were about the game. And think about it: where the Super Bowl is U.S.-centric, the World Cup is global, and increasingly, so is Twitter. Then, mix in mobile use: people are going to be tweeting from bars, from movie theaters, and from stadiums in South Africa. Lots of people are going to be tweeting from their desks at work—but lots are also going to be tweeting from places in the world where phones, not PCs, are the primary internet connection. (Twitter sends about a billion tweets via SMS every month.)

I plan on watching every minute of this year’s matches that I humanly can – but I’ll also have one eye peeled to the billions of other voices chiming in about the World Cup. The global game is truly about to be that, and it is something we will luckily be able to share together wherever we may be. Regardless of what Tom Weir once said, I don’t have to hide my love of soccer anymore to be an American. In fact, I can broadcast it to every corner of the world in just 140 characters time and participate in the events more than any U.S. fútbol fan could before.

Originally posted on Britopian.

Everyone has a brand whether they like it or not. I am not talking about the clothes you wear or the car you drive either; that’s definitely part of it. The brand I am talking about is your attitude, how you carry yourself and the perception that others have about you; not that you have of yourself. Do you have a mediocre brand or one that is stellar and stands out from the crowd? Whatever the case, your personal brand is a direct reflection on the company you work for; especially with this new dynamic called the social web.

Some may say that there is no conflict, but I beg to differ. I have worked for some really large brands and over time built up my own personal brand because of it. There is always a potential conflict but there is also a way to manage it effectively.

The personal brand

So you’ve got a new gig, you report into duty, join or lead a team and then you have to figure out how to deliver value to your customers. Value can mean just about anything these days especially if you work in social media in some capacity. Along the way, you develop your skills; earn some street cred, gain a few thousand Twitter followers and then start speaking at events. And if you’ve got a good head on your shoulders you will figure out how to differentiate yourself from your co-workers. Maybe you start a blog, podcast or do something insanely awesome that gets you quoted in the media. At the end of the day, you become your new brand and you are lovin’ life.

The corporate brand

The corporate brand is much bigger than you. It’s probably older than you and it definitely has more coin than you. They are backed by investors, engineers, executives, lawyers, shareholders and other really smart people. They’ve been around for a very long time; long before you existed and will probably outlive you as well. Yeah, they may go through a few logo changes and maybe even an acquisition or two but they aren’t going anywhere. Not anytime soon.

They hired you for a reason; to be awesome. I can only assume that the job description didn’t say something like “have a strong personal brand” under the job requirements. And I am almost certain that the recruiter didn’t tell you “as a result of working for our company; we are going to help you create your own personal brand.” But being the smart cat that you are, you did it anyway or maybe it just happened by accident.

Now when the people in your inner circle think about the brand; an image of you pops in their head. Maybe it was a conversation on Twitter, Facebook or some other online interaction. The brand is not just you anymore; it’s a hybrid between you and the company you work for which is where the potential conflict can begin.

Mending the two together

Building a strong brand means leaving the ego at the door. Egos complicate everything and most corporate brands don’t do well with them. Having an ego will cause the legal and PR departments to watch you like a hawk and monitor everything you say or do online. Why? Because egos have a way changing the context and meaning of a word. It also clouds judgment. I think we all have egos, but it’s important to keep them in check.

Blatant self-promotion is an example of what NOT to do when talking about the corporate brand. If all you do is spam your community about you, there is a problem. Instead, try and provide value to the community. Be relevant. The best piece of advice I can give is to “say what you mean & mean what you say” AND don’t pretend to be something you are not. Liars are always exposed on the social web and it can even get you fired if you are not careful.

Be smart when you communicate and don’t forget that others’ are watching. If you build the corporate brand the smart way (i.e. say what you mean, mean what you say, provide value), your personal brand will grow and grow with credibility. You will become a trusted source of information; maybe even a subject matter expert about the company you work for.

It’s really not hard if you pay attention and think before you speak.

And for those with egos … unless you build an app that solves world hunger, please don’t invite me to “like” you on Facebook. I’d much rather just be your friend.

Image credit: fritsenfruitig

Seeing is believing and visuals are powerful. I’ve collected a few visualization tools for Facebook, news feeds, and Twitter to let you view networks and conversations at a glance.

Mentionmap

Mentionmap is a web app for exploring the Twitter users and hashtags that mention your account most.  The great thing about Mentionmap is that it is interactive which allows you to be able to drill down within your network to connect with people or topics that are relevant.

Twitter Venn

Twitter Venn is a Venn diagram based on three Twitter search terms. The diagram shows how many times each term is tweeted a day and if two or even all of the keywords are mentioned in the same tweet it will show you how often those topics overlap.

The Health Tweeder

The Health Tweeder is a health specific visualization tool that displays the top discussed health keywords within certain Twitter networks. Once you click into a topic you are able to see all the tweets regarding that keyword.  This is a great tool to monitor health trends and debates.

MSNBC Spectra

MSNBC Spectra is a visual newsreader that you can customize to your news needs. By sorting thought MSNBC topics and selecting the specific categories you are interested in, you are able to tune in to stories that matter to you. Visually this web app is stunning but it also provides very functional tools like being able to save stories you want to read later in your “newscollector”.

Friendwheel

Friendwheel is a Facebook app that shows you the connections you have within your Facebook friend community and it also shows mutual friends within connections. For a more robust and interactive version try Touchgraph.

Google Play

Google Play is a fun way to display your Google Reader feeds in a slideshow format. Each post is shown one at a time so this isn’t best for people with hundreds of feeds. However, if you tend to have a very visual collection of RSS feeds (photographers, food bloggers, craft blogs) this might be an ideal viewing tool for you.

Likebutton.me

Likebutton.me is a Facebook “like” aggregation site that allows you to see at a glance what your friends are liking on the web. While it isn’t completely customizable and searchable yet, it does have a few categories that you can browse through to get an idea of what’s liked right now.

What visual tools are you using?

There was a time – and that time still reigns supreme in a few small circles – when badges meant status. In cub scouts and the military, the number or type of badges you proudly wear still signify your accomplishments, and therefore your status. Even the modern day tuxedo was styled after military uniforms, to provide the non-military gentleman with a get-up that signified he was noble. Dukes wore sashes made of jewels, similar to modern day pageant queens – fanciful badges denoting status.

But for the most part, and on most occasions, few of us wear badges anymore – except for the insignia we wear on our sleeves. We still pride ourselves on these kinds of badges of course: a Marc Jacobs jacket, Manolo Blahniks and Movado watches. These are adorned with tags worn small but true to signify status purchased by cash, whether hard-earned or not.

Badges Bought With Experience

For people on location-based services such as Foursquare or Gowalla, badges are not paid for with dollars anymore, they are bought with experience.

• Have you been to three bars that had karaoke? You, my friend, get the Don’t Stop Believin’ badge.
• Have you been to five airports? You are a JetSetter and deserve a badge declaring as much.
• Were you at SXSW? Badge me. Were you one of the first? Extra badge.
• Or part of the 250 people who checked-in at the same place at the same time? Then certainly you deserve more badges.

People even crave badges that assign labels that people would not typically flaunt. For example, you can receive a Douchebag badge if you check-in to a location that has been tagged as such. I found myself both insulted and exalted when I received the douchebadge for checking into the movie theater at the Universal City Walk in Orlando. Even though the status could just as easily be considered embarrassing unstatus, I had a strange pride in being the first of my friends to receive the pixeled praise for something I would have considered beyond rude if someone had said to my face.

This was the first time I fully realized the subtle but significant change in how we think about status, and how we quickly we change our behaviors as the rewards for certain behaviors evolve.

Forget the Badge. I Want to Be Mayor

It’s not just badges. It’s also social titles that we fight for. Have you checked in to one place more than any other person? Well, then you don’t just get a badge, you’re crowned as the mayor. Did you add a new location and check in twice before everyone else could? Well then you are a mayor of one, but you are mayor nonetheless.
Have you lost a mayorship and been tempted to jump in your car and “earn” it back right then and there? Have you changed your recommendations for where to go and what to do because you are mayor of a place or want to be?

No. You haven’t yet…and you think it would be ridiculous to do so?

Were you also one of those people who insisted you would never get a cell phone because you didn’t want people to be able to contact you anywhere, anytime? Do you own a cell phone now? Me too. (HT @garyvee)

Just wait, because your status is changing. And soon you will be checking-in everywhere and all the time.  Don’t believe me? Bookmark this post and check it again in a year. Or better yet, jump on Hootsuite and schedule a tweet with this link for one year hence. Then let’s talk.

Facebook Status – A Badge of Accomplishment

But still you resist, and insist that you don’t need no stinkin’ badges. Well even the simple act of updating your Facebook status signifies – that’s right – a badge of accomplishment.

Facebook asks “What’s on your mind?” and in doing so beckons you to divulge your thoughts, whims and activities to the world – or at least that strange mix of high school acquaintances, college friends and co-workers who are cool-enough-not-to-be-too-scared-by-the-social-overlap. Your once private thoughts and personal acts become semi-public domain, for friends, family and not-quite-randoms to comment on and make their own.

As soon as you post an item to Facebook, it becomes a status badge that you wear on your stream, as if you were running through a wall made of ticker-tape, with all of your life’s activities written on streamers trailing from your arms, legs, and waist, for all the world to see.

And Facebook isn’t staying on Facebook anymore. In a world where location is status, they’ve (slowly) come to realize that where you are is as important as who you are, what you are thinking or what you are doing. So they’ve started sending decals to shop owners and asked them to place them at the entrance to their stores so that customers can “like” that location when they walk-in. In the process, they are evolving from window shopping to window liking, merging the in-store experience with the online conversation. Facebook has quickly become a crowdsourced and deeply personal but overtly public factbook for the world we live in and everybody in it.

A Thumbnail Tells a Thousand Words

Badges and status don’t have to just be about oversharing the random thoughts that are just as well kept to yourself. They can also be channeled to good purpose.
Last year, I was amazed by the power that a tiny little thumbnail image could have on public discourse. This simple visual badge became imbued with a significance far beyond the 75×75 pixel space it occupies, when thousands of people changed the color of their Twitter thumbnails to green in a sign of solidarity with the people of Iran. Twitter had become an instant Ombudsmen, calling the traditional media to task for not covering the #iranelection and the subsequent crackdown on people fighting for their freedoms.

Watching the Twitter stream cascade into a sea of green in the ensuing days proved to me that the avatars and thumbnails that we choose to represent ourselves could become badges of courage, telling the world where we stand on the most important issues of the day. These simple but compelling acts of impulse advocacy demonstrated to me that social purpose could be status as much as location or experience could be.

We are living in an era of political exhibitionism, wearing our advocacy on our social sleeves through thumbnails, blog badges, cause widgets and more. In fact, I’m surprised there aren’t more socially responsible Foursquare badges beyond the Keep Austin GOOD badge from earlier this year. But perhaps that will change as the notion of status continues to evolve.

Digital Postcards and So Much More

What does this all mean? Status isn’t quite what you wear but where you are, or at least where you choose to tell the world you’ve been. We’re each carrying digital versions of those good ole steamer trunks of yore, papered with postcards from all the exotic places we’ve been, like Chief Ike’s Mambo Room, or the brokedown 24-7 laundromat at the corner of Western and where-the-hell-am-I-anyway…which I’m the mayor of btw, maybe because I’m the only person in there that’s worried about his status at midnight on a Tuesday with four loads of faded insignia to go.

Image credit: tikaro

Originally posted on Logic + Emotion.

Way back in 2005, I came across a blog. Not just any blog—it was called “The Social Customer Manifesto”. I found it to be so interesting and compelling, that it was one of the first blogs I left a comment on (I had mostly been a passive observer prior to this). Five years later and I feel like I’ve come full circle as the author of that blog (who I’ve come to know), Chris Carfi has joined Edelman—the company I work for. In his honor, I thought I’d write a short post, flipping his model of a manifesto from the customer, to the business. Enjoy and welcome Chris!

• We will no longer view you as “consumers”. Instead, you are co-creators, participants, and advocates.
• We will actively listen, and participate authentically because we know you demand nothing less.
• We will meet you on your terms, not ours.
• We will provide value, not noise.
• We will evolve our workforce to meet the changing demands of a networked economy.
• We will focus on your needs vs. our messages.
• We will build relationships that connect us in ways where we all benefit.
• We will act ethically and transparently, because it’s no longer a choice.
• We will respond to changes quickly—we will adapt.
• We will move forward with you, not without you, because you are our future.

Welcome aboard Chris! Let the Karaoke begin. :-)

The regulatory concerns that drive much of the health industry’s hesitation in entering the digital space are not the only factor we face when it comes to online programs. Another reason health care communication may be still catching up to other industries is that, at first glance, it may not seem like many of the right target audiences are active online – especially if organizations are hoping to reach older publics.

While there certainly is a comparatively lower overall usage of online properties among older Internet users, these groups also represent the fastest growing populations on those same media properties. Just because it doesn’t seem logical that the senior set has not fully adopted digital communications doesn’t mean they aren’t getting there. In fact, access to broadband speed in the home tripled among people over 65 between 2005 and 2008.

The ways older publics are increasingly using the Internet may provide unique ways to interact with them, around health information or in general. As proof, here are five ideas for you to consider regarding older audiences online.

Personal E-mail

A 2009 report from Pew noted that the most common activity among the senior-aged groups using the Internet is e-mail. This likely isn’t a surprising result for anyone who’s ever received an e-mail from a parent or grandparent – or potentially even helped establish the account for them in the first place.

Tracking Personal Needs

While the “fervent user” base of wired seniors (over 65 years old) may be narrow, there are some interesting findings about the places they most actively visit. E-mail is the most common, but the next responses also offer some insights into how this group operates. It seems these users are likely to be a little more personal in their searches, using the engines to identify resources about their hobbies and health information as the second and third most common activities after e-mail.

Facebook’s Increase Among Seniors

Now approaching 500 million users worldwide, it’s hard to find demographic groups that aren’t on the world’s most ingrained social network. This includes 9.7 million people over the age of 55, the overwhelming majority of whom joined between January 2009 and January 2010. Why could this matter for your program? Given the late start and state of Facebook as they have registered, their personal networks may be tighter and include fewer, but more intimate, offline contacts.

Connecting with Family

The trend in both e-mail and social network usage by older publics is most notably tied to the most important reason they may be online: to connect with family. In the Pew study mentioned above, most seniors reported that the Internet improved their connection with their loved ones. Not only something to recognize regarding the motivations of this public online, but this is potentially something that can be channeled for successful outreach.

The Boom to Be?

While there still is some growth to go in adoption among the current generation of seniors, it won’t be very long at all until veteran Internet users lose a valiant battle with time. The growth of Internet usage doesn’t necessarily have to be in new networks, but the fact that the most connected generations continue to expand up and down every demographic. As the first members of the Baby Boomer generation retire, they do so with a comparatively immense knowledge and participation in these networks above those just older than them. While still a long-term plan, being prepared for this shift will be a smart strategy for any program.

Image credit: homecaregivers

HP asked Edelman Barcelona for an Influencer Marketing campaign which had the mission to position HP wireless printers as a sexy and fashionable technology to women and families through the previously uninterested lifestyle media and blogs. We also had to present wireless printing technology in a new and exciting way considering that it had been in the market for almost two years.

So we came with the idea of creating a fashion collection made from recycled printer wires and auctioning off the collection for a charity donation. The concept was: “wire is dead, let’s at least reuse it for a good cause”.

This idea helped us to build a memorable story around wireless printers, giving us a great opportunity to engage with top influencers linked with fashion, trends and lifestyle in general such as bloggers that cover these topics, which exist in a large number in Spain.

To reach them we created a list with the top 30 influencers, monitored them during one month and then started to share information. In a first stage, we wanted to create expectations and excitement around the initiative.

To do that, we announced that soon HP would reveal a fashion collection with wires and done by the designer Eugenio Loarce, and to make it more tangible and visual, we also shared pictures of 2 pieces from the collection, as well as a video of the designer explaining the idea and what inspired him to create the pieces.

This first announcement generated posts in 60% of these top 30 blogs, as well as comments and conversations inside these blogs and on social networks such as Facebook, where we also started to seed the information.

Two weeks after, we sent 50 bloggers a really cool physical invitation to the collection launch event. We also contacted 5 of these top 30 blogs and offered them the chance to raffle 5 double free tickets to the event amongst their readers, which also created excitement and buzz around the collection.

80% of the invited bloggers attended the event and posted great articles about the collection and HP’s initiative. After the event we shared with them and other bloggers and journalists the collection, which consisted of 13 pieces, and the party pictures through Flickr. As a result, 90% of the top 30 blogs covered the story, with a total of 60+ posts, and these posts generated 250+ comments.

The pieces were auctioned online through a specialized site (owned by eBay, client), and the money collected went to Bip Bip Foundation, that helps vulnerable groups close the “digital divide” by providing access and training in technology.