Auteur: Rachel Sprung

Marketers … we’re on the hook for lead gen. Marketers … we’re on the hook for using social media, too. Those two things ever seem at odds with one another?

Maybe. Because aside from just publishing more links to landing pages, the ways you can generate leads on social media sometimes seem a little lacking. But you can scale your social media lead generation if you do one thing extremely well: Grow your social media reach. Think about it. You can’t really do some crazy hacky stuff to generate more leads on a site over which you have no control, right? So exercise what you do have control over — the number of people who have an opportunity to convert on the lead generation content you publish to social media.

How do you do that? Why, I’m so glad you asked. This post will give you 19 solid tactics you should always be keeping in mind to grow your social reach. Take a look!

19 Tactics to Grow Your Social Reach

1) Put social sharing and follow buttons on all of your collateral.

Whether your marketing materials are online or offline — but really, the online ones are uber-critical — place social calls-to-action that let people know where they can find you on social media. Remember, you need social sharing buttons, and social follow buttons. This allows people to share your content, and/or opt in to follow you on social media themselves. Both are big wins for widening your social reach. Think everywhere from your home page and your blog posts, to your email marketing messages and printed collateral at trade shows. (Tip: Consider using QR codes to bridge the gap between print and digital when promoting your social media presences on printed materials.)

2) Make sure social share and follow buttons are visible on mobile versions of your site.

People are always using their mobile devices when checking out new and interesting companies. And they sure as sugar use ‘em to mess around on social media while they’re waiting for the bus. Chilling in line. Parked in their car. Sitting in the airport. You get the point. So it’s important your social follow and share buttons are easy to find on your marketing assets if they’re being accessed from a mobile device. It makes that next step to follow you or share your content much easier!

3) Tailor your content to the social network.

What you’re saying on Twitter should be short and sweet. Punchy. Easy to digest in a sentence. What you’re saying on Facebook? Well, you have more room to play around. It’s easier for people to see a visual than it is on Twitter — and same goes for Google+. LinkedIn, however, might benefit from a link to a more in-depth content asset, pulling in a snippet from the content itself. Every social network is a little bit different. Treat the content you post there accordingly so it resonates with that audiences, and is more likely to spread.

4) Tailor your content to the persona.

Just as your social networks have a personality, so do the people for whom you’re posting content. Consider the make-up of your audience — and remember that it may differ from network to network — to understand what content spreads the most. This is something you’ll get better at gauging over time. For instance, you might notice that your audience on Facebook loves when you share funny content about Topic X, but your LinkedIn audience engages more when you post educational content about Topic Y. Striking the right topic and tone for your content based on the audience’s persona will help you get your content shared with new audiences.

5) Respond frequently to your fans and followers.

One of the best ways to grow your audience is by fostering a chatty community. Why? Because the more your entire follower-base communicates publicly, the more exposure your social presence receives. Not only that, when you consider how Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm works, the posts that receive the most engagement receive the most exposure in the News Feed. Post content people want to talk about, and foster the conversation with your own responses, too. 

6) Interact and engage with people on social media that aren’t yet following you.

Engagement is the first step to building relationships with your network, but also with people you have not connected with yet. If you want to grow your reach, a natural introduction happens through engagement. That would mean retweeting someone new on Twitter, sharing another company’s great Facebook update, or engaging in a discussion in another person or company’s LinkedIn group.

7) Keep your social media profiles up to date.

When it looks like no one has touched your social profile in months — heck, even weeks or days — it’s not giving anyone a reason to follow you. Stay current, stay active, and most of all, mix it up a bit so people have a reason to come back! For instance, make yourself one of those companies who posts amazing cover photos on Facebook. You know, the kinds that your entire fan base looks forward to checking out. Keeping people on their toes not only helps prevent fan/follower churn, it gives new people a reason to both share and follow your profiles, too.

8) Target your audience through paid advertising.

Social networks have really upped their game of late with their paid advertising options. Facebook, in particular, has done a great job improving their segmentation capabilities so brands that have a little money to spend can increase their reach. If you have some budget — a little or a lot — consider running some paid ads that encourage more fans and followers. If you need help getting started, we have a free ebook that tells you everything you need to know about running paid ads on Facebook.

9) Consider the time of day you post on social media.

The time of day you post on social media totally affects engagement. And affected engagement — whether positively or negatively — means affected social reach. Figure out what times of day are best for your audience. If you need a starting point, reference The Science of Timing from HubSpot’s Dan Zarrella to get more information on when you should be posting.

10) Newsjack on social media.

Newsjacking refers to the practice of riding the popularity wave of a current event for some business gain. If something’s incredibly popular, be the first person to talk about it in social media. That positions you as the information source that people know they just have to follow if they want to stay in the know. At HubSpot, for instance, we use social media to push out breaking industry news, as well as funnier newsjacks, like our video parody of the Harlem Shake.

11) Adopt new social media “stuff” as it rolls out.

Pinterest. Vine. Facebook ads. These are social networks, apps, and features that have the potential to make social media marketing more effective. You might find that these new rollouts are a waste of time (if you have that hunch, here’s how to know for sure), and don’t really help you with your engagement, lead gen, or any other metrics. But you will probably find at least some of them are helpful. If you approach new social rollouts as an agile marketer, it doesn’t take a lot of resources to do a couple quick experiments to determine the viability of all the new “stuff.” If you run 5 little experiments, and only one totally rocks your world … that’s still one more tool that you didn’t have before.

12) Create visuals to use on your social media channels.

Visuals are extremely popular on social media, particularly Pinterest, Facebook, and Google+, that all have interfaces that support visual content consumption. In fact, Simply Measured reports that just one month after the introduction of Facebook Timeline, visual content saw a 65% increase in engagement. And as we know, increased engagement means increased visibility … in front of those people that don’t know who you are yet, and aren’t engaged with your brand on social media. Get comfortable getting visual, with memes, videos, infographics, cartoons, and any other images your creative brain can dream up.

13) Host Twitter chats.

Twitter suffers from a volume problem. There’s a lot of content coming from a lot of different places, and it’s hard to get heard or found amidst all that chaos. That’s why Twitter chats are a great tactic to increase your reach. Twitter chats have a specific hashtag associated with them that helps participants and other tweeters sort by topic; they’re digital events promoted on other, less cluttered channels; and the volume of tweets going out associated with your event hashtag help get you the visibility you need to surpass the volume “problem” on Twitter. If you’d like to hold your own Twitter chat, check out this blog post that walks you through it.

14) Create a hashtag for any event you host, and make sure all event attendees know about it.

Whether you have an event for 20 people or 2,000, it’s important to have a hashtag so your attendees can network with each other and promote your content. Attendees at events are one of the greatest ways to get a larger social media reach because they often tweet about events multiple times, simultaneously promoting the event and your company to their own followers. Plus, just like with Twitter chats, the volume of tweets helps you get some visibility in that cluttered Twitter stream.

15) Initiate a guest blogging program.

But wait. Isn’t this just helping our respective blogs? Well yes, it totally is, but it’s also getting your content — you know, the stuff that powers your social media presence — in front of another audience.

This means when you guest blog on another site, those readers are sharing that @YouAwesomeMarketerYou wrote this amazing blog post. (You’re @YouAwesomeMarketerYou in this example.) Now the audience of the site you wrote for is getting to know you, and when your guest blogging partner reciprocates, you can bet their audience will hear alllll about the blog post on @YouAwesomeMarketerYou’s website. See how that works?

16) Partner with other organizations to reach their social media list.

Just like guest blogging, when you partner up with another complementary organization — this is the practice of co-marketing — you can help each other widen your respective reaches. If growing your reach is a priority for any of your co-marketing partnerships, consider creating a content calendar of items a partner could promote on your behalf, that are also relevant to their audience, to help you grow your reach.

17) Host a contest or gamify your social presence to incentivize follows.

Often a little competition is just what people need to get interested in a brand on social media. Now, different social networks have different rules for hosting contests, so be sure you read the terms of service on each network thoroughly. (We’ve summed them up pretty well in this blog post, too.) But a free game or a contest — here are eight awesome ones you could run on Pinterest, for instance — are excellent tactics to increase your reach.

18) Post something new every day.

That may seem like quite the task, but there’s always something you can say, content you can create, and people you can engage with. You can’t rest on your laurels with social media. A big-hit post today means very little tomorrow. Keep your presence fresh, update multiple times daily, and do it across all your networks to keep your reach growing at all times.

19) Create high quality content.

This is what it all comes down to, really. The brands out there with amazing social reaches probably do a lot of the things in this post. But they all post extremely high quality content. And they do it all the time. No matter what tricks you have up your sleeve to juice your social reach — and hey, we totally support that extra credit stuff — make sure you start with high quality content first and foremost. That’s the stuff people want to consume themselves, and share with other people.

What other tactics have worked for you to increase your social media reach?

Image credit: crdotx

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Vine. It’s the latest social media feature available on Twitter. Released on January 24, companies have already started to cozy up to the new, six second video feature as part of their social media content strategy. With it being so new, however, it may be difficult to tell what the best practices are. I mean, what’s working? What’s not? Any guidance here, people?!

Well, the good news is, a veritable Vine flop isn’t going to do your brand a ton of harm — unless you’re like, incredibly offensive or something. But shooting videos can seriously stress marketers out sometimes (Who has the equipment? How do I turn this thing on? Should I write a script? Does it look blurry?).

So, a little guidance is what we’re here to give. Because while we love to encourage experimentation in your marketing, we hate to see you waste your time. Here’s what some brands have been doing that people seem to love, and some of the things that really are best to avoid when using Vine. Take a look, and share your own Vine learnings in the comments so we can all figure this thing out together.

What Doesn’t Work With Vine

Before we jump into what seems to be working really well for marketers using Vine, let’s get the no-no’s out of the way. Here’s what doesn’t work when using Vine for marketing.

Don’t Forget to Define the Video’s Purpose

With only six seconds to get your message across, you have to really have your ducks in a row before you start filming. That means you have one point you’re trying to get across. Ask yourself before you start filming — what’s the point of this video? What should those who view the video walk away understanding? Just because it’s a short video doesn’t mean you’re exempt from hammering this out; in fact, it makes it even more critical to go through this exercise. It’s a lot easier to be verbose than succinct. We don’t want to pick on any brands too hard, so instead of embedding a bunch of Vine tweets that are guilty of this, we’ll just give you a couple safeguards to follow to prevent this issue:

• Provide video context in the body copy of the tweet.
• Use sound — yes, Vine lets you use sound — to explain what you’re doing in the video itself.
• Force yourself to define, in one sentence, what you hope a viewer will take away from the video.
• KISS, or Keep It Simple, Sweetie. Vine is not the best medium for communicating complex concepts.

Don’t Squish a Longer Video’s Concept Into 6 Seconds

On that note, let’s discuss why it’s important to KISS with Vine. It’s because Vine is a six second video. Sometimes, you need more than six seconds of footage to communicate an idea. If that’s the case, step away from the Vine app! Don’t try to fit what should be a 60 second video into six seconds of content — you have YouTube for that 😉 We think The Gap is big enough to handle being called out here, so we’d like to use this Vine video from them as an example of a video that could have benefitted from a little more than six seconds of air time:

From the past to present, the labels tell the story of our 1969 jeans. #denimevolved vine.co/v/bvP0zgpe9Oa

— Gap (@Gap) February 12, 2013

Gap’s video shows clips of jean labels from more than 40 years — a really cool idea — but they try to show so many videos in six seconds. The end result is an overwhelming number of clips to consume in too short a time span. I mean, you can’t really discern the difference between any of the jean labels over time. A better way to structure this video would have been showing less labels in the video, perhaps spanning just a decade or pre-2000s so viewers could really see the labels, or just using another platform entirely for the video.

Don’t Create Videos Meant Just For Private Groups

There are many companies like who like to have specials for their valued customers, or may even be members-only type companies — think Gilt Groupe, for instance. For companies like this that want to give their audience a VIP experience, Vine may not be the best option. Vine is public to everyone who wants to watch the videos, and they can share the Vine video on other social media platforms and send the videos around to other groups. That means it’s important your videos are appropriate for anyone to consume, even if they can’t really “use” the information in them.

You could turn these lemons into lemonade, though, by using Vine to encourage other people to apply to be a member or user of your service or product! That means maybe you put out some teaser content that shows the value of signing up for your product or service that entices a wider audience to learn a little bit more about what you do. 

Don’t Use It Just … Cuz

Often, businesses want to jump on the latest social media trend without thinking through whether or not it makes sense for their business. Before you start taking the time to dedicate your company to using Vine, think about whether or not it’s worth it to you company. Take a look at some of the other companies using Vine and see if you think your company will find the same success as they have. It isn’t worth incorporating a new social media feature into the already cluttered mix just for the sake of saying your company uses it. I think we’ve all seen personal users and marketers alike uploading videos of total nonsense just to say, “Hey! Look! I’m using Vine!” Avoid this, and remember that it’s important to have a purpose for the content you’re putting out there.

If you’re having trouble figuring out whether Vine is right for you, I’d recommend two courses of action:

• Experiment with Vine using an agile approach, meaning you’ll record a video very quickly and with a specific measurement in mind — like net new leads, or increasing reach — to determine whether you can meet important goals with Vine.
• Ensure your videos align with general best practices (like the ones outlined in this post) so you know any Vine failures can’t be attributed to basic errors that could have been avoided. 

If after running a few experiments in which you post videos, evaluate their effectiveness, and iterate on subsequent videos to make improvements, you find that Vine isn’t doing anything for you … stop. And of course, if you’re simply using Vine because it’s the hot new thing and your videos aren’t communicating anything of value … well, stop that, too!

What Does Work With Vine

Now that we know what to avoid, let’s get into some actionable advice you can apply right now to your Vine marketing. Here’s what seems to work really well for marketers using Vine.

Do Give Followers a Sneak Peek

When you have six seconds to show your audience something about your company, it better be worth it. For companies about to launch a new product, service, or piece of content, this could be a great opportunity to give the public a sneak preview of what you’re releasing without giving away the farm, so to speak.

For example, People magazine gave a sneak preview of their latest edition to get their Twitter followers excited about the content, but without giving away so much information that someone wouldn’t even need to buy the magazine. Take a look.

Sneak peek at Tim McGraw’s (hot) new body in this week’s PEOPLE! vine.co/v/bJYuBAjWv3Z

— People magazine (@peoplemag) January 30, 2013

This video works because it focused on the visual — a hot bod — which is easier to process quickly. Plus, it injects a little humor into the thing, using sticky notes to slowly unveil the man’s  chiseled chest, and stopping before the whole image is unveiled.

No matter what industry you’re in, there’s an opportunity for you to give a sneak peak into the great stuff you’re working on behind the scenes. It helps build anticipation, and you might find showing people instead of telling them builds a greater sense of excitement.

Do Humanize Your Brand

Companies should come across as social on social media, so if you can find a way to make your brand sound more human, more relatable, that’s a big win. And as it turns out, seeing people via pictures and video is a great way to achieve this humanizing effect! Cuz, you know, people can see humans. Pretty straightforward.

Vine provides a natural opportunity to do this by featuring snapshots of your company’s employees, whether at work or at play. BuzzFeed has really adopted this mentality with their Vine videos, trying to get readers a glimpse into their quirky and relaxed culture. When Vine was first released, they created this video showing some of their employees working … and some others dancing.

Dancing vine.co/v/b5dpFadpuUQ

— BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) January 24, 2013

Anyone who follows BuzzFeed knows that their articles sometimes talk about the news, but more often, you come across fun articles that let people reminisce about their childhood or laugh about a current event. You know, feel-good stuff. This Vine video gives them another way to show that the fun and irreverent attitude you find in their content is present in their company culture, too.

Do Demonstrate a New Product or Service Feature

For companies frequently launching new product or service updates, Vine can be a great way to show users how the new releases work. Even though some people may need to see more information than what you can share in six seconds, the shortened version can often be the reminder they need that something new is available, and they should go learn more. Here’s an example of this from Tech. magazine.

 

So earlier on we showed off the cover…but here it is in action, courtesy of new Twitter Video service Vine. vine.co/v/b5FgPUL5LAg

— tech. (@techdotmag) January 25, 2013

 

As you can see, Tech. used the Vine feature to demo their new iPad app — and the super cool cover that comes with it! This is a great application of Vine, because when it comes to apps, people want to get a quick idea about what the app does and why it might be useful for them. Hence, using Vine to quickly (as if there’s any other way) showcase what their app does is an excellent way to promote more downloads.

Remember, you probably can’t demo everything in six seconds, but you can highlight the one, two, or three features that are the coolest, and will get people interested in learning more.

Do Have Fun With Audio

When Vine videos start playing, the default is to have sound muted. Thank goodness. But that doesn’t mean sound shouldn’t be used at all. Sound can add a lot to your Vine videos by lending some clarity to what’s going on in the video, highlighting your company’s message, or even giving your company’s executives a chance to address the social media community. In fact, we held a Vine chat with our CMO, Mike Volpe, just a couple weeks ago. You better believe sound helped 😉 And of course, it helped Jimmy Fallon in this Vine video, too:

The beginning. #loop vine.co/v/b1maztKQguh

— jimmy fallon (@jimmyfallon) January 31, 2013

Fallon went meta with this video, commenting on the problem with looping vine videos. If you’re ever tried to unmute a Vine video and understand what’s going on, you know what I’m talking about.

Even if you aren’t looking to have your Vine videos be funny, sound is a great tool to use. If you’re showing a demo, it always helps for someone to explain something. If you are giving a tour around your company, it is helpful to give a fun fact of your office. And you know what? A little background music never hurt anybody! It might even help you establish the right tone, so you can get your message across even easier in that short time span.

Do Introduce Your Followers to Your Company

Finally, Vine’s an excellent way to tell people who the heck you are. What do you do? What are you all about? Use Vine video to give people a taste of that. We took advantage of Vine video by introducing our followers to the HubSpot co-founders, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, and showing off some of the new swag, our new tagline, and our logo.

Who likes swag and #HubSpot co-founders @bhalligan & @dharmesh?! vine.co/v/b5xYW0ZIDL5

— HubSpot (@HubSpot) January 25, 2013

Any company can use Vine to showcase their company. Whether you’re giving an office tour, interviewing employees, or showing what it is like to be in the office, viewers will appreciate the chance to get to know you a bit better.

What else have you found works — or totally doesn’t work — with Vine?

Image credit: Lulu Hoeller

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Super Bowl XLVII is quickly approaching. Here are some things you’re probably hearing a lot about: New Orleans, beer, Beyonce, Doritos in any of their various flavors and formats, and maybe, if you work in marketing, the millions of dollars a few select brands are spending on a Super Bowl commercial.

That’s why I thought it’d be fun to hear about the companies out there that have nothing to do with the Super Bowl, but are still, somehow, getting a lot of attention as the big game approaches on Sunday. That’s right, we’re talking about newsjacking, and when brands do it well, it’s something to celebrate. So let’s take a look at eight companies that have newsjacked Super Bowl XLVII. And remember, it’s not too late to dream up your own Super Bowl campaign! (Unless you were banking on an ad placement, in which case, I’m sorry, I think you missed the boat.) 😉

1) Animal Planet’s Puppy Bowl

Not everyone is a football fan … but who doesn’t love puppies!? Animal Planet knows that people will be glued to their televisions for most of the day on Super Bowl Sunday, so why not give people something else to watch while they’re waiting for the big game to start? Animal Planet has partnered with the Washington Animal Rescue League to bring us the 9th annual Puppy Bowl. If you haven’t seen it in previous years, the Puppy Bowl shows puppies playing on a 10 by 19 foot carpet that resembles a football field. Every time they bring a toy past the goal line, they score for their team. Here, take a look (and then just try to get back to work):

Last year, 9 million people watched the Puppy Bowl, and 1.4 million people watched it by video stream. Their YouTube channel has racked up thousands of views on just the promotional videos alone. This year, the Puppy Bowl will also feature 21 kittens from an animal shelter in New York, and 63 puppies from 23 shelters across the country. In addition to raising exposure for Animal Planet, this genius Super Bowl newsjack raises awareness for shelters across the country. All of the animals who participate in the Puppy Bowl are adopted by the end of the show, and even more animals across the country are adopted as a result of it. You wouldn’t think Animal Planet has anything to do with the Super Bowl, but they found a way to ride the popularity wave nine years in a row to advance a cause that’s important to them. And let’s be honest … using puppies certainly doesn’t hurt their cause, either.

2) Mullen’s Brand Bowl

Every year Mullen, an advertising agency in Boston, hosts what they call the Brand Bowl. They take a look at Radian6 to see what commercials people are talking about the most on Twitter, and whether the response was positive or negative. Based on these ratings, they rank the commercials and brands to determine the best commercials of the Super Bowl.

 

 

Mullen does a great job finding an angle with the Super Bowl that’s interesting to their industry and target audience — the best advertisements, which is arguably more interesting than the actual game to millions of Americans, anyway. As they do it, they’re able to demonstrate their services, thought leadership, and social media prowess, too. Not a bad way to share some of the Super Bowl spotlight!

3) TrueLens’ Data

TrueLens is a Cambridge-based startup that produces customer insights sourced from public social media posts. When the Super Bowl teams were finalized, they posted a blog post using their customer intelligence tool to illustrate the differences between the fan bases of the two teams. Here, take a look at a little excerpt:

 

 

The TrueLens product may not relate to the Super Bowl (okay, it definitively doesn’t), but they can use it to generate conclusions about social media users talking about the Super Bowl. Really, it’s one of those rare but excellent marketing opportunities in which you can show off how your product works … without totally forcing an unnatural product tie-in. The blog post carefully lays out examples of the data the customer intelligence tool can produce, and what you can learn as a result of the data. For example, the post outlines where the fans of the two teams go to eat, what television networks they watch, and what social networks they use (as shown in the picture above). Good for TrueLens for identifying a great opportunity to showcase their product’s data collection abilities!

4) Pizza for Patriots and DHL Joint-Donation

Pizza for Patriots is a non-profit organization that works with pizza and food companies to feed about a half million military troops on holidays like Independence Day and Veterans Day. This year, they’re trying to send more than 20,000 pizzas to the Middle East on Super Bowl Sunday so the military can enjoy a delicious pizza, just like the millions of viewers in the United States watching the game. They’re doing it in conjunction with DHL, who will help them by sending the pizzas overseas.

In the past, Pizza for Patriots has focused on sending pizza to troops during holidays, and they’ve received a lot of media attention from local outlets. But by newsjacking the Super Bowl, they’re now getting national attention for their campaign … which will only help them during this campaign, and in future campaigns.

5) National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Drunk Driving Prevention Campaign

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration provides resources for states and highway safety professionals. They’re constantly promoting safe driving and have started a marketing campaign during this year’s Super Bowl to prevent drunk driving.

 

 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is always looking for opportunities to speak out against drunk driving, and they aptly recognized that it would be a good opportunity to create marketing materials that spoke out against drunk driving, and align it with the upcoming Super Bowl. They have press releases, visual collateral, sample tweets, and content with safe driving tips that they’re promoting on their website. Though the organization is focused on highway safety and not football, there’s no denying there’s a perfect opportunity to ride the popularity wave of the Super Bowl to get their message out further than they would any other day of the year. And they’ve stockpiled the marketing content they need to do it!

6) EatNowNOLA.com’s Web App

When the Super Bowl was in Indianapolis, people noticed that some restaurants were packed, while others inexplicably had plenty of open tables. This year, EatNowNOLA.com launched an app to fix that problem, letting people know what restaurants have availability, and which ones do not.

 

 

There are about 500 restaurants participating with this app right now. People standing in line waiting for a table can update the app, or the restaurants can update it themselves. While thousands of people are trying to find a place to eat in a small city, this will save some serious frustration — and what better way for this company to get app adoption year round than to find a use case now, with an audience of millions?

7) Saxon Diamond Center’s Refund Campaign

Maryland is getting pretty excited that their very own Baltimore Ravens are in the Super Bowl. To celebrate, a local jewelry store is offering refunds of up to $5,000 on pieces of jewelry purchased during the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. Because when you think Super Bowl, you totally think jewelry.

But that’s what makes a great newsjack! And there’s actually a little bit more to this campaign that makes it pretty genius — they’re only offering a refund if the Ravens hold the 49ers scoreless during the game. That adds one more element to this campaign that actually ties in quite nicely to the Super Bowl … betting. If anyone’s feeling lucky, particularly any die hard Baltimore fans, this kind of marketing campaigns might be right up their alley. And hey, any ladies looking for a little bling might have the perfect opportunity to convince their football fan significant others that they should spring for the purchase!

8) Chipotle’s Burritos by the Box

On Game Day, you have buffalo wings. Possibly pizza. Maybe subs. Definitely chips and dip. But you don’t usually have … burritos. Chipotle is trying to change that this year, though, by announcing their Burritos by the Box campaign. Consumers who buy six or more burritos on Super Bowl Sunday will be eligible to get a free burrito for the rest of the month of February. Mmmm, yummy!

 

 

By offering this deal, Chipotle is putting themselves in the running for snack foods you just have to pick up for Super Bowl Sunday — this year, and if the campaign goes well, in subsequent years. Plus, this campaign keeps you addicted well after the game’s over; with a free burrito coming your way, you better believe you won’t be done gorging yourself on delicious burritos after the game ends!

What other companies out there are going an awesome job newsjacking the Super Bowl? Yours, perhaps? Share it with us in the comments!

Image credit: theimpulsivebuy

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When a marketer sets out to create a public relations strategy, the first move is often to get started publishing press releases. That would have been the most effective way to get out your message and get some press … years ago. However, there are now other tactics that need to be coupled with press releases in order to make them effective.

As a marketer, it’s important to know when press releases will benefit your public relations strategy, and when another tool or tactic should be used. There are many cases when press releases are still valuable to use, but there are even more misconceptions about them. We’re going to debunk all of those right now, and lay out exactly when press releases rock — and exactly when they don’t.

The Benefits of Using a Press Release

1) It will be picked up by other publications.

The purpose of a press release is to get your news in front of as many people as possible. Many companies see success by posting a press release to the wire, where it will be sent out to thousands of publications and ultimately reposted other places online.

But how do you really get some attention with this tactic? First, we’ve found that when companies include data in their press releases, it’s even more likely that it will be picked up by other publications. But even more important than presenting your story with interesting soundbites — yes, there’s more to success here than just quality content (gasp!) — you need to get your timing right.

According to our own Dan Zarrella’s research, press releases are viewed on average about 275 times during the week:

 

 

And the media views it about an average of 70 times during the week:

 

 

The more people, especially journalists, who are viewing your press release, the more likely you are to have it picked up by other publications. So if your goal is to get a lot of views and reposts of your press release, it may be something valuable to include in your strategy, provided you’re timing it right 😉

2) You build links.

One of the greatest benefits to including PR in your marketing strategy is link building. Even though an actual press releases does not necessarily help with SEO (stay tuned for more information about that later on), the editorial coverage you get from a press releases will bring great benefits to your SEO. Make sure to include keywords that you want to rank for in your press releases so that when journalists see the release, they may include some of those keywords, themselves — particularly if they pull quotable snippets from you to include in their own coverage.

According to an article by Search Engine Watch, there is tremendous synergy between SEO and PR — and hey, we believe it, too. The press that stems from a press release is a boon for SEO managers everywhere, because remarkable actions spur people to create (read: activity that warrants press coverage) tends to spur content coverage. And coverage of your brand often also comes with inbound links back to your website. That means you shouldn’t depend on your press release to do all the work; it might simply be the means for communicating to the rest of the world that more coverage of a story is warranted. You can, however, use press release real estate to sprinkle in important keywords, and include helpful links for readers and media alike.

3) They help journalists check information.

When you create a press release, all of the information you want journalists to know about your company is in one place. Even external documents, including presentations and research documents, are available in a press release, making it really easy for journalists to find and accurately reference all of the information they need to write their story (about you!).

Even when you’re connecting with a journalist by e-mail, and not just putting a press release on the wire in the hopes it will be picked up, include an attachment to a press release to help the journalists out. It makes writing about your company insanely easy, and establishes a good relationship that will help you get future press coverage.

4) They refine your messaging.

As you’re putting your press release together, you need to make sure you’ve nailed your messaging for the announcement to get maximum exposure. It’s the place everyone will go — both within your company, and externally — to get “the story” and cite important data points. When you’ve refined the messaging of your press release, you’re providing the right messaging for all other content creators to draw upon. From bloggers, to sales reps, to external content creators, everyone will be speaking about your brand with a unified message that’s set forth during the drafting of your press release.

5) The best press releases provide content for other marketing channels.

The content you should include in press releases is pretty standard from release to release: an opening paragraph giving more information on the story; background information on the company; quotes from employees; and, of course, your boiler plate at the end. But then there’s the extra stuff that takes a press release from typical to rock-star status. For instance, the previously cited research from Dan Zarrella shower that if you can provide links to videos and embed pictures in the press release, that increases engagement by about 18% for photos and 55% for videos.

 

 

Not only will your press release performance improve, but you’re able to repurpose some of that visual content in other areas of your marketing — like emails, landing pages, social media, and blog posts.

The Drawbacks of Using Press Releases

1) Press releases alone don’t help your SEO.

As mentioned earlier, press releases can help SEO if there is additional editorial content published as a result of your press release. However, despite popular belief that press releases help your SEO, they actually don’t help as much as you think. A recent article quotes Matt Cutts of Google verifying that your SEO ranking in Google will not increase after a press release is posted.

Why is that? Because press releases are syndicated for a certain amount of time … but are actually taken down at some point. Even though they are full of keywords and your company’s name, their temporary status online does not lead to any progress in the SERPs.

As mentioned before, press releases can help your SEO in an indirect way — by leading to other beneficial press. However, your PR strategy should not depend on them for SEO success. Use them as a means to an end that will get you higher rankings, instead.

2) Press releases don’t improve your communication with consumers.

Even though press releases may get the attention of a journalist, it is very unlikely that it will reach your target audience (or enough of them to make a difference in your marketing). Consumers like to read information in a way that is easy to digest, and feels more natural — like news stories and blog posts. The press release format takes longer to read, and is often harder to understand without reading a couple times through. In a world with thousands of stories being posted every hour, readers want to be able to quickly understand the story by reading it through a blog post or another form of writing.

So marketers, that means in addition to posting your press release, you should make sure the content is somewhere else in a better format so that your audience gets access to it. Instead of promoting your press release through social channels or email, promote your blog post to achieve the same effect of the press release and get your audience the information in the announcement.

3) Press releases are difficult to measure.

Data is the prime way marketrs can prove success to the rest of their department and company. Unlike other parts of your marketing strategy, however, press releases are extremely difficult to measure, and therefore it’s hard to prove whether or not they are successful. I mean, it’s pretty hard to say “X amount of people viewed our release, and X amount of journalists decided to write about it/not write about it as a result.”

Do not rely on press releases to be the way you prove to your boss that public relations is a necessary part of your marketing strategy. Press can be measured in some ways, like how many times your press release was reposted, or referral traffic from the release (if you used tracking tokens in your release’s links), but it’s hard to get an accurate number of just how many leads or customers are generated as a result of your work.

4) Press releases are not cost effective.

Posting one press release can cost hundreds of dollars, if not over a thousand dollars. Many times they are not picked up by journalists and are simply reposted on other websites. They have become a bit outdated as public relations relies more on building relationships with the media instead of sending out hundreds of emails with press releases to journalists you may not even know.

Marketers, instead of spending your dollars on posting press releases to the wire, spend time meeting with journalists, figuring out what they look for before writing a story, and finding out what beat they write about. Building these relationships with the media will end up paying off much more than having a strategy where you simply post press releases onto the wire.

What other things are press releases great for — and not so great for — in your marketing?

Image credit: Ionics

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When a marketer sets out to create a public relations strategy, the first move is often to get started publishing press releases. That would have been the most effective way to get out your message and get some press … years ago. However, there are now other tactics that need to be coupled with press releases in order to make them effective.

As a marketer, it’s important to know when press releases will benefit your public relations strategy, and when another tool or tactic should be used. There are many cases when press releases are still valuable to use, but there are even more misconceptions about them. We’re going to debunk all of those right now, and lay out exactly when press releases rock — and exactly when they don’t.

The Benefits of Using a Press Release

1) It will be picked up by other publications.

The purpose of a press release is to get your news in front of as many people as possible. Many companies see success by posting a press release to the wire, where it will be sent out to thousands of publications and ultimately reposted other places online.

But how do you really get some attention with this tactic? First, we’ve found that when companies include data in their press releases, it’s even more likely that it will be picked up by other publications. But even more important than presenting your story with interesting soundbites — yes, there’s more to success here than just quality content (gasp!) — you need to get your timing right.

According to our own Dan Zarrella’s research, press releases are viewed on average about 275 times during the week:

 

 

And the media views it about an average of 70 times during the week:

 

 

The more people, especially journalists, who are viewing your press release, the more likely you are to have it picked up by other publications. So if your goal is to get a lot of views and reposts of your press release, it may be something valuable to include in your strategy, provided you’re timing it right 😉

2) You build links.

One of the greatest benefits to including PR in your marketing strategy is link building. Even though an actual press releases does not necessarily help with SEO (stay tuned for more information about that later on), the editorial coverage you get from a press releases will bring great benefits to your SEO. Make sure to include keywords that you want to rank for in your press releases so that when journalists see the release, they may include some of those keywords, themselves — particularly if they pull quotable snippets from you to include in their own coverage.

According to an article by Search Engine Watch, there is tremendous synergy between SEO and PR — and hey, we believe it, too. The press that stems from a press release is a boon for SEO managers everywhere, because remarkable actions spur people to create (read: activity that warrants press coverage) tends to spur content coverage. And coverage of your brand often also comes with inbound links back to your website. That means you shouldn’t depend on your press release to do all the work; it might simply be the means for communicating to the rest of the world that more coverage of a story is warranted. You can, however, use press release real estate to sprinkle in important keywords, and include helpful links for readers and media alike.

3) They help journalists check information.

When you create a press release, all of the information you want journalists to know about your company is in one place. Even external documents, including presentations and research documents, are available in a press release, making it really easy for journalists to find and accurately reference all of the information they need to write their story (about you!).

Even when you’re connecting with a journalist by e-mail, and not just putting a press release on the wire in the hopes it will be picked up, include an attachment to a press release to help the journalists out. It makes writing about your company insanely easy, and establishes a good relationship that will help you get future press coverage.

4) They refine your messaging.

As you’re putting your press release together, you need to make sure you’ve nailed your messaging for the announcement to get maximum exposure. It’s the place everyone will go — both within your company, and externally — to get “the story” and cite important data points. When you’ve refined the messaging of your press release, you’re providing the right messaging for all other content creators to draw upon. From bloggers, to sales reps, to external content creators, everyone will be speaking about your brand with a unified message that’s set forth during the drafting of your press release.

5) The best press releases provide content for other marketing channels.

The content you should include in press releases is pretty standard from release to release: an opening paragraph giving more information on the story; background information on the company; quotes from employees; and, of course, your boiler plate at the end. But then there’s the extra stuff that takes a press release from typical to rock-star status. For instance, the previously cited research from Dan Zarrella shower that if you can provide links to videos and embed pictures in the press release, that increases engagement by about 18% for photos and 55% for videos.

 

 

Not only will your press release performance improve, but you’re able to repurpose some of that visual content in other areas of your marketing — like emails, landing pages, social media, and blog posts.

The Drawbacks of Using Press Releases

1) Press releases alone don’t help your SEO.

As mentioned earlier, press releases can help SEO if there is additional editorial content published as a result of your press release. However, despite popular belief that press releases help your SEO, they actually don’t help as much as you think. A recent article quotes Matt Cutts of Google verifying that your SEO ranking in Google will not increase after a press release is posted.

Why is that? Because press releases are syndicated for a certain amount of time … but are actually taken down at some point. Even though they are full of keywords and your company’s name, their temporary status online does not lead to any progress in the SERPs.

As mentioned before, press releases can help your SEO in an indirect way — by leading to other beneficial press. However, your PR strategy should not depend on them for SEO success. Use them as a means to an end that will get you higher rankings, instead.

2) Press releases don’t improve your communication with consumers.

Even though press releases may get the attention of a journalist, it is very unlikely that it will reach your target audience (or enough of them to make a difference in your marketing). Consumers like to read information in a way that is easy to digest, and feels more natural — like news stories and blog posts. The press release format takes longer to read, and is often harder to understand without reading a couple times through. In a world with thousands of stories being posted every hour, readers want to be able to quickly understand the story by reading it through a blog post or another form of writing.

So marketers, that means in addition to posting your press release, you should make sure the content is somewhere else in a better format so that your audience gets access to it. Instead of promoting your press release through social channels or email, promote your blog post to achieve the same effect of the press release and get your audience the information in the announcement.

3) Press releases are difficult to measure.

Data is the prime way marketrs can prove success to the rest of their department and company. Unlike other parts of your marketing strategy, however, press releases are extremely difficult to measure, and therefore it’s hard to prove whether or not they are successful. I mean, it’s pretty hard to say “X amount of people viewed our release, and X amount of journalists decided to write about it/not write about it as a result.”

Do not rely on press releases to be the way you prove to your boss that public relations is a necessary part of your marketing strategy. Press can be measured in some ways, like how many times your press release was reposted, or referral traffic from the release (if you used tracking tokens in your release’s links), but it’s hard to get an accurate number of just how many leads or customers are generated as a result of your work.

4) Press releases are not cost effective.

Posting one press release can cost hundreds of dollars, if not over a thousand dollars. Many times they are not picked up by journalists and are simply reposted on other websites. They have become a bit outdated as public relations relies more on building relationships with the media instead of sending out hundreds of emails with press releases to journalists you may not even know.

Marketers, instead of spending your dollars on posting press releases to the wire, spend time meeting with journalists, figuring out what they look for before writing a story, and finding out what beat they write about. Building these relationships with the media will end up paying off much more than having a strategy where you simply post press releases onto the wire.

What other things are press releases great for — and not so great for — in your marketing?

Image credit: Ionics

Lees meer

As the year comes to a close, it’s the perfect time for reflection. And as marketers, that means we can’t help but think about how our strategies took shape, how we adapted our tactics and techniques, and of course, how successful they all were.

But it’s not enough just to think about how our own campaigns performed; we should also think about what our fellow marketers did so we can apply their lessons to our future campaigns, too. And let me tell you: The year 2012 brought us some of the most exciting and memorable marketing campaigns. With the Olympics and the presidential election under our belts, 2012 was undoubtedly an exciting year for news, and a lot of that excitement spilled over into campaigns in the marketing industry. Some companies focused on leveraging social media, while others did things that were a little bit more unconventional. Whatever their strategy, the following 10 companies’ campaigns were truly memorable to us, and they’re definitely worth a second look.

Proctor & Gamble: Thank You, Mom

On Mother’s Day 2012, P&G launched a campaign called “Thank You, Mom.” Throughout the campaign, P&G featured Olympic athletes training from a young age, and emphasized the impact their mothers had on their lives. The “Thank You, Mom” campaign also included the “Raising an Olympian” video series to highlight specific athletes’ experiences.

 

 

For a company whose products or services aren’t directly related to sporting goods, P&G generated more coverage for this campaign than a lot of other companies like Nike whose products relate directly to the Olympics. Each “Raising an Olympian” video received close to 1 million views, and the main “Thank You, Mom” video received about 53 million views. Impressive!

Marketers can learn a lot from P&G’s example. Through their effective use of newsjacking, they not only leveraged the popularity of a major, worldwide event, but they also stayed true to the lifestyle of their brand and the audience they cater to. As a result, they were also able to attract a lot of media coverage and thus, reach a global audience. When you’re coming up with your next marketing campaign, think about ways you can expand its reach to more people. Could newsjacking be one of them?

Samsung GALAXY S III: The Next Best Thing Is Already Here

In the summer of 2012, Samsung announced the launch of its newest phone, the GALAXY S III. Around the same time, Apple was also planning the launch of its iPhone 5. Bad timing, eh? So how did a company like Samsung break through the noise of one of the most popular brands around — especially considering it was also a direct competitor? Samsung created a campaign called “The Next Best Thing Is Already Here,” which was very careful not to mention Apple by name while making it obvious that Samsung’s product was superior to the iPhone 5.

 

 

So was it successful? After just one day on the web, the video had been shared 99,294 times, and it generated 2.3 million views. And after three months, it had generated over 17 million views — and was also being shown in movie theaters.

Samsung was strategic in the making and marketing of this video. First, they focused on the true feature differentiation between the two products; something that every potential buyer cares about but is not always emphasized in brands’ marketing. Samsung also made great use of humor to poke fun at Apple addicts in a playful way. And again, while they didn’t even mention the Apple or iPhone name, they made it very obvious to anyone watching that it was the brand they were comparing themselves to. Too often, marketers attack their competitors directly to show their differentiation — which is not something that looks very professional to potential buyers. Think about ways you can show your superiority over competitors while still keeping it clean, like Samsung did.

Rodon Group: Cheaper Than China

HubSpot customer, the Rodon Group launched a campaign to promote its plastic injection molding services as more affordable than using overseas companies in China. They created an ebook entitled, “Top 10 Critical Reasons to Bring Your Plastic Injection Molding Back to the U.S.” and created materials to compare and contrast their services with those of overseas companies.

 

 

Before they knew it, they were getting press in Bloomberg Businessweek, CNBC, and The Today Show. They were even visited by President Obama while he spoke about the importance of keeping American manufacturing and family-owned businesses competitive.

You may be thinking, “Well, how on Earth am I supposed to get the President to visit me?!” Sure, it’s a stretch to think that every business will get this opportunity, but the point is, by aligning your campaigns with current events, your marketing can be even more successful and attract more media coverage due to their timeliness. The debate over hiring employees domestically versus overseas is a hot topic in the news, and the Rodon Group took advantage of that opportunity to promote their business. As a marketer, it’s important to stay on top of what’s happening in the news — both in your industry and beyond. You might end up getting an opportunity to newsjack as well!

JetBlue: Election Protection

Ever hear someone say, “If my candidate doesn’t win, I’m going to leave the country”? Well, JetBlue actually gave 1,006 lucky customers the opportunity to do so. In its election-themed campaign, the airline asked people to vote for their candidate of choice. If that candidate lost, 1,006 people would be given the opportunity to fly off to some awesome destinations including the Bahamas, Costa Rica, Turks & Caicos, St. Maarten, & the Grand Cayman.

 

 

The campaign video got close to 100,000 views and hundreds of media placements. Thousands of people participated in the contest and anxiously awaited the results (some of which I’m sure some were torn between winning a vacation or their chosen candidate winning the election ;-). 

Like the P&G example, this campaign was creative because it took a company that had nothing to do with politics and afforded them a piece of the popular election pie. Important events like this — which millions of people are already talking about — can be a great opportunity for your next marketing campaign. Think about what current events are on the horizon and if there are ways to maximize their popularity for your business. So many companies have had success with this strategy … you could, too!

Red Bull: Stratos Jump

When you think of Red Bull, you may think of their creative tagline, “Red Bull gives you wings.” Well this year, Red Bull decided to put that tagline into the hearts and minds of their audience by hiring Austrian extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner to break the world record of the longest freefall jump of 128,000 feet above the Earth, reaching the high speed of 833.9 miles per hour. Talk about intense!

 

 

Over 8 million people watched the jump live, and over 30 million people have relived the jump on YouTube since then. Furthermore, the live jump was shown by over 40 TV stations and 130 digital outlets. Red Bull’s Facebook photo of the jump generated 216,000 likes, 10,000 comments, and over 29,000 shares. The jump was also a trending topic on Twitter worldwide.

Breaking world records is always an exciting way to garner some attention. Last year at HubSpot, we broke the world record for the largest webinar, and it was a huge success. One of the reasons it worked so well was because it aligned with our mission to educate people about marketing. Red Bull’s jump also aligned with its tagline, “Red Bull gives you wings.” As a marketer, you always want to make sure your marketing campaigns are aligning with your company’s mission and the interests of your audience. You may not always have the opportunity to break a world record, but an important lesson from Red Bull is to remember that your company’s culture and mission should also be taken into consideration when executing any campaign.

Autodesk: Leveraging the Behavior Platform by Badgeville

Not every noteworthy marketing campaign has to come from big brands. The last thing you might expect from a B2B company is to launch a campaign based on gamification. Autodesk creates 3D design, engineering, and entertainment software, and their biggest challenge is figuring out how to get people to use their trial more. Why? Because their data showed that people who used the software at least three times during a 30-day trial were more likely to purchase the software. Influenced by this data, they decided to create missions for people to interact with the software more during the trial. Players would be rewarded with points and achievement badges.

And after gamifying the experience, they saw a 10% increase in trial downloads and a 40% increase in trial usage. Not too shabby!

 

 

 

To gamify your audience’s experience, you don’t necessarily have to use points and badges. You can create contests in social media or use other tactics to increase engagement. The purpose of gamification is to play into a person’s competitive side and make an experience, such as using software, more enjoyable or fun.

Square: Cash Register Launch

Square started out as a payment system. In March, however, the company decided to take over the retailer business as well by launching an app that serves as a cash register. The app has pictures and prices for everything the store sells and can quickly ring up items and collect payment. Customers then sign their name on the app to confirm the purchase — an even easier setup than a regular cash register.

 

 

Furthermore, Square thought about everything a small business owner would want and incorporated into their app. Retailers now have the opportunity to access analytics such as real-time sales data and keep better track of the products that are more successful. At the same time the register was announced, they also announced that the company handles $4 billion in payment each year and process about $2 billion in payments.

Square was strategic to announce a major improvement to their business model while also announcing important revenue data. Product announcements aren’t easy, but between the video and the business’ detailed website, it was easy for small business owners to understand the simplicity of the new product, as well as the reliability and credibility of the business.

TNT: Push to Add Drama

When the network TNT launched in Belgium, they made a pretty big splash. They chose a normally quiet square in Belgium and placed a large arrow that said “Push to add drama,” (influenced by TNT’s tagline, “We know drama”). After that, chaos ensued.

 

 

In less than 2 days, TNT had generated over 6.5 million views. Eight months later, there are close to 40 million views on YouTube.

Experiential marketing is not easy, but TNT managed to pull it off successfully while also ingraining the message that they are the network for drama. While thinking of your next campaign, even if it doesn’t leverage experiential marketing, think about how you can ensure that your audience walks away thinking about the message your company wants to promote.

Invisible Children: Kony

In March 2012, Invisible Children launched a video to bring awareness to the violence from Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). There were positive and negative reactions to the video when it went viral. On a positive note, some people thought it brought awareness to a global issue needed to be addressed. On a negative note, some people thought it did not properly highlight the facts of the issue.

 

 

The video went viral with help from celebrities including Oprah Winfrey; it generated over 16.6 million views on Vimeo and over 94 million views on YouTube. More than 1/3 of the U.S. Senate has supported the capture of Kony.

If you’re a nonprofit, take a look at the example set by Invisible Children. Even though they weren’t a well-known organization and were supporting a cause that was also not very well-known, they were able to receive global attention through the marketing of this video. Think about your mission and cause, and who you may want to align with to accomplish your goals. Invisible Children saw an opportunity to work with celebrities like Oprah to get the word out, and they were extremely successful. Even if you can’t get the attention of Oprah, think about partnerships that can help you generate awareness and capture the attention of your audience on a larger scale.

General Electric: Experts

B2B companies are not always known for the most creative campaigns. But General Electric is definitely an exception. Across platforms including Instagram, Tumblr, Facebook, and Twitter, General Electric has a consistent and engaging message that speaks to its customers and engages followers. They also commonly feature the people behind their brand to give a friendly face to a billion dollar company.

 

General Electric’s ability to give their company a face makes them an expert in marketing. Their Experts page allows their employees to connect with customers all over the world in a transparent and social way. Employees from all over the world are encouraged to create content, even if they aren’t marketers, making that content personal, interesting, and engaging.

If you think your company cannot or should not be transparent, use GE as an example. They use their transparency to humanize a brand that is often hard to feel a connection with. 

What other marketing campaigns really stood out to you in 2012?

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It’s that time of year again! The malls are packed. Discounts are everywhere. People are looking for opportunities to volunteer or donate to charity. Advertising and marketing promotions are jam-packed with colorful lights and holiday ditties.

That means by now, you should have your own business’ holiday campaign all ready and raring to go, especially if you want to stand out from all the other companies doing that exact same thing. And there are some companies that are doing this whole “standing out” thing particularly well with their holiday marketing campaigns. This post will highlight 8 of the very best holiday-themed campaigns this year. I hope they either inspire your own marketing, or at least make your heart swell with the warm and fuzzies!

Rue La La Goes SoGaMo (Social, Gamified, Mobile!)

Rue La La is an online store with discounted prices on luxury products. Sounds perfect for the holidays already, right? Well this year, they upped their already awesome game by using social media, mobile marketing, and gamification. And glitter.

 

 

In addition to their extensive social media campaign, they also give you the opportunity to play their addicting little game on your mobile device. The game? Every day, you get to OPEN PRESENTS!

Sorry, got a little carried away there.

But seriously, every day you get a box to tear open, and inside are … prizes! And conveniently for Rue La La, you can use those prizes to buy things on their site, too 😉

Zynga’s Promotes In-App Donations

In the company’s first ever holiday campaign — that’s right we’ve got a newbie on this list — Zynga is allowing people playing their games to purchase in-app goods to benefit the charity Toys for Tots. So if you’re playing popular games such as CityVille, Words With Friends, Draw Something, or Farmville, you can purchase a toy when you’re in the game to donate to charity. For instance, here’s their “cheer-ewe-up horse” people can purchase for $1 in exchange for a little FarmVille farm decorations.

 

Zynga has already generated $13 million in donations through 2.5 million in-game purchases. They took something they know they are good at, gamification, and are not only promoting their company’s games but contributing to a great cause … like buying games for kids! How incredibly appropriate. When creating your holiday campaigns, think about what you know about your audience and their habits, just like Zynga did here, so your audience will be more responsive.

Norton Reminds You What Really Matters

Who says B2B companies can’t have holiday campaigns? Norton sells software to prevent and remove computer viruses. To celebrate Thanksgiving and kick off the holiday season, they created a funny video for the holidays. Take a look.

Theres a couple things I like about this video. First, please notice that they’ve created a memorable and trackable URL for this campaign, norton.com/turkey, that redirects to a page about online backup. Good stuff, guys!

 

 

But I also like the sentiment behind this campaign. Most people can relate to that woman … feeling insanely frazzled this time of year, and kind of losing perspective on the “stuff that matters.” The scenario ties in perfectly with the video’s scenario, what Norton does, their video’s tagline, and something we all could stand to remember this time of year: Protect the stuff that matters.

Gilt Groupe Leverages Mobile

Gilt Groupe is a luxury shopping website for women, selling retail items for up to 60% off the regular price. This season, they are partnering with nonprofit RED to reach a younger generation who uses their mobile devices for almost everything. To donate to RED, users have to dial **RED, and they will automatically receive a text message with several links including a link to gilt.com’s online store where they can purchase red t-shirts, bags, watches, phone cases, and other red items in support of the charity.

 

 

Gilt has a large online audience, and by partnership with a charity in a mobile-centric way, they’re able to reach that growing audience, provide discounts as expected by their fans, and donate to a charitable cause. Triple-threat holiday campaign! If you can take advantage of mobile during the holidays, definitely do it. Normally shoppers are on their phones non-stop, but during the holidays, it reaches monumental heights of activity.

The Red Cross Uses Inbound Marketing

Red Cross has launched their annual campaign, “Give Something That Means Something.” The purpose of the campaign is to make donations, well, meaningful. So instead of donating money — always welcome, of course — donations are in the form of more tangible items like blankets, shelter, vaccinations, etc. They produce a digital holiday catalog with all of the choices of what people can buy. The Red Cross has found that people are more excited to give something that “means something” instead of the more traditional gift of money.

But it’s not just the sentiment behind the campaign that we love. We actually wrote a case study (form-free, download your little hearts out) about how they’re using inbound marketing to promote their campaign, too!

 

 

Coca-Cola Executes a Coordinated Holiday Campaign

Almost every holiday season, you can count on Coca-Cola to totally nail their holiday campaigns. This year, they hired Garyson Sanders, Lauriana Mae, and Jono to produce a song about friends spending the holidays together. To promote the campaign, they produced a series of videos and images that they promote across all of their social channels.

Regardless of how you feel about the particular song (or the giant Santa), this is a great example of a coordinated social campaign … and it’s kind of meta, since the video is kind of about working coordination. I mean, you better be able to work together if you’re moving a Santa puppet that big.

When Coca-Cola promotes the campaign on their website, they have links to their Twitter, Flickr, Google+, Facebook, and YouTube accounts, and they use consistent tone and messaging that aligns with all their other campaigns throughout the year. And the bonus? Every year, they use music to promote their campaign, and use the song’s sales to raise money for the Special Olympics.

Cisco Drives Engagement and Donations Via Social Media

Cisco is a company that designs, manufactures, and sells networking equipment. This year, they created a holiday campaign called “How Do You Give Back?” promoted on their Facebook page. Every time someone comments on their Facebook page and tells them how they plan on giving back to the community, four meals are donated to the World Food Programme. The page also promotes other people who are giving back to the community.

 

 

Though most people aren’t making a natural leap from Cisco to Santa, they take the opportunity to show that they want to do something philanthropic during the holidays. At the same time, they’re improving their social strategy by encouraging engagement and followers. Customers want to see that companies are doing something for good causes during the holidays, and by asking them to post on Cisco’s wall about the charitable things they’re doing, everybody wins: Cisco’s social media presence improves, followers feel good about their charitable work, and the World Food Programme receives meal donations.

FedEx Plays With Stereotypes

During Christmas, FedEx typically does pretty well — when people need to send gifts to all corners of the country, they know they can rely on FedEx. So for this year’s holiday campaign, they decided to poke fun at some common holiday stereotypes … but also use messaging to remind people that their reliable services are consistent throughout the entire year, and not just during the holidays. Here’s just one of their videos:

FedEx created a series of videos that made fun of people for things like waiting overnight in line on Black Friday, buying gifts at the last minute, and the expectation that Santa is going to be in every store. In addition to delivering a chuckle, these videos are quick, to the point, speak to a pain point common to many people this time of year, and remind everyone these services are available year-round.

What other holiday-themed marketing campaigns do you love this year?

Image Credit: kennymatic

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In the last 11 months, there have been tons of updates to our favorite social networks, several of which were extremely relevant for marketers and business owners.

Many of them were just little tweaks, but a lot — 16 in our estimation — had a huge impact on marketers’ jobs. The latter are the ones we want to highlight; not just to show how much can change in a year, but to emphasize how critical it is to remain agile as an inbound marketer so you can keep up with all these updates. Plus, if you’re not already using some of these new features (or perhaps didn’t know they existed), what better time to get started than the new year?

Here are the biggest social media updates of 2012, and why they were so darn important to marketers.

The Biggest Facebook Updates of 2012

1) Global Brand Pages

With users coming to companies’ Facebook pages from all over the world, Facebook needed to do something to make marketing easier so community managers wouldn’t have to either 1) keep up multiple brand pages, or 2) maintain one brand page with really untargeted content. That’s why we were so excited in October, when Facebook announced Global Pages that allowed marketers to maintain just one Facebook page URL, but route fans to different versions of the page based on their location. Here, look at Facebook’s own Facebook page, for an example:

 

 

This update makes the job of a social media marketer much more efficient and effective. Before, marketers had to manage multiple accounts in different languages, or decide which language they were going to cater to and settle for unhappy followers who couldn’t understand the content. Now, you get the best of both worlds — one page to manage, personalized content, and one centralized dashboard to measure it all.

2) Mobile-Only Facebook Ads

In June, Facebook launched an important feature for marketers who use sponsored ads. For the first time, they allowed marketers to pay for ads only in the Facebook mobile app, as opposed to the mobile app and desktop app combined.

 

 

Many companies may have known that their audience was predominantly using mobile over desktop — or perhaps at certain times one is preferable over the other. However, they had to pay for both advertising placements to have the chance to reach mobile users. Now that these options are separate, marketers can now target their mobile audience differently than those accessing pages on their desktop. They can also see which platform performs better to understand where their advertising dollars should be going.

3) 9 More Facebook Targeting Options

In August, Facebook announced that they were going to allow advertisers to target their audience based on more criteria than before, including age, gender, gender the user’s interested in, relationship status, education, college grad (college name, major), in college (college name, major, years), in high school, and workplace … all in addition to the options already available including language and location.

Before this update, everything that a Facebook page updated would appear in a user’s newsfeed just because of their language and location, even if it didn’t really relate to them. With more nitty-gritty targeting options, social media marketers can target parts of their audiences with more personalized content.

4) Open Graph Opens Up

In January, Facebook announced that it was opening submissions for Open Graph applications. Open graph applications allow third-party developers to automatically share user engagement after someone gives them permission once. For example, if you read an article on the New York Times and have given the Open Graph application permission, it will automatically post your engagement with that app — namely, what you were reading — on your Timeline.

By using Open Graph applications, marketers now have a significantly larger reach than before. Think about it — if one person is playing a game from Zynga and has 2,000 friends, a healthy portion of those 2,000 friends will learn about the game, and have a pseudo word-of-mouth recommendation for it, too!

The Biggest Twitter Updates of 2012

5) Tailored Trends

In June, Twitter announced Tailored Trends, which notifies a Twitter user about popular trends on Twitter based on what Twitter knows about his or her interests, followers, and location. This update allows Twitter to notify users about important topics that matter to each person, instead of the broad topics that only resonate with some.

Tailored Trends give marketers a chance to be ahead of the game. When breaking trends affecting the industry happen, Tailored Trends is a way marketers can immediately find out about it, and possibly even do some newsjacking. It can also help you decide what kind of content your followers might be interested in hearing from you.

6) Twitter Cover Photos

In September, Twitter announced a change to the layout of its profile pages. Similar to Facebook, Twitter now has cover photos on a user or company’s profile page.

 

 

Marketers now have more real estate to promote their company and give followers a better feel of what the company is all about. Followers’ eyes will immediately go toward the larger image that also promotes the username, location, and bio, which was far less visible with the old layout.

7) Targeting by Interest or Username

In September, Twitter expanded paid advertising to have the ability to target by interest or username. Before, you could target with a search term, but now Twitter allows marketers to get more specific.

 

 

When targeting by interest, Twitter looks at who the user is talking about, following, and what keywords he or she is using. When targeting by username, Twitter looks at other people who are similar to another username (and not just following them). This update allows marketers to segment during their paid advertising more effectively to reach a greater number of people with interests that are more aligned with the company. 

The Biggest LinkedIn Updates of 2012

8) New LinkedIn Company Pages

In September, LinkedIn announced a new design for their company pages. Before, all of the LinkedIn pages basically looked the same, with the exception of the unique logo and company information blurb. However, the new pages display Company Updates and Products & Services more prominently, provide space for a cover photo, a different layout for Jobs, and the option to better target your company updates to certain segments of your audience.

 

 

One of the best parts of this new layout is how much more visible your products and services are to page visitors — that page was even redesigned to showcase recommendations in the sidebar!

9) Targeted LinkedIn Updates

In April, LinkedIn announced the ability to segment updates based on company size, industry, job function, seniority, geography, and including/excluding company employees. Using this criteria, advertisers can publish updates right to a user’s homepage. Your company’s LinkedIn admins will also be given metrics for number of followers targeted, impressions, clicks, shares, and engagement after 24 hours.

 

 

As a result of targeted ads, LinkedIn has seen a 66% increase in engagement. Marketers who are able to segment and personalize messages to their audiences consistently get better results — what’s not to love about the ad personalization bandwagon social media networks are jumping on?

10) LinkedIn & Twitter Break Up

In June, LinkedIn & Twitter announced an end to their partnership. Previously, users could post updates to LinkedIn through their Twitter accounts. The end of their partnership marks the end of users having the ability to do this. Users can still post to Twitter from LinkedIn, but they cannot post to LinkedIn from Twitter, affecting many marketers who had synced up the two for a more streamlined social media management experience.

So while marketers are still able to post to both networks, the change takes away some of the efficiency of having posts update to both accounts.

The Biggest Foursquare Updates of 2012

11) Promoted Updates

In July, Foursquare announced Promoted Updates. Before they were announced, companies could only reach users who had already checked into their business. But with the launch of Promoted Updates, companies had the ability to appear in people’s “Explore” tab even if they had not been to the restaurant before. They could promote a special, share photos, or share another message encouraging users to come to their place.

 

 

This new feature has helped marketers extend their reach and appear in anyone’s feed, even if they have never been in contact with the business before. For example, if you’re a small coffee shop, your name may not be known by many people, especially in areas dominated by Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts. But if you have a promoted post in Foursquare, you have the opportunity to reach a completely new audience.

12) Ratings System

At the beginning of the month, Foursquare announced ratings, a new system they created to recommend places. They don’t just ask people whether or not they like a location, but they use a combination of factors including tips, likes, dislikes, popularity, loyalty, local expertise, and check-ins from all over the world. When you go to the ‘Explore’ tab, you’re able to see what the popular places nearby are based on these rankings.

 

 

Marketers have a unique challenge with this update — unlike your typical ratings where people say how much they like or dislike a place, this ranking also takes into account other factors including check-ins, tips, and loyalty. It is the marketer’s job to encourage people coming to your restaurant or location to leave tips and provide specials that will lead to customer loyalty. 

The Biggest Google+ Updates of 2012

13) Hangouts on Air

In May, Google announced Hangouts on Air to the public to allow people to have hangouts with 9 other people while being broadcasted to an even larger audience. Not only can you broadcast to more people, but you can track how many people are watching at a time, and Google will upload your video to YouTube at the end of the Hangout.

Before this update, Hangouts could only really be used in a business setting for smaller conference calls between teams. However, by opening it up to more viewers, Hangouts now have a larger business purpose. Press conferences or company announcements now have a new outlet. Webinars, events, and conferences can now be broadcast to a larger audience. Interviews can now take place on a new channel. And hey, if you can’t stand writing content, here’s another medium for you to create marketing content … without ever picking up the proverbial pen!

14) Search Engine Updates

In January, we all learned that Google is now integrating Google+ into search results. So whenever you search for something on Google, it uses information from Google+ accounts in your results, including photos and updates that you or others in your network have shared. Additionally, when you search for people’s names in Google search, it pulls in people you’re connected with or may be interested in connecting with based on your Google+ profile. Finally, after you search for a particular topic, a list of business pages appear on the right side of the business page.

For marketers, the takeaway is clear — if you care about SEO, but don’t really want to use Google+ … tough cookies. If a potential customer searches for a company in your industry and you don’t have a presence on Google+, competitors that do might be the ones that get the click.

15) Google+ Places Becomes Google+ Local

In May, Google+ decided to get rid of Google Places and put all of its energy into Google+ Local. By searching for a place or restaurant in Google+ Local, the contact information, reviews, and photos of that place appear in the SERPs. Google+ Local is also now integrated when someone searches for places on Google Maps.

 

 

If you’re already using Google+, this should make your life easier — and if you’re not, here’s one more reason to do it.

The Biggest Pinterest Updates of 2012

16) Business Accounts for Brands

In mid-November, Pinterest finally answered every marketer’s prayers and announced business accounts for brands. And the process of setting them up is, luckily, really simple.

 

 

Even though you may not have heard about Pinterest until recently, it has actually been around for a while, and totally blew up as a marketing mechanism in 2012. This shift to creating dedicated business accounts is an encouraging sign of things to come from Pinterest — we’re thinking features like analytics (pinalytics, even?) might be a hot new addition to the already awesome platform 😉

What other social media updates from this year rocked your marketing world? Which updates are you hoping to see in 2013?

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Any company can “do” marketing. But the companies that can consistently create marketing people love are the companies that really get noticed.

Problem is, lovability is kind of a hard thing to synthesize. I mean, how do you quantify exactly why the brands you love elicit those warm and fuzzy feelings inside of you?

Sometimes it’s their copywriting, other times it’s their design sensibility, sometimes it’s just the way they talk to you on social media — but it’s not the easiest thing in the world to replicate for brands out there trying to create more lovable marketing. But, we’re going to try to explain it (so maybe you can replicate it) anyway. This post will highlights some brands that we think consistently create lovable marketing, and explain exactly why their marketing is worthy of such adoration. And of course, this is not an exhaustive list … please share the many other companies out there that do this in the comments.

Before We Begin, What’s This “Lovable Marketing” You Speak Of?

Okay, it occurs to us that we’ve been using this phrase, “lovable marketing,” a bit more lately. If you weren’t at INBOUND 2012 where we started talking about it — or even if you were and need a reminder — this video should help get you caught up. (Note: We’re already selling tickets to next year’s event, INBOUND13 … you know, if you want to get your tickets early.)

We’ll point you to the blog post and ebook that explain it, too, but we didn’t think it was very “lovable” to make you read a bunch of stuff when a short video gave the context just fine 😉

1) Moosejaw

Moosejaw is a outdoor apparel and sporting goods company. Big whoop, there’s lots of ‘em, right? That’s one of the reasons their marketing is so fantastic — because they find a way to stand out in that already heavily saturated industry by positioning their products in a more entertaining, less clinical way.

When you go to most sites in this industry, you’re reading about things like the lens width on your ski goggles. Yawn. Moosejaw’s marketing content tells you all that … but in a way that doesn’t make you want to take a nap on your desk. Take their site layout, for example. When you’re looking up shirts, you see headings like these:

 

 

They’re trying to show you their new items in stock, pretty common for ecommerce companies, but instead of just saying “New Items,” they say something that your buddy might say to you. Or, what an in-store associate would say if you visited a location (way to replicate the in-store experience online, guys)!

They even get a little ridiculous. Take this heading, for instance:

 

 

“I have never eaten a radish.” What? I don’t even totally get that joke, but I love that it shows they don’t take themselves too seriously. They think shopping should be a fun experience, and they do their best to make it feel like that with their marketing content. If you want a laugh, spend some more time perusing their website … you’ll find content like this on every page.

2) Naked Pizza

Naked Pizza takes a different approach to the whole “not taking yourself too seriously” thing by leveraging an embarrassing experience that everyone can relate to in their marketing. Have you ever had a bit of sauce on your face after eating a slice of pizza? Or maybe some crumbs from the crust?

 

 

Everyone can relate to that — either being the person with stuff on their face, or the one who has to tell the person with stuff on their face that … they have stuff on their face. Their marketing pokes fun at you, and enables you to poke fun at yourself — but in a way that isn’t offensive. Creating marketing that brings everyone in on the joke is incredibly lovable.

3) JetBlue

JetBlue is known for being a beloved brand, and I think their engaging tone and creative marketing campaigns have a lot to do with it. You may remember their recent “2012 Election Protection – Live Free or Fly” campaign, or their “You Above All” campaign. In the latter campaign, they feature people in real-life situations being deprived of things they expect. For example, they created a video where people in a taxi cab were charged extra fees for legroom and luggage.

The campaign is lovable because it’s playing off an experience everyone has been frustrated by. We’ve been stuck on planes with no legroom, charged ridiculous fees for having luggage (who doesn’t have luggage when they’re flying?!), and all those other pains of flying. JetBlue addresses them head on by creating real life analogies to demonstrate just how absurd the other airlines are. I mean, who wouldn’t get behind a brand that mocks the others in the industry taking advantage of consumers?

4) IMPACT Branding

An important strategy for creating lovable marketing is not taking yourself too seriously. That’s something that many B2B companies, however, struggle with. That’s why we love that IMPACT Branding consistently adds some levity to their social channels. Take a look at one of the updates on their Facebook page, for example.

 

 

You expect fun, B2C companies to jump on big memes like Call Me Maybe, but a B2B company? Not necessarily. That’s why we love seeing them embrace their inner goofiness … even if they sell to big briefcase-carryin’ business people. You’ll find tons of instances of this all over their blog and various social media accounts — some of the best include their incorporation of fan favorites like Dwight Schrute and Barney from How I Met Your Mother.

5) MINI Cooper

MINI Cooper has an advantage in their marketing from the start — they are marketing a product that is kind of adorable. They carry over the lovability of their product’s design into the lovability of the design in their marketing. Take a look at some of this billboard, for instance:

 

 

Instead of creating an obnoxious billboard, they played on the environment surrounding the billboard — featuring their car speeding out in front of the bent trees. It’s playful, creative, and rethinks the traditional highway billboard.

They keep these playful and creative elements at play in their summer ad for mini inflatables, in which they use the pun, “go topless” to emphasize the top-down element of the vehicle.

 

 

I guess it’s not hard to have adorable designs when your car’s design is already adorable 🙂

6) Dropbox

It’s not easy to make cloud-based file sharing make you feel warm and fuzzy. Unless you’re Dropbox, who has figured out how to infuse it into their marketing automation.

Yes, cloud-based file sharing marketing automation can make you smile.

When a user isn’t using their Dropbox account, they may get an email like this telling the user that their Dropbox is lonely. And let’s be serious, don’t you feel guilty hearing that someone feels lonely!? 

 

 

Dropbox also uses imagery to get the point across. I mean, look at those “Before” and “After” pictures! You just want to brush those cobwebs off and make that box happy again! They keep this kind of imagery and feeling present across all their marketing, too — in emails, on social media, and within their product.

7) Square

The key to marketing any technology product is to create lovable product marketing. The job of a product marketer is to make the product easy to integrate into your life. Square accomplishes this by demonstrating their understanding of their target persona, and creating marketing around that persona’s experiences.

For instance, in this video, they depict a small business owner taking on every task: she is the salesperson, marketer product person, and customer service representative. But how can we make her life easier? With an easy payment system, even a small business can quickly process payments.

This video is something their target persona — the local business owner — can see themselves doing. Additionally, it demonstrates how the Square product would integrate into this lifestyle.  Seeing an easy solution that solves one of the problems of a local business owner — not to mention showing that you “get it” — makes Square a company with totally lovable marketing.

8) Boloco

Boloco always has fun and creative marketing campaigns, but what really makes them stand out is their social media presence. Boloco operates under the unofficial policy that everyone should receive an answer, and stay true to their word. If you take a look at their Twitter account, they aren’t just promoting themselves; they’re making sure their customers know that their voice and opinion matters.

 

 

What differentiates Boloco’s marketing from other burrito companies — and lots of other non-burrito companies — is that not only will you get a response, but you will get a quick and cheery response. They don’t act too busy to talk to you, or like your communications aren’t important. They make you feel, well, loved.

9) Virgin America

Everyone wants the perfect flying experience: cool, fun, comfortable and most of all, VIP. I mean … who doesn’t want to feel like they’re part of the cool kids club? Virgin America does something that all of the airlines don’t by not only promising this kind of experience in their marketing, but actually providing it in real life. Take a look at this ad, for example, that shows a cool and hip flight with blue lights, sweet TV screens, plenty of leg room, and wireless internet.

And the cool lights, funky music, and red carpet treatment aren’t just part of the marketing; they’re the actual experience. That’s the VIP status that everyone wants to have, but almost nobody has the money to afford. Virgin making everyone feel like they’re entitled to that kind of swanky flying experience — and then actually dleivering it — it totally lovable. Who doesn’t want to feel like the belle of the ball?

I guess it’s not that hard to create lovable marketing when your product and service is lovable. You don’t have to spin anything, you can just … show people what you do!

What other companies produce marketing that people love?

Image credit: heyFilbert

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Website up-time — the amount of time a business’ website is up and functioning — is an important metrics for marketers and IT professionals to track. But no matter how many resources you put into ensuring your website never, ever, ever goes down … your website will totally still go down.

It’s a bummer, but a fact of life. And the reaction of visitors when they land on your temporarily unavailable website can run the gamut from “taking it in stride” to “totally losing their minds.” There’s nothing you can do about the latter, but for everyone else, you can make your website down time a little less of a pain by having a funny, whimsical, creative error 404 message. You know, something other than the boring message most other websites display.

To get your creative juices flowing, this post will display some of our favorite website error pages. Hopefully you’ll be able to take away a few ideas to snazz up your own 404 message!

Digg

Digg is a social news website that gathers news from across the Internet and compiles it on one website for readers. Since people depend on Digg for a lot of their news, they use this funny message whenever they are down. Time for us to learn how many of our readers are Oregon Trail fans … just imagine the bizarre segmentation possibilities!

 

Source: Apple II Bits

Tumblr

Having a problem with Tumblr? Blame the Tumbeasts! (Awww!) The creative cartoon, created by The Oatmeal, is how Tumblr adorably tells you their website is down. Darn Tumbeasts, eatin’ up all the servers.

 

 

Source: TechWorld

Google Wave

Remember Google Wave? No? Well, back in 2009 Google created Google Wave to combine email, instant messaging, wikis, web chat, social networking, and project management. Since they nixed it in 2010, I don’t think you’d be stumbling across this particular 404 page anytime soon, but they did the right thing putting it up for a spell while people were still looking for the product. Chillax brah, you got Google+ now.

 

Source: Village Voice Blog

Blippy

Blippy was a website that allowed users to share their reviews of products and services. Before it was taken down in May 2011, it used this creative image to tell users it was unavailable.

 

Source: TechCrunch

Grooveshark

Grooveshark takes their error message one step further than some of the other websites by providing a short story about why Pickles, the giant panda, is the cause of their website being inactive. Not only do users get a laugh, but they get an entertaining story. And a pun.

 

Source: Flickr, rowast

Reddit

Reddit gathers stories from across the internet and lets users vote whether or not the story should be ranked higher on the webpage. As a content-based business, it makes sense they’d have a great 404 page! They want to make sure users are engaged and entertained, even when they can’t provide their usual content.

 

Source: National Post

Mint.com

Mint.com is a website that gathers all of your financials in one place, helping you create and maintain a budget. Kinda important stuff. So when people can’t access important financial information, they can get very angry very fast. That’s why it’s appropriate Mint take one of the funniest approaches I’ve seen to try to lighten the mood and introduce viewers to other web pages they can visit in the meantime. My vote’s for Justin.

 

Source: How Interactive Design

Taptaptap

Taptaptap is a company that 1) creates apps for your iPhone, and 2) knows that everyone loves funny baby pictures. So they wisely have selected this hilarious picture to apologize for their website being down. After all, iPhone owners are used to quick and efficient experiences, so they do not have a lot of patience for webpages that aren’t working … but it’s easier to let it slide when this is the image that appears.

 

Source: Brand Infection

Twitter

Twitter’s error message might be the most famous of all. When Twitter service is unavailable, the Twitter fail whale makes an appearance. The fail whale is almost as well known (maybe more?) as the Twitter bird!

 

Source: Mashable

HubSpot

It happens to us too! This is the message we put up — an image of Tom Cattaneo, our ‘IT Godfather’ — to tell our site visitors there are some website issues. Thanks for being such a lovable (albeit if our site’s down, probably very stressed out) 404 message, Tom.

 

What other companies have creative error messages when their websites are down?

Image credit: ghostcero

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