Lindsay Casey

Embed & Monetize your Images with Imgembed

I was looking for images for a recent post and stumbled upon Imgembed, a new service addressing the issues of embedding images, monetizing them and crediting the photographer.

Many bloggers have trouble finding images for their blog. They don’t know where to look or they don’t have a budget to purchase stock images, so they end up running a quick Google image search and simply “borrowing” images from the search results.

Imgembed fixes this for both bloggers and photographers.

This is huge! Photographers love it because it’s easy to use, image use is easy to track and they are fairly credited for their images. Users love it because it’s easy to find beautiful images that are easy to use.

Users have two options when using Imgembed:

1. Use credited image for free (up to 10,000 impressions).

2. If you don’t want the photographers name to appear, pay for premium use (calculated by impression).

The process is super easy:
  • Go to Imgembed.
  • Search by subject, keyword, hashtag or photographer name.
  • When you find an image you like, click “embed.”
  • Select the size of image you want and copy the code.
  • Paste the code into your blog and voila, you’re done!

 

Here’s an example of an embedded photograph with a credit:

Want to make your photographs available on Imgembed? Signing up is easy and you can instantly import all your images from other photo sharing services such as Instagram of Flickr. You’ll have access to statistics and can even watermark certain images if you like.

Check out this video from Imgembed for an overview of the service.

Imgembed from Imgembed on Vimeo.

The verdict:

Imgembed solves a huge problem for both users and creators and is super easy to use. A+ in my book!

Lindsay Casey

A Blast From My Moped Past

Did you know I used to have a moped gang? It’s true.

For about 5 years, I navigated the mean streets of Toronto on an assortment of unreliable but undeniably cool vintage mopeds. I moved on to bigger motorcycles a few years ago but kept a few of my favourite little bikes. Finally dusted off the old red Garelli yesterday. Lovely to see her running again!

Lindsay Casey

Volvo #LastEverC30 Winner

The Winner of Volvo’s #LastEverC30

Remember Volvo’s genius social media competition to give away the last production model of their awesome little hatchback, the C30? Well, they have a winner!

Huge congrats to James McKenzie! After tweets using the hashtag #LastEverC30 moved the car from Gothenburg, Sweden to England, Volvo released cryptic clues to its location. James picked up on the clues, found the little car in North Oxfordshire, tweeted #GiveMeTheKeys to Volvo and now he’s the proud owner of the Last Ever C30. Here’s the winning tweet:

Last Ever C30 Winning Tweet

What a great campaign! However, the campaign’s website looks like it has been kind of abandoned. Volvo has the winner up with a congratulatory note, but hasn’t removed the twitter widget that asks people to tweet an outdated message of “Solve the #LastEverC30 clues to win the car today.” If I worked for Volvo, I would suggest doing a photo shoot with the winner and putting a real face to the completion of the campaign. Perhaps even keeping a sporadic follow up blog would be fun. I’m sure the new owner wouldn’t mind updating the public on the adventures of his prize once in a while.

Overall, I think Volvo did a great job with their #LastEverC30 contest, but I would recommend proper closure. An abandoned website doesn’t cut it.

On more of a gearhead note, here are some notes on what made the Volvo C30 such a great little car.

Lindsay Casey

How Ford is Leading the Race in Social Media

It’s hard to ignore how well a massive company like Ford has tackled social media. The automotive giant is arguably one of the best brands on social media right now and what I like about them is that they aren’t shy about sharing their strategies. Ford’s head of social media, Scott Monty, has been really open about their strategy of humanizing the brand and adding value in a “140 character society.”

So, what makes Ford so great at social media?

fordNostalgia – Did your dad drive a Mustang? If he didn’t, I bet he wanted one. Just try saying the words “Shelby Cobra” and see how long he goes on for. Few brands are as iconic as Ford and their social media team is using nostalgia to keep their audience talking. Through posting vintage photos of cars and trucks and quotes, like the one pictured to the left on Facebook, they’ve got the audience telling their own stories about the brand.

Conversation – I mentioned about Ford’s genius move of getting their audience to tell the brand stories for them. Well, this creates a prime environment for Ford to engage in meaningful dialogue with their audience. Whether it’s a story about Grandpa’s first truck or the car a father and son team lovingly restored, Ford’s social pages are full of stories and Ford does an excellent job at celebrating them.

Contests – Whether it’s sneaking a peek into the design of the upcoming Mustang or . Ford has also been smart about using social media contests to drive buzz. Their brilliant #Fiestagram campaign generated thousands of photographs on Instagram and the Fiesta Movement Campaign saw Ford handing the keys over to 100 bloggers for a six month long, all expenses paid, test drive.

Plus, they’re funny. Take this, Jeremy Irons.

Final verdict: Trailblazer. In every way. Catch up with Ford on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Ford Social.

 

Lindsay Casey

Xplornet Gets a D- in Engagement

Xplornet

Rural Canadians depend on Xplornet for high speed internet access. Unfortunately, as is the case with many companies who service rural markets, they have been left in the social media dust of larger, rival companies like Bell and Rogers. At this time last year, Xplornet’s Facebook page was a ghost town and their Twitter stream was barely updated.

To their credit, Xplornet does seem to be stepping up its efforts and I can personally say that I have received great customer service resulting from a tweet. However, the overall effort still comes across as weak.

xplornet

Blog – Xplornet has launched a company blog. It’s poorly laid out, which means it doesn’t actually look like a blog at all, and it’s difficult to find. Some of the content is outdated – even though the audience is a rural one, I’m pretty sure most people know that Google is a verb by now.

My Recommendations:

  • Write shorter, more engaging posts and make it easier to find and share them.
  • Get  rid of the Captcha system and use a back end spam blocker.
  • Ditch the corporate responses. Not every comment needs to end with regards, the customer service rep’s name and their job title.
  • Change how posts are tagged. I find it icky that blog posts which have nothing to do with Xplornet’s services are tagged with the names of all of their internet packages.

Twitter – Over the last few months, Xplornet has been providing quite good customer service on Twitter. However, it’s all reactive. I don’t see anything proactive there. While responses to customer complaints are good, it would be better to have some positive tweets displayed when you land on their page.

My Recommendations:

  • Start engaging. Retweet and thank people for positive tweets when they show up.
  • Be human. Can the corporate speak and let the reps talk like humans.
  • Share. Find relevant content and share it. Show some behind the scenes action. Humanize the brand.

It’s difficult for a communications company, especially one that works in rural locations. Services go down due to remote locations and weather and when people get frustrated, social media is rapidly becoming the first place to air frustrations. However, by being proactive, heated situations can be diffused and by humanizing the brand, a company can begin to build customer loyalty.

It currently seems that people are with Xplornet because they have to be, not because they chose them. If I were in charge at Xplorenet, my goal would be to be the company people would choose even if another company entered the market.

Final verdict: D-. Not a complete fail, as progress is apparent and it’s nice to see them making an effort, but  they still have a long way to go.