Lindsay Casey

General Electric: Social Imagination at Work

Social media can be a minefield if you don’t know how to navigate it. Over the next few days I’ll be posting mini case studies showcasing brands who’ve nailed it and ones who need work. Let’s start on a positive note, with the innovative General Electric.

GE

When I used to think of the GE brand, my grandmother’s kitchen mixer would come to mind. Well folks, times have changed and GE is now one of the most creative brands out there. The new slogan is Imagination at Work and, when I think of GE now, I think of social media innovation. Big time. Any company wanting to step up their social media game could learn a few lessons from GE.

So, what is GE doing so well?

  • Content – General Electric consistently posts interesting, thought provoking content on all of their social networks. Most notable is Pinterest, where their beautifully curated boards are a joy to follow. In their own words, they’re “Pinning things that inspire us to build, power, move and cure the world.” The brand is very active on Instagram as well, and has also become a prolific Vine user.
  • Engagement – There are no robots at the wheel of GE’s social media ship. What has got to be a social media dream team proactively starts conversations, gets people talking and consistently follows up with unforgettable interactions. Not convinced? Read this.
  • Risk taking – General Electric recently announced details of a partnership with Quirky, a crowdsourcing site for inventors. Smart move on GE’s part if you ask me; not only do they do a wonderful social service by fostering innovation and creativity, but think of the hundreds of thousands of patents they could add to their collection.

Brand highlight: COME ON (<— read that in the voice of Gob Bluth), look at this Vine they made for Pi day!

Final verdict: Killing it. In all the right ways. See General Electric in action on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest.

 

Lindsay Casey

Volvo C30

Volvo Uses Social Media to Give Away the Last Ever C30

I always liked the Volvo C30. I remember sitting in one at the Toronto Auto Show a few years ago and admiring the well thought out design. Alas, I never owned one and now it looks like I never will. After making 900,000 of them, Volvo is killing the C30. But this post isn’t about me lamenting the loss of something I never had, it’s about how Volvo is leveraging social media to send the little hatchback out in style.

Volvo C30If you live in the UK, you’ll have a chance to win the last ever production Volvo C30. The catch? You’ll have to find it to win it. The contest will see people tracking the car through a website and the Twitter hashtag #LastEverC30.

Starting on June 13, every time someone uses the hashtag they will be entered to win other prizes and the car will move slightly closer to the UK from its starting point in Gothenburg, Sweden. When it arrives in the UK, Volvo will release four clues to its whereabouts, giving people a chance to find it and win it.

This is a brilliant move on Volvo’s part. The brand is well known for quality products, but so far, that hasn’t translated into engaging young drivers.

This is a great way to get the younger generation involved with the Volvo brand and generate some street cred.

Do you live in the UK? Will you be looking for the #LastEverC30?

Lindsay Casey

5 Reasons to Kill Your Auto DM’s

I know it looks like I’m on a Twitter etiquette rampage this week and, you know what, maybe I am. My timelines seem to be filled with my social media pet peeves this week and if they annoy me this much, I can’t be the only one. So think of these rants as helpful posts that show you what not to do and I’ll promise to write some “what you SHOULD do” posts soon.

Today’s culprit? The Twitter scourge known as the Auto DM. Possibly the worst Twitter fail in existence, the Auto DM has been proven to cause up to a 245% increase in unfollow rates but people still keep doing it.

1. It’s pushy. When I follow someone, it means I’m interested in what they’ve posted on Twitter. It doesn’t mean I am open to unsolicited messages selling me products or trying to direct me to a website.

2. It’s lazy. If you’ve set up an Auto DM for every time someone follows you, turn it off. Send a public @reply saying hello. Be friendly. Be a real person. This especially goes for you ‘social media gurus’ who do this all the time. “Hi! Click this link to magically learn all the secrets of social media success!” Yeah, right.

3. It’s spam.  Auto DM’s look like spam, read like spam and will get you reported for sending spam. They will also swiftly erase any credibility you had with your follower.

GrumpyCatautoDM4. You will lose followers. I unfollow every account that Auto DM’s me. It tells me right off the bat that the person behind the account is not genuine and since I have no desire to follow robots on Twitter, it’s an automatic unfollow from me.

5. It’s just plain rude! I bothered to follow you because I’m interested in either you or the content you share. Don’t waste my time by pushing a bland, generic message  at me the second I hit the follow button.

The bottom line – don’t do it. It’s ok to want to thank people for following you, but either send a public tweet yourself or skip it. A few quality conversations over content that interests both of you will build a much stronger connection. And that’s real.

Do you send Auto DM’s? Why or why not?

 

 

Lindsay Casey

Why You Shouldn’t Link Facebook & Twitter Posts

In a world of artificial communications, people are searching for an authentic conversation. Brands who don’t invest the time to provide this to their audience are missing out. I have a few social media pet peeves, but my biggest by far is automation between Facebook and Twitter.

Today I saw a tweet advertising the fact that that the poster was on Twitter. I won’t name and shame the culprit, but take a look at this.

lametweet

If you want to maintain any sort of credibility on Facebook and Twitter, do NOT link the two. Just because Twitter makes it easy to do, doesn’t mean you should.

1. It’s Irrelevant. Often if someone likes you on Facebook, they will also follow you Twitter and they expect a different experience on each platform. Constant regurgitation of the same content will make them jump ship. Think about it. Do you want to see the same thing everywhere you go online?

2. Choice. When you link your Facebook and Twitter accounts, you have no choice in which posts are duplicated, so when you @ reply to someone on Twitter, that comment is also posted as an update on Facebook. where it makes no sense to your audience. Another huge downside to this is the use of hashtags, which currently have no place on Facebook.

3. Character Limitations. Twitter posts are limited to 140 characters. Facebook posts are not. I see so many brands posting updates to Twitter that make no sense because they are cut off halfway through.

4. Traffic. If you’re a brand who is linking all your Facebook and Twitter posts, you could be missing out on traffic. Wouldn’t you rather send people to your own website instead?

5. It’s just lazy. If you want people to engage and interact with you, don’t be so lazy as to assume that they don’t know what you’re doing. Have some respect for your audience.

Hopefully this post has convinced you to disconnect your Facebook and Twitter accounts. You can do that here. Trust me, your fans will appreciate it.

Lindsay Casey

Happy 10th Birthday, WordPress!

WordPress turned 10 yesterday. Hard to believe, really. Seems like it was just a couple years ago that I built my first Geocities site. A horrible mess of blinking and flashing pretending to be a record label, it was a pretty cool project when I was 16. As you can guess, that was a lot more than a couple years ago and the web has evolved greatly. Anyone can have a slick looking, properly functioning website now and, for the most part, we have WordPress to thank for that.

Not just a blogging platform, WordPress is a fully functional content management system that powers over 18% of the web. When you think about it, that’s a staggering number. WordPress stats claims over 66 million sites, and that’s just on WordPress.com, it doesn’t even count self-hosted sites such as this one. I’d guess that 66 million is nowhere near the actual number.

WordPress has given countless people the ability to build an online business. Mashable started as a WordPress blog. The same goes for TheNextWeb, TechCrunch and more. It’s given me an additional income stream, as I enjoy building and customizing sites that work for small business (Need one? Get in touch). It’s taught me to understand code. It’s given countless small businesses the ability to sell products online and manage every aspect of their own business. In short, it’s changed a lot of lives and had a huge impact on the online world.

wpbIn celebration of this huge milestone, Manage WP is giving away the farm. Their huge WordPress 10th Anniversary Giveaway includes prizes from WPMUDEV, Elegant Themes, Arvixe Hosting, Sucuri and Manage WP. Enter here.

Bonus contest: Elmastudio is giving away 5 of their premium WordPress themes. Just leave a comment about why you like WordPress here.

Do you know of any other celebration giveaways? Post them in the comments.