Keith Toh put it really well when he described a recent social media push from Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream…

Imagine Ben & Jerry’s famed cow mascot Woody, storming into your office moo-ing and dancing with you while dishing out scoops of their new ice-cream flavor, Clusterfluff (yes, I know the name is quite interesting). The next thing you know, the entire office is Clusterfluffed.

As part of Clusterfluff’s launch in Singapore, the folks from RIOT brought the Cowmobile to Singapore for the first time ever. The Cowmobile will then go to specific locations based on “mooo” requests from fans on Facebook.

Over a period of 5 days (4 – 8 April), all fans needed to do was to Like Ben & Jerry’s Facebook page and “mooo” their request via a specially created application for the Cowmobile to request for a stopover at their office, school or home.

More “moos”, more chance.

In just 5 days, 784 requests were made and the amount of Facebook Likes increased by more than 28% (1,412). Twitter followers increased by over 15% (155) with 186 mentions and re-tweets. The Cowmobile went to 31 different locations and gave out a total of 5,960 free scoops of Clusterfluff.

Riding on that momentum, Ben & Jerry’s 12 of April Free Cone Day resulted in an additional 592 Likes on Facebook and 270 mentions and re-tweets on Twitter. The massive amount of re-tweets propelled the Free Cone Day message to appear as a Top Tweet on Twitter’s homepage.

The Free Cone Day came with a good cause as members of the public were encouraged to donate their dime for the Dyslexia Association of Singapore (DAS). A total of over $14,000 was collected that day.

Based on RIOT’s statistics, for the campaign month of April vs March, Ben & Jerry experienced an

• Increase of 912% in new Facebook likes
• Over 446,000 impressions (+552%)
• +1490% in post feedback
• +486 Twitter followers

Are you using Twitter well? Here are a few simple rules that one should follow in order to have more success on Twitter.

Be present.

Make sure you are present with your Twitter presence.
There’s nothing worse than seeing half a message in a Tweet that’s been automatically generated via a Facebook status update. Twitter and Facebook have different languages, allow different length messages, have different tagging options, one has hashtags and the other doesn’t. Linking your Twitter account with your Facebook Page can look lazy. Be present in the platform when you’re using it, that way you can better use the features for each. At most, you might like to add an automated direct message that goes to new followers, but that should be the end of the automation.

Be consistent.

Spread your tweets over the week instead of posting all on one day.
If you only have a certain amount of time you can dedicate to checking Twitter, spread it out over the week instead of using the equivalent time in one day – for instance, do half an hour each day instead of three hours one day of the week. It will make you look more active, allow you to reply to people in a timely fashion, and give you more opportunity to engage users at different times of the week. You should be able to fit all of this into half-hour sessions over the course of a week.

Be accountable.

Twitter is a public space.
Anything you say is this space reflects on you, your brand, your grandma and your dog. And this can be held against you. Be careful what you say before you press “Tweet”.

First they brought us the Pepsi Refresh Project, where the public could receive a share of $20 million to promote a new idea that would have a positive impact on the community, state or nation. These were funds that would usually have been spent on advertising during one Superbowl. That’s a big statement from a big company to become more socially responsible.

Now the beverage giant has brought us another new social frontier, social vending – a real vending machine that is social media-enabled.

PepsiCo’s Social Vending Machine, announced last week, lets users send free soft drink to their friends.

“Our vision is to use innovative technology to empower consumers and create new ways for them to engage with our brands, their social networks and each other at the point of purchase,” said Mikel Durham, Chief Innovation Officer at PepsiCo Foodservice. “Social Vending extends our consumers’ social networks beyond the confines of their own devices and transforms a static, transaction-oriented experience into something fun and exciting they’ll want to return to, again and again.”

This could potentially see the remodeling of vending machines globally.

This video (although a little lengthy) shows just how it would work.

Would you use a social vending machine?

EB

Today we celebrate the recreation of one of the greatest feats in aviation history.

Jeremy Rowsell and Jim Hazelton have landed in Sydney’s Bankstown airport today in their single-engine Beechcraft 36 aircraft, having flown tens of thousands of kilometres across the mighty Pacific Ocean in the footsteps (exhaust fumes!) of the legendary Charles Kingsford Smith. “Smithy” became famous in 1928 as the first man to fly from America to Australia in a three-engined monoplane called the Southern Cross. Some of you may recognise his name, now synonymous with the Sydney International Airport.

The journey, coined ‘Flying 4 The Doctors’, came about after Jeremy, needing to get his aircraft from California back to Australia, decided that he should raise funds for the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia, a cause he holds close to his heart.

“I’ve flown across the Pacific for the RFDS because I know that if I were in trouble they would fly anywhere in Australia to help me.”

Flying 4 The Doctors Beechcraft 36 aircraft

We at d.tail have been incredibly fortunate to be part of the support team for the ‘Flying 4 The Doctors’ team, helping to communicate the journey through social media. It is very exciting to get the first video footage from a small plane in the middle of the Pacific!

The Flying Doctor recognises the importance of social media within their communications strategy.

“The RFDS began operating in the same year as Smithy undertook that historic flight, 1928, and the Flying Doctor has always been at the cutting edge of both aviation and communications technology.” explains Communications Manager Ruth Redfern.

“In fact, it was the RFDS who were responsible for opening up the lines of communication across the outback using the pedal radio! Today, we’re just as passionate about technology – the Flying 4 the Doctors fundraiser is helping us raise funds for data flight recorders for our aircraft, while the social media strategy is helping us keep our supporters up to date with the adventure as it happens. D.tail Noisemakers are the leaders in this field, and we have been delighted to be working with them on this campaign.”

Jeremy Rowsell (L) and Jim Hazelton address the media upon arriving in Sydney today

Jeremy plans to take the adventure global, with an attempt to fly the rest of the way around the world soon. Stay tuned.

Please support the RFDS by donating now.

For more information: Royal Flying Doctor Service / Flying 4 The Doctors

At the ripe old age of just 5, Twitter has had a remarkable impact on not only the social media landscape, but the way we communicate, share information and structure our sentences as we attempt to express ourselves in 140 characters or less.

Here are some facts about the evolution of Twitter…

• Created in March 2006.
• Launched in July 2006.
• It took 3 years, 2 months and 1 day for Twitter to hit 1 billion tweets, the number now posted in the course of a week.
• In just the first half of 2009, 72.5% of all Twitter user accounts were created.
• Today, there are 200 million registered user accounts, approx. 10 per cent of Internet users
• 85.3% of users post less than 1 update a day. 21% of accounts have no updates or profile information on them. In other words, they’re completely blank.
• Twitter profiles with less than 100 follows are 93.6% of all users.
• Only 5% of accounts have created 75% of all Twitter tweets.
• Order of most Twitter accounts in cities - 1. New York 2. Los Angeles 3. Toronto 4. San Francisco 5. Boston
• Female users just top male users at 53%.
• 15% of Twitter accounts are made for marketing and usually follow 2000 or more profiles, when .29% of users follow 2000 or more profiles.
• The company’s valuation is approximately $3.7 billion as of February 2011.

So what’s in store for Twitter over the next five years – will it still be around at the age of 10, will Jack Dorsey still own it and will you still be tweeting?

JM

There are some very important changes that have been trialled by Pages on Facebook over the past month and will take full effect today.

The following slideshow by Christopher Stemborowski (Communications and Social Media Strategist at Oxford Communications) provides a great overview of the changes taking place.

You may have also noticed more and more “Like” buttons on the web and less and less “Share” buttons for Facebook. That’s because it’s taking over! The “Like” button is basically taking up the functionality of the Share button, by posting a headline, blurb and thumbnail picture of the article on your Facebook user profile, as the Share button does.

Two other changes that are significant for for Facebook Page owners are the changes to the Tabs and FMBL, the most customisable areas of Facebook Pages.

Firstly, the Tabs will now move to a navigation bar on the left side of the Page, underneath the Page’s picture, instead of across the top. Instead of being limited by width to six Tabs, the side navigation bar will now allow for longer Tab names. Icons will also appear next to each Tab identifying what type of application is supporting the Tab, perhaps creating undesirable results for those using Static FBML-based Tabs.

Secondly, Facebook will be moving away from Facebook Markup Language (FBML, a version of HTML) to iframes for Page custimisation. Facebook Page owners will no longer be able to create custom Tabs using a popular application called Static FBML. Page owners must now learn how to create Tabs using iframes. For more info on the changes with FBML, read here.

EB

What do you think of the recent Facebook changes? How is it going to affect you and your business?

An excerpt from Bob Lefsetz’s email this morning about the Grammys and the music industry…

Marcus Mumford of Mumford & Sons strummed his mandolin all the way from West London for a performance at Buckhead Theatre in Atlanta on Nov. 7.
Photo: Chris McKay/WireImage.com

Sales stats, these include sales until 3amEST.

Mumford & Sons
“Sigh No More” – 31,189 +156%
“Little Lion Man” – 42,664 +88%
“The Cave” – 37,899 +114%

iTunes Stats
#1 Album on the store
“LLM” and “The Cave” #1 and #2 Alternative Tracks
“LLM” #13 track overall
“The Cave” #15 track overall

Just checked.  Mumford’s album is STILL number one on iTunes.

What does this tell us?

Quality triumphs over spectacle.

And that Top Forty beats is a business, but not the only one.

Real music has returned.  Played on acoustic instruments.  You can argue about the songs, the genre, but you can’t complain about the dancing or the singing to tape or all the stuff music fans have been complaining about for DECADES!

This is the revolution.

We’re in it.

Forget about genres.  Just be good.  Follow your muse.  We’re waiting for you.

Meanwhile, the big winner of the night, Arcade Fire, is only number 3 on iTunes. Winning isn’t everything, especially on the Grammys.

***
You can find more of Bob’s entertainment industry commentary here.

Social media has well and truly changed the way we communicate and Time Magazine said it so well when naming Mark Zuckerberg as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year for “connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them, for creating a new system of exchanging information and for changing how we live our lives”.

The power of social media flaws me when I read stories about how a Facebook page was instrumental in starting anti-regime protests. I’m referring to the protests in Cairo where thousands of Egyptians have gathered in Tahrir Square since January 25 to challenge President Hosni Mubarak’s autocratic regime.

The Facebook page, We are all Khaled Said, was created by Google Executive Wael Ghonim on January 28, in memory of a 28-year-old Egyptian who was tortured to death at the hands of two police officers. Khaled has become the symbol for many Egyptians who dream to see their country free of brutality, torture and ill treatment.

Ghonim was released on Monday after spending almost two weeks in detention. He broke down in tears in an emotional TV interview about his 12 days in jail and then spoke to protesters from a stage in central Cairo.

“I apologise to every father and mother and every person who lost his life for his country. For 12 days, I’ve been isolated. I saw the people who died. These are the heroes, and you are the heroes.

“I’m not a hero,” he continued. “I was just typing on my keyboard. You are the heroes.”

Many protesters in the crowd on Tuesday carried the symbols of Facebook and Twitter, which have become vital mobilising tools for the opposition thanks to online campaigners like Ghonim.

“I like to call it the Facebook Revolution but after seeing the people right now, I would say this is the Egyptian people’s revolution. It’s amazing,” Ghonim said after he was mobbed by adoring supporters in the crowd.

Social media has not only changed the way we communicate, it’s having a profound effect on freedom of information and in the case of Egypt uniting people around the world on human rights issues.

JM

If you’re a non-profit organisation, we hope you have got your social media cap on. Just like companies, brands, musicians and small businesses, non-profit organisations should too be executing tactics and strategies to expand their brand awareness across many platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Foursquare and more.

Some non-profits who are doing great things on social media are The Royal Flying Doctor Service, One, American Red Cross, and the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation.

Here are some great social media tactics for Non-Profits, courtesy of Blackbaud.

This Non-profits on Facebook Page is a resource for non-profits and other organizations for social good, built it to help you harness the power of Facebook and bring positive change to the world.

EB

Are you a bit confused about the custom tabs on your Page being skinny all of a sudden? Get ready for what Facebook calls “Your Streamlined” Page.

From August 23, Facebook will be “simplifying your Page to make it easier to browse.” All custom tabs will change from the current 760 pixel width to 520 pixels to fit in the centre console of your Page, in the same way that the Wall and Info sections currently do. Boxes will also be disappearing on Pages and profiles, as well as the Boxes tab.

You will currently see these changes on Pages that you are an admin of. Your fans do not, just yet. We advise you modify the layouts of your custom tabs if needed so that your Page looks fabulous for when the rest of Facebook changes over on August 23.

“The updates are designed to simplify navigation for users, reduce complexity for developers, and enable us to build the next generation of tools for growing your business with Facebook.” ~ Fran, a Facebook platform product marketing manager.

Sounds good to us! Although we’re sad to see the box customization go from our left sidebar, we’re sure Facebook has the best of intentions with it’s new Page width.

You can find out more about the changes here.

EB

http://www.dtailnoisemakers.com.au