Want to show your support to your favourite brand, cause or event? Wish to reward your frequent customers and increase brand loyalty? Find a way to endorse your friends and colleaques?

Don’t worry, there’s a badge for that!

What Foursquare and Gowalla didn’t know, when they first created badges to reward user check-ins, was the massive snowball effect of badges they were about to start, now swiping over the social web like there’s no tomorrow. Everybody’s gotta have one.

Brand Awareness and Loyalty

As Loic Le Meur,  founder and CEO of Seesmic, reminds us, building your online brand is NOT about you, it’s about highlighting others. Badges work as a great vehicle for endorsing and highlighting others, while at the same time strengthening ones own online presence and brand.

Brands are quickly catching up on combining marketing efforts with game mechanics and social networking. One of the interesting companies in the space helping brands to achieve their goals is GetGlue, a social network for entertainment. Users can check-in and rate tv shows, movies, music and books to discover new favorites, see what friends are into, earn badges and even get a free copy of the sticker sent in the mail, for free. In September, over 500 000 users had created 10 million new unique ratings and check-ins, the official and authorized badges coming from major brands like HBO, FOX, Showtime and PBS.

As GetGlue explains it: It’s about emotions, enabling users connecting with the content. Check-in to Mad Men, anyone?

Connect with content, reward engagement and frequent users is also something CNN iReport aims to do by launching “On the campaign trail” badge for those participating in the iReport Election Challenge. More badges and surprises are reported to be released.

Even Q&A service Mahalo Answers has hopped on the train of badges, finding them a great and complementary way to engage and reward its frequent users.

Besides from encouraging user activity and increasing brand loyalty, badges can also be a way to create scarcity around, as to increase search engine ranking, of a brand, company or an organization.

Basno is a new platform that offers authenticated badges either to be sold or given away to users. With help of unique serial numbers, embedding unique invisible watermarks, and creating 2d bar codes for each instance of any badge on the platform, Basno aims to increase the value of digital goods through limited issuance of badges. The badges are stored in a vault, but can be shown on all major social networks.

Social recruiting

As many other industries, recruiting is also being disrupted by the social web, offering new ways to find, refer and match talent with job openings. In addition to competition from professional social network LinkedIn, now listing over 70 million members and one million company profiles, there is an increasing number of niched services like Endorse, helping people connect through friendly recommendations, and Twitter stream filling up with hashtags hunting for talent. How the yet to be launched Work Market, a marketplace for employers and workers with promise to make work work, is to disrupt the recruitment business, remains to be seen.

Founders of Estonian Emp.ly, a social recruiting service expanding the reach of job postings via social networks, are also creators of Talentag, your social CV online. Talentag makes it easy for people in your network, professional or private, to give you career boosting kudos in form of badges and thumbs up. By answering questions and giving thumbs up, or down, a chart with personality traits, such as cheerful, friendly, sophisticated, trustworthy, or giving, gets added to ones profile. Fast, easy, and yes, a playful way to endorse someone in your network. All endorsements can then be displayed and distributed on Facebook. Sign up with your Facebook or Linkedin account and see whether you also are to be endorsed as a Social Media Rockstar?

Talentag also offers event organizers a possibility to let event participants claim and display event badges on their profiles. A quick and visual way of listing my past events from Plancast or LinkedIn, for example.

As a good general rule of thumb when designing to include any type of social endorsements in your service, neither badges nor recommendations are simply just to be given away, they are to be earned.

Paula is online strategist and startup evangelist. She is also a mentor for startups at Seedcamp. She blogs at paulamarttila.com and here at Bub.blicio.us.
Connect with her on Twitter, LinkedIn,
Drop her email at paula.marttila[at]gmail[dot]com

Flickr CC: The Rocketeer

You think you can’t make your videos and photos look astonishing? Yes, You can.

Sweden is not only a playground for savvy online music innovators, but a place that also hearts for online creativity, making advanced online video and image editing super simple to use. In Flash. In the cloud. Bye bye heavy downloads and installations.

Jaycut, online video editor, and Pixlr, online image editor, are two Swedish startups bringing cutting egde video and image editing easily accessible to everyone with a browser and Internet connection. One is surprised how fast these editors load in the browser considering their feature rich libraries. Especially Pixlr has been dedicating to offer the fastest loading image editor. I have been testing, and it sure beats its online competitors FotoFlexer, Photoshop.com, Picnik, acquired by Google in March, and Sumo Paint. For those small image quick fixes, Pixlr also offers Pixlr Express, a light version of the editor.

Both Jaycut and Pixlr are B2B white label solutions, yet offering their respective editors free to individuals. Being super focused on delivering the best editing experience, they were early on to acknowledge the importance of fans and a user community for feedback. Pixlr has a very active user community with 60% recurring visitors, which also has helped translate the service to 23 different languages and create user tutorials. Working closely with its users, Pixlr’s has released many appreciated features such as image grabbers for various browsers and a recent neat social sharing feature immo.io.

Video editing and collaboration regardless place or device

With JayCut’s online video editor one can create a movie or a slideshow by adding text, sound effects and smooth transitions. Its newly relaunched community has also focused on the one click social sharing features. Besides from storing, collaborating, and sharing, all content is easily published to YouTube, blogs, or downloaded to iPhone (available in H.264/Mpeg-4, Avi and Flv formats). After having announced its support for Moblin-based ultra-portable devices like netbooks and mobile internet devices (MIDs) last fall, it has also just released an open API to work on.

The one thing I’m currently missing on both JayCut and Pixlr, is the ability to access and upload my content from other services, for example like Animoto does with SmugMug. Pixlr, although, allows image upload directly from URL, making editing my Flickr pictures easy.

Editing as a tool to increase user engagement

Online video is a powerful tool for creating user engagement, and not just in terms of consuming video content. As JayCut’s editor is being used in various brand campaigns (e.g. by Procter & Gamble), it has been able to gather statistics regarding user engagement. On average, a user spends 5 minutes on creating and editing a video. That is a very high number compared to the time spent on regular banner ads, campaign or landing pages. Of course, there’s no magic sauce to create user engagement, but encouraging people’s creativity and allowing them to interact with one’s brand can be very fruitful in building brand awareness and relationships.

So, if you just wish to plug and play, yet have an itch to express your creativity, go and polish up your holidays pictures on Pixlr, upload together with your videos to Jaycut, give your story its own voice – and share it with the rest of the world.

Warning: Don’t try this on your iPad

Paula is online strategist and startup evangelist. She blogs at paulamarttila.com and here at Bub.blicio.us.
Follow her on Twitter: @paulamarttila
Drop her email at paula.marttila[at]gmail[dot]com

The harsh and severe weather conditions in Sweden, with continuing snowfall and temperatures below 5 degrees Fahrenheit, are making Swedish social media channels to boil.

The horror stories of people’ve been let off at freezing empty stations without toilets and no information what so ever on connecting trains, as trains’ve been stuck for 13 hours overnight with no toilets, food or beverage, have flooded the media.

Last weekend was particularly troublesome, and whereas SJ, Swedish national railway company, has been failing throughout the winter to get the travellers to their destinations, properly communicate disturbances, as well as to compensate delays, Swedish online movie startup Headweb, rushed to comfort the upset travellers.

On Sunday afternoon it posted an offering via its blog, Facebook and Twitter: Send a picture of your train ticket in exchange to one free rental movie.

The retweeting and blogging took off, and in just couple of hours more than 300 delayed and disappointed travelleres had received a free online rental movie. Happy replies and reports from people watching movies while stuck on the trains, making their journeys more bearable, kept pouring in.

Now, the biggest parody in the story lies in the fact that the Twitter account of SJ is “open” only weekdays between 9 am to 4 pm. At the times like these the last thing a disteressed weekend traveller needs is to be greeted on Twitter with: “Logging off, have a nice weekend and good luck with the snowstorm”.

Sadly, even the entire SJ website was down for couple of hours during the rush hours on Sunday, leaving a busy phone line as the only source for information. To have alternative communication channels such as a blog, Facebook and Twitter account, or SMS service, if ones service fails, offline or online, would tremendously help out the situation and increase customer satisfaction. At the moment I can count up to five active Facebook groups with dissatisfied SJ customers compared to SJ’s own inactive Facebook page with 12 fans.

Not every transportation company, or for that matter any company, has come as far as Alaska Airlines, hence to avoid the worst backlashes and pitfalls when new to social media, such as SJ, one needs to be committed to integrate social media as a natural part of the business. There is really no such thing as “opening hours” in social media.

Although Headweb didn’t get the travellers sooner to their destinations, it eased their pain and frustration offering compassion and a moment of recreation, i.e. what any company or a person should do when a fellow citizen is in need. An example of true brand building and social media marketing at the cost of – listening and caring.

Stand-up comedians have a saying when going on stage, which I think translates particularly well into social media: “Either you kill, or you get killed”. Either you build trust, or you just might lose it forever.

More reading on Headweb and Nordic online movie startup scene.

Paula is online strategist and startup evangelist. She blogs at paulamarttila.com and here at Bub.blicio.us.
Follow her on Twitter: @paulamarttila
Drop her email at paula.marttila[at]gmail[dot]com

by Brian Solis, via PR 2.0

Part Two of my recent visit to the gorgeous San Francisco offices of Loic Le Meur and Seesmic.

Loic and I spent some valuable time together that proved both refreshing and invigorating. We discussed digital photography, innovation at Seesmic, public relations and social marketing, and brand building in the era of the Social Web.

The conversation evolved into a deeper discussion that tackled the subject of online community building. Loic wanted to capture and share the experience on Loic.tv, so we moved to his video studio to continue the dialogue on camera.

Loic and I also discussed my new book with Deirdre Breakenridge, “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations.” Please watch the video here.

San Francisco – The view from Seesmic

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, or Facebook

by Brian Solis, via PR 2.0

I recently visited the gorgeous San Francisco offices of Loic Le Meur and Seesmic to discuss his company’s roadmap, photography, how to build online communities, as well as my new book with Deirdre Breakenridge ,”Putting the Public Back in Public Relations.”

Loic suggested that we spend a few minutes discussing the book on camera to share with the Loic.tv community. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse – after all, Tim Ferriss had occupied the same chair moments before I arrived.

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, or Facebook

by Michelle Lentz

The hot topic on the Interwebs today is Skittles. Go to Skittles.com and you’ll discover that they’ve relinquished control of their web site.

There is a navigation tool that floats and lets you navigate between Chatter, Products, Friends, and more. But each of those goes somewhere interesting: Chatter goes to the Twitter Search page for Skittles (which is also the Skittles.com home page), Products takes you to Wikipedia, and Friends takes you to Facebook. In fact, it seems that only Contact Us takes you to an actual Skittles hosted page.

I’ve read different takes on this all day. I’ve seen people screaming that the economy isn’t that bad and why can’t they hire a web designer. I’ve seen others celebrate the rather, um, ballsy take on a web site. I think I fall somewhere near the middle, leaning more towards ballsy than cheap. I feel like Skittles, in relinquisihing control, has admitted that all of us folks out here on the Web actually have a clue. They’ve taken listening to the consumer to a whole new level. However, I think there needs to be a little more integration of product in there. I suppose you can get that from the Facebook Fan page, with the apps and such, but really – if I’m going to the Skittles web site, I want more information on Skittles (more branding, perhaps) from the company in conjunction with user-generated content.

This type of approach to a web site may fall into the “all publicity is good publicity” category. It seems to have moved past that, but earlier today, the Skittles twitter search was showing some rather crude comments with #Skittles in the text. It currently is showcasing people talking about the web site and or those who are using the Hash Tag for the fun of showing up on the front page. No one is really chatting about the candy. The Wikipedia page focuses on types of flavors, but doesn’t tell you anything really useful about the product. The Facebook Fan page is fun, but again, not useful in a “learn more about the product” kind of way.

The point has been made, repeatedly, that ad agency Modernista did this about a year ago. According to AdAdge.com, however, Skittles is the first consumer product to give this a try. Another quote in that AdAge article struck my fancy (emphasis mine):

An Agency.com spokeswoman said that “Skittles as a brand is all about embracing and empowering the conversation online — just look at the YouTube entries and their Facebook page. Its kind of a natural evolution for them moving in to something like this.”

Now, is that how you think of Skittles? When I think of Skittles, I think of candy that is chewy and turns my tongue colors.   I like Skittles’ approach, but I wonder, would it be more effective if they scaled it back a little and still retained of bit of their own content?

What are your thoughts on the new Skittles site?

__

Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net
Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel
Blogs: Write Technology, Wine-Girl.net

by Michelle Lentz

Technology is making it easier to be a fan of your favorite rock star. Not only are there a myriad of music listening web apps out there, but there’s MySpace Music. Now, you can take your fandom to your iPhone.

Interscope Geffen A&M is launching iPhone applications for five of its artists, through a partnership with mobile firm Kyte. The five are Lady Gaga, the Pussycat Dolls, Soulja Boy, the All American Rejects, and Keri Hilson. The free apps include video content, branding, and advertising, click-through links to buy music and merchandise, RSSto pull in news updates, and chat, comments and sharing.

According to Ted Mico, executive VP of digital for Interscope Geffen A&M, “Kyte allows us to easily deliver iPhone and iPod touch apps that connect our artists with their fans in a fully immersive, interactive experience.”  The apps go live in the app store today.

by Michelle Lentz

Today Twitter announced (per the Twitter blog) that they are testing an improved search and trends feature. Twitter is rolling out access to a more integrated use of search from their Twitter page to selected users (beta testers, if you will).

Search.twitter.com has apparently been getting more and more popular (as I’m sure you knew, just as a user) in spite of its subdomain location. With the beta users, the Twitter Powers That Be hope to get a better sense of how people are using it. Once they get a better understanding, it’ll be all systems go for the rest of us. I say kudos to Twitter for taking this slow instead of jumping in headfirst.

The new trending function looks really nifty, with the ability to view a drop-down of the most popular topics on Twitter at any given moment in real time.

Adding both trends and easy access to search will make a huge difference for people using Twitter. With Search hidden, I bet a lot of casual users – and companies – are unaware of the power of brand and topic search in real time. It will soon be incredibly easy to follow what people are saying about your brand on Twitter, without ever leaving your Twitter page.

__

Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel, Blogs: Write Technology, Wine-Girl.net

Nominee for City Beat’s Best of the City: Vote for My Wine Education under Public Eye > Blog:
http://www.bestofcincinnati.com/