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

One often wonders if they are getting the most out of social media. I’m sure Jason Calacanis wondered the same thing when he considered Facebook suicide out loud and then announced he would quit Facebook this Friday at 1pm Pacific.

Top social media consultant in the UK and the US, Murray Newlands, is having an interactive workshop on June 17th across the big pond to dive deeply into the issues that matter:

• Insights into the Latest High Profile Viral Marketing Campaigns
• The Psychology of Persuasion: Next Generation Marketing
• How to use Social Networking Theory to Tune your Campaigns
• Innovations in Location-Based Marketing (Foursquare & beyond)
• Tweets that Travel: The Essential Skill of Viral Writing
• Using B2B Social Media to Connect with C-level Execs
• Creating a Bespoke Community vs Starting a Group

Speakers include our very own Brian Solis, along with Chris Brogan, Mat Morrison, and more.

Bub.blicio.us readers get a 10% discount with the discount code “bub” at checkout.

Get all the details here.

The Roger Smith Hotel has offered a lesson in social media marketing, making it a notable (and now rather popular) hotel destination in the big city of Manhattan. Techipedia outlines the major points of The Roger Hotel’s success, outlining the company’s dedication to its online audience. From running promotions that are exclusive to those social media channels to finding ways of becoming a part of the online conversations already taking place, there’s a lot that can be learned about social media marketing, and its power to bring an audience as well as convert them into real, paying consumers.

As with most success stories, the tale of The Roger Smith Hotel sounds easier than it actually was. Yet the principles behind its successful social media marketing remain important lessons that others can learn from, especially in an era where social media has become so common that it will actually become more difficult in many ways to accomplish similar goals.

Branding around social media marketing is a new world all its own, constantly changing and being left to the participation of others. You know, being social and all. But creating direct relationships with customers, potential customers, and the rest of the world can be a very powerful thing. Because now you’ve heard of The Roger Smith hotel. And that’s the point.

But harping on that social aspect for a bit, it’s also important to remember that turning to social media marketing also means relating to a self-selecting group of people. The social web is full of niche markets, all of which have congregated in a virtual sense, around different points of interest. Remembering this as you move forward with a given social media marketing campaign is a very important aspect of the overall message your brand is trying to put forth.

Social media only works because people participate on varying levels. Encouraging ongoing participation takes a great deal of dedication from your end, as well as from those that love and support your brand, your industry, and what you stand for. Appealing to those that are passionate about these same things that you are is one major key to a successful marketing campaign within the social media realm.

See below for a clip of social media’s effect on The Roger Smith Hotel.

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

I’ve mentioned that I’m campaigning for the Really Goode Job contest. In the process, I’m noticing things, learning things, and making notes for future reference.

What Do You Need to Get the Job Done

My personal opinion, and I could be wrong, is that you don’t need – in fact, probably shouldn’t be – an expert on wine. I think knowing wine, having a familiarity with wine, and enjoying wine is a definite advantage. I think you need to be able to hold your own in a conversation with the winemaker, but being an expert might be a little much. The job is also a learning experience and more importantly, a sharing experience.

I do think you need to have a handle on marketing. I know they call this a Lifestyle Correspondent position, but in all seriousness, this is a “marketing the winery” position that leverages social media. You need more than to be a member of a couple social networks, you need to be able to join and influence the conversation. That was a shift that happened to me yesterday. I stopped having to campaign quite as hard because people were now asking me, “How can we help you?” I had become part of the stream of information at that point, as opposed to shouting at the stream to listen.

Never Discount the Power of Traditional Media

From what I can tell, there are a lot of entrants (there are around 400 of us after all) who are focusing purely on the social media/email aspect of the voting.

I sent press releases.  I sent them to local media and to my friends who work in marketing and PR (and could send them on). It got me a guest blog post on the web site for our local alternative weekly and a write-up from the wine blogger/writer for the Dayton Daily news, among other things. It also raised awareness. It got more people talking – people I couldn’t reach through Twitter or Facebook. A friend of mine will be on a popular local morning radio show on Friday and she’ll promote the video as well. Yep, I’m trying to leverage radio, a one-way communication medium. But again, you just can’t reach everyone through Facebook and Twitter, etc. You can only reach a certain demographic. Are things like AdWords traditional media? Even Murphy-Goode didn’t own the AdWords for this contest, which surprised me. I bought AdWords on the day I entered the contest.

Unclear Guidelines but New Friends

I think a lot of us entrants are a bit confused on exactly how much effect the popular vote has. At first, it seemed like the popular vote was more of a MacGuffin, distracting us. Now I’m not so sure. Does it show that you can drive traffic or does it just raise awareness for Murphy-Goode? Just yesterday I learned that voting continues for a week after the submission process closes, but that also coincides with the week that the anonymous HR firm is picking the Top 50. So do the popular votes matter? I still have no idea.

Via Twitter, I learned today that once the Top 50 have been chosen, the voting slate is wiped clear and voting begins again. Yep – the Twittersphere is going to be full of Vote for me! through at least July 7. But again, how much do the popular votes really matter? Is driving traffic what’s important, or personality? CV/resume and experience or just a damned good video? It’s like entering a beauty pageant without knowing the categories. So, is there an evening gown competition or just swimsuit?

Some candidates are receiving outside support from a company called VinTank. I’m a little weird about this, as I count a few of those candidates as my friends, as well as several of the folks at VinTank. I don’t really know what it means that they are being provided with “resources” during their campaign, which is why it makes me a bit uncomfortable. Once the final 10 are chosen, VinTank will be educating all of them on wine industry social marketing, if I understand it right, as well as whomever wins, regardless of whether they were part of the original VinTank endorsement.  Yeah, I’m a little squishy on this whole topic, but I felt obliged to mention it. (Oh, why aren’t I endorsed? I came late to the party due to some family issues, so it wasn’t even an option for me.)

On the plus side, a lot of the overall confusion is driving the entrants to talk to and support each other. It’s fun to meet all these other folks, everyone with a little bit in common. A support group full of the competition – you have to love the Internet. Whomever wins, I have to believe they’ll receive the full support of everyone in the competition.

Everyone is Doing It

So it started with what probably is the dream job – a year on a gorgeous island off the coast of Australia. Now it’s Murphy-Goode’s Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent. I got a blog comment yesterday promoting the Why I Need A Break contest. A “mom and pop” wine shop is sponsoring a contest to give you a vacation, but first you have to enter a 1-minute video, yada, yada, yada.

Find a new angle. My husband last night said, “The video thing is getting old.”  Actually, the video thing is rather an old technique, used on TV – what’s the difference between this and winning a prize on America’s Home Videos? Well, the prizes are certainly better this time around, but that’s about it. I don’t know – how do you, as readers, feel about everyone jumping on the “submit a video” bandwagon? Annoyed or Amused?

Even more interesting is where this is leading. My younger brother, soon to be a senior in college, is getting scared about entering the “real world” in a year. To score an interview at a marketing firm for a summer internship, he had to submit a video.

Exploitative? The Whiff of Desperation

I’ve had a few people take an entirely different perspective on the entire contest. In fact, it has turned them off of Murphy-Goode completely. Why? Because in a crappy economy, they see Murphy-Goode as exploiting many people’s need for a job. It’s true that as you watch the videos you’ll come across a slew of people who mention they’ve been laid off, are unemployed, recent college graduates, stuck in nowhere towns … In fact, I’ve seen a lot of LinkedIn group posts and blog posts that sound truly desperate. “I’m unemployed – I really need this Really Goode Job.”

Murphy-Goode is getting a ton of publicity from this stuntcasting job application process. So are they exploiting those who have desperation just rolling off of them in their video?

My take is no, they’re not, and I’ve thought about this a lot, watched a lot of videos. I think the video is a little like a super-quick job interview. Remember that old antiperspirant ad: Never Let Them See You Sweat. It applies here. I think if I was unemployed, I’d bill myself as a freelancer, not “laid off.”  I’d spin it. I would not put it in the video. Why am I a freelancer? That comes later, once you make it past the Top 50.

That’s just me, but it’s also why I don’t find this exploitative. Those who mention their dire straits are doing so intentionally, for reasons of their own. Murphy-Goode has no control over who enters their contest and why. Plenty of employed folks have entered the contest and are dreaming up ways to leave their current job for 6 months.

Learning About Myself

I never think I’m overly competitive until I do something like this and my competitive spirit rears its ugly head. I try to dampen it – in this case, I almost have to. On the off chance I make it to the Top 50, I’m going to Alaska for two weeks on vacation. I won’t be twittering for votes from the cruise ship or hiking trail.  In truth, that kills me, although the vacation will be good for me.

I’m also obsessive – something else with which this contest is forcing me to grapple. I’m trying, quite intensely, to not lose focus on Real Life in exchange for putting all my energy into acquiring the Goode Life. Reminding myself that I need to be part of the information stream, not the shrill voice at one end or the other.

Finally, I’ve been shocked at how much I actually want this job. When I first went into it so late, I figured I didn’t have a shot at all. But there’s always hope, and I haven’t let go of that glimmer. I also have hope that, after all is said and done, someone will look at what I created with Rainbowgoode.com and say, “hey! We should hire her to do our social media and marketing!” Basically I’ve created a portfolio just for this position that I can maintain as long as I want, whether I get the Goode job or not.

So there you go. Obviously I’m learning a bit about myself as we go through this process, as well as a bit more about marketing (and winery marketing) in general. There’s so much more going on with this contest than just a 1 minute video.

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Visit Michelle @ http://www.wine-girl.net

Help Michelle Land Her Dream Job: http://bit.ly/reallygoodejob
Vote for Michelle and then tell all your friends!

More information at http://www.rainbowgoode.com

Not long ago I posted about the Murphy-Goode “Really Goode Job.”  Just as a refresher, Murphy-Goode Winery is offering a 6-month, $60,000 position to someone who wants to promote the winery via social media. They’ll even provide you with a rent-free home in Healdsburg.  Seeing as how I’m a wine blogger and a social media consultant, it seems amazingly up my alley. I want this job. Really bad.

In order to get this job, I created a video. I thought about embedding it below, but really, I want to drive you to the site to vote. You get a screen cap instead. So many people seemed to just sit and talk about wine. I think wine is part of the job, but understanding social media and marketing is more important. So I tried to tell a story, and I used the Wizard of Oz to do it. Of course, it’s also an excuse to dress up like Dorothy.

I also created an accompanying web site at http://www.rainbowgoode.com. It’s fun because it hosts the extended version (after all, it’s hard to tell a story in a minute) and the blooper reel. The blooper reel still makes me laugh. Dogs are fun to work with …

On the site, you can view the various ways I’m trying to market the video, trying to drive votes. I am using every bit of social media I think is relevant – from my LinkedIn groups to this blog, from Facebook to Twitter. I picked up some Google AdWords and grabbed some bit.ly URLs.  I’m amazed at the things that were available still.

I’d love to make the Top 50 folks, and hopefully, the Top 10. At the very least, maybe I’ll land a social media job of some sort from all this effort. But in order to do any of that, I need your votes.

The contest ends June 19, so vote soon and vote often!

Cheers!

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Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net

Vote for Michelle at http://bit.ly/reallygoodejob and spread the word!

http://www.wine-girl.net
http://www.rainbowgoode.com