Fresh ID » Life Online

Two New Communities Coming!

Kristi — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:47:37 +0000

I wanted to tell you real quickly about two new communities we’re forming and how you can participate if either of them are right for you.

#SMbyDesign Weekly Twitter Chat

#SMbyDesign is a Twitter chat I have long dreamed of starting. A Twitter friend named Daryl Woods and I had this discussion probably two years ago but I did not make it happen, though it keeps coming up. So today, another friend, Emily Fitzhugh who is a social media consultant and I decided to make it happen! We’re kicking off this Thursday (yes, day after tomorrow) and will do this every Thursday morning at the following times:

PST 7:00 AM
CST 9:00 AM
EST 10:00 AM
UK 3:00 PM
KUWAIT 6:00 PM
BANGALORE 8:30 PM
HONG KONG 11:00 PM

I’ve shown a few representatives from different countries here as we tried really hard to make this time work around the globe. #SMbyDesign chats will cover a few different aspects of social media design:

the actual design processes and challenges of branding and doing interesting things for clients or your company on social media platforms
great examples of social media channel design we see that is inspirational or pushes the envelope and gets us thinking about new ideas for engaging fans
interviews with designers, agencies and marketers who have done a phenomenal job of branding social media channels so we can learn from them
strategy and tactics for different platforms for those just starting out in social media (though it will help you to be somewhat savvy as many conversations will be of an advanced nature)

A lot of advice can be found online for how to market yourself on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or LinkedIn. But advice on maximizing these channels from a design and branding standpoint is not so readily available. To truly do “social media by design” it takes more than a strategy – execution of the brand being extended visually and emotionally is important and yet not talked about as much. Let’s discuss it together!

Girls/Women Who Love MLS Soccer Community

Also in the process of being formed is a social community for women like Sherry, Heather and I who love their pro soccer team here in the US: MLS pro soccer. Some great sites like http://kickette.com exist but are largely focused on soccer overseas. We noticed a missing presence of female-oriented blogs and personalities, though they exist scattered around the web and social channels… we want to bring these women together and create a safe and fun place to both learn about the sport (a lot of us don’t know the technical aspects and so some reporting goes over our heads) and to show other women that there are crazy, soccer-addicted females all around them that they can relate to. This is not so much to exclude men, as it is to be able to freely talk about things that interest us that don’t interest and usually annoy the men (player hair and fashion IS a very important topic!) Some phenomenal women around the nation are part of the founding group – you’ll get to know them after we launch. The community is open to any female of any age that loves her MLS team and watching pro soccer.

This site will be launched prior to the season opening games. If you’re interested in being notified when it launches head to our temporary site and submit your email to be notified. We will be so happy to meet you and play with you in our new community when we launch!

I hope you’ll join me in the #SMbyDesign Twitter chat on Thursdays or the soccer community if you’ve been bitten by the MLS bug like I have. If you have any questions about either group, let me know in the comments!

The Future of Twitter is Here Now!

Kristi — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:01:30 +0000

I had a bittersweet moment tonight, though ultimately it’s a victory and I’m excited to see someone do it. Two years ago, I penned a long diatribe calling for automation on Twitter of an informational (not marketing) nature, and gave several examples of what I’d like to see happen in the future. That article is here if you have an hour (joking, sort of): https://freshid.com/2010/01/information-vs-engagement-are-you-giving-people-what-they-need

Well, I’m pleased to report that airline KLM has launched @KLMFares and done exactly what I described and envisioned, with great results. If you tweet that specific handle + locations, they will return a link with ticket info for the airfare you seek, and the whole experience will take you seconds-t0-under a minute. Aaron Lee has written a great post about it, head over to his blog and read it for details: http://askaaronlee.com/automate-twitter-account

If you want to work with Fresh ID on your own Tweet-to-respond technology, contact us or tweet us now! I’m dying to experiment as I STILL think this is the wave of the future. Well done KLM!

Client Happenings

freshid — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 22:20:31 +0000

As we enjoy this beautiful fall, we thought we would take a moment and share all the great things happening with our clients this season. We are a blessed company to have the opportunity to work with some of the most generous, fun and innovative companies around. They also love their clients as much as we love ours and as you will see below, they know how to take care of their customers, fans, and patrons. We are thankful for their business and appreciate all they do!

Local KC Businesses

Trezo Vino, an Italian Bistro in Leawood, KS recently announced a new lunch special they will offer Monday – Saturday. Get one of their fabulous lunch entrees and a beverage for only $8.50. If you are looking for a great stocking stuffer gift be sure to check out their holiday gift cards. They also offer monthly wine tastings and have special events planned for the holiday season. Located in the Park Place shopping area with the only outdoor skating rink in Johnson County, Trezo Vino is a great place to enjoy a meal, cocktail or simply to take a break during the season. Associated Plastic Surgery, KC’s Cosmetic Surgery Center, is your resource for all the latest procedures, including Slim Lipo. Also known as Lazer Liposuction, this procedure is less invasive then traditional liposuction and still effective at contouring the body. For more information on this and other cosmetic procedures check out their blog. Direct mail has been very effective for Sole Patch. This local Barbershop, located in Prairie Village, has seen an increase in their business since starting their direct mail campaign. We are very excited to see their business grow. Guys, if you haven’t already be sure to check out Sole Patch for a unique experience.

Kansas City Sports

Congratulations to Sporting KC’s CJ Sapong on wining the MLS Rookie of the Year! Sapong was drafted to Sporting as the #10 pick and made his debut in their first game, March 19th. The rookie forward has had a great year with Sporting KC taking their season all the way to the Eastern Conference Final. Season starts up again March 2012.

The Chiefs are busy on and off the field. Watch your team take on the Bears, in person! Like the Chiefs on Facebook for your chance to win two round-trip tickets to Chicago, two nights hotel stay and two tickets to watch the Chiefs take on “Da Bears” December 4th. Are you the biggest Chiefs fan ever? Prove it! Enter the Ultimate Chiefs Fan Photo Contest for your chance to win a Motorola Xoom Tablet! In the spirit of football, the Chiefs are celebrating local high school football coaches. In both Kansas and Missouri, vote daily to select the coach you feel deserves the title of High School Coach of 2011. Don’t wait, voting ends November 21st!

New to Twitter

Welcome to Twitter! We are very excited that Tippin’s Pie and Summit Marketing have started to “tweet”. Award winning Tippin’s Pies are a Kansas City tradition. Their hand crafted pies can be found at any Hen House location or by ordering online! Follow them on Twitter for pie specials and coupon offers. Summit Marketing uses their M4 Marketing Process for commercial, government and non-profit clients. Follow Summit on Twitter for more information.

Ready to Launch

It’s that time… New websites for AuctionAnything, QuickieChick, PurseBlog and Spa Insight Solutions. AuctionAnything, an online software, uses their expertise to help other organizations. Find them on Facebook for tips and launch date information. Need daily quickies? Check out QuickieChick’s new tumbler and wordpress site. Laurel House shares her expertise on fashion, food, work and workouts and and life in general. You can also see her new brand proudly displayed on her Twitter and Youtube accounts. PurseBlog is your online resource for designer handbags and will be rolling out their new site within the month. This online magazine provides daily editorials about, you guessed it, designer handbags. Check out their new site for monthly giveaways! Our friends at Spa Insight Solutions also recently launched their new website just in time for the 2011 ISPA conference they attended this month. A company that is dedicated to improving the spa industry through spa consultation and strategy, we appreciate the services Spa Insights provide their clients.

Breakdown of Facebook’s big Announcements 2011

freshid — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 21:33:51 +0000

SEPTEMBER 2011 UPDATE!! And the updates keep coming! Thank you to Mashable for being quick and responsive to all the changes going on at F8 and with daily changes coming out of Facebook. This article breaks down whats been going on this week (Sept 22) Prepare Yourselves: Facebook To Be Profoundly Changed by Ben Parr There is another update! Today (September 14th 2012), Facebook Launches their “Subscribe” button. So what does that mean!? On the site, you’re going to start to notice that some users have the button at the top of their profile that says “Subscribe”. If you click it you’ll start seeing that persons/brands updates in your News Feed, just as if you were their Facebook friend. SO WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE? Unlike normal Facebook friends, when you subscribe to someone, they do not approve your request so their is no limit on how many people can subscribe to anyone. It’s a “Twitter-esk” and Google + like update. Read this article for more great information! “Facebook Launches Twitter-Like ‘Subscriptions’, Let’s You Share with Unlimited Users” via TechCrunch Today (Aug 22nd, 2011), Mashable announces that Facebook will be making massive Privacy and photo tagging changes. It’s one of the largest privacy overhauls in the companies history! It’s going to help users make it much clearer about who you are sharing pictures, status updates and locations with. Check out the article for more information “Facebook Makes Massive Privacy and Tagging Changes” via Mashable Facebook made a big announcement yesterday (July 6, 2011), and lots of people are still wondering what it’s all about. So Fresh ID is going to break it down for you! After watching the press conference and browsing the internet for more clues, and reading what others have said, I think I can sufficiently break it down for us “average joes” in the technology world. So, what was the conference all about? First off, be prepared because Zucky said that this is just the start of “Launching Season 2011″. Secondly, Mark Zuckerberg did a great job of talking about WHY and WHERE Facebook is going, giving some insight on how social networks are being used today, how they will be used in the future, and how Facebook plans on keeping up. Zuckerberg talked about the social networking trend being at an “inflection point” and that for the past 5 or so years, we’ve all talked about how social networks are used to “connect people”. He sees the next 5 years of social network activity to not just be about connections, but be about the value we receive from it. He talked about measurement, and how in the past we’ve been measuring success on these sites based on “number of users”, but Facebook wants to measure it based on the value of what people are using and getting out of the network. This is an interesting concept to me, and I definetly agree with him on this point that in the future, we are not going to be measuring number of users online, but measuring VALUE, what we are getting from online networks, searches etc. The internet holds such a vast capability to enhance our communication, knowledge and relationship skills as human beings, so I’m thrilled to know that Facebook is really working with this model and staying on top of the social evolution that has become the internet and Facebook. Zuckerberg announced that there are now over 750 million users on Facebook and everyday they share around 400 billion content (this is publically shared, not counting privatley shared goodies). This number is huge, given the fact that they announced a few months ago that they hit 500 million users! It truly is taking over the world and how people connect. Have you ever been out (say a bar) and had someone say to you “Facebook me”? It’s becoming as common, or even more common than “Call me”. We now know that people are sharing TWICE as much information today than they were the same time last year, and the Facebook team only sees it growing in the future. Ok, so what exactly was the “Big announcement”? Well there were actually three. Let me break it down.

Group Chat: This product was rolled out less than a year ago and already over 50% of users utilize this function, with an average of 7 people per group. It’s a way to organize a group of people and gives the ability to see the history of what everyone has said (which can sometimes be annoying if you get stuck on a chat you don’t want to be on, trust me I know), but in the grand scheme of things its an efficient way to communicate with larger groups of your “Friends” . So, what’s new?

NEW:

Add friends to your chat box
Even if your friend isn’t online, you can “chat” with them and it shows up in a message so they can later see it when they log in to Facebook

I really like that you can now add friends to the conversation on the chat box that’s in the right hand corner of the screen. This will be great if you’re trying to make plans and want to get others involved, and even if they’re not on Facebook at that moment, adding them allows them to see the conversation later, so that’s a cool function 2. New Chat Design: Everyday, a billion messages take place on Facebook, so redesigning it to fit more browsers is smart. It’s one of the largest chat networks online today! So what’s going to be new about this design? NEW:

Simplified “chat” tab
Takes into account different browsers and computer sizes
Ability to send messages by clicking your friends account, as seen on the right hand side bar.

I see this as just the evolution of Facebook chat and a smart, simple re-design that was necessary and won’t neccesarily make things worse, but in the end provide an easier to use chatting experience no matter what kind of computer or browers you use. 3. Video Chat: This was the “big” announcement that has had the internet buzzing for awhile. Yes, Facebook announced that they are partnering with Skype and creating Facebook Video Chat. I was a little skeptical about the new addition, but after watching it be demoed, it seems incredibly easy and something I am personally very excited for! See, you don’t need Skype to participate, you just need a Facebook account. You can talk to any of your friends (and only YOUR friends) by simply downloading and “allowing” the app. Facebook claims you can download in 20-30 seconds and chat away with whoever you’d like! This “one click connection” is really going along with Facebook’s theory about measuring the value of HOW people are using the internet and Facebook. The ability to talk to any of your friends directly from your Facebook page is very exciting, easy to use and absolutely the next “evolution” in this social networking ecosystem. NEW:

You can now push a button that says “Call” and video chat with your Facebook Friends
It’s easy to download and very user-friendly
Did y ou know you don’t HAVE to have video/microphone capabilities on your computer? Local social networking expert, Ramsey Mohsen, talked with KCTV5 News yesterday and explained that your friends/family don’t even need camera/mircorphone to use the Facebook Chat!
Only individuals can use Facebook Chat right now, not businesses…but who knows what the future holds (Hello awesome customer service!)

I’m really excited and interested to see how this Facebook chat not only effects how we are connecting and communicating with each other, but how human beings will continue to use the internet and change it’s use over the next few years. The video chat, to me, is right on scale with where social networks should be going, and I look forward to see how businesses, celebrities and even educational institutions use this in the future! Here are a few links that I used to help me wrap my head around what all Facebook rolled out yesterday. Ramsey Mohsen did a GREAT job at really laying out what the Video chat does and how easy it is to use. Check out his news interview from KCTV5.com right here: FBVideoChat The Press Conference that was done yesterday by Facebook and Skype can been seen in a few places, but I watched it here: FacebookAnnouncement Other references I found helpful: Mashable Huffington Post Forbes Have fun checking out the new features! Let us know what you think, and until Facebook makes another change, we will talk next time!

Social Media in the News

freshid — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 00:13:32 +0000

You can tell that Social Media is now officially mainstream when you read the news. This week’s headlines include a Missouri state judge issuing an injunction against a teachers social networking prohibition law, social media use during natural disasters, and Britain political leaders meeting to brainstorm on how to use social media or limit others from using social media to curb civil unrest.

Missouri Court Injunction

The Missouri story is of particular interest as my husband happens to be a Missouri teacher. With a 15-year old daughter who also happens to attend his school, we were very concerned with this new law (Senate Bill 54, section 162.069) going in to effect. There was a real possibility that he would no longer be able to be “friends” with his own child. Thankfully we have a pretty good kid, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit to keeping a watchful eye on her posts and interactions. As a softball coach, I used Facebook to keep up with my players, make sure they were staying out of trouble (which sometimes they weren’t and we were able to address it) and get insight as to how they were handling the challenges of competitive ball. I was able to help parents know when to ask questions and play a proactive role in minimizing issues before they came to a head. I know many teachers who do the same…often times a student will express stress, pain, and/or staying out til 3 a.m on Facebook but would never saying anything to their parents…to prohibit one of the most popular communication channels today from being used to facilitate teacher and student interaction just didn’t make sense. It is refreshing to see the teachers have their voice heard. The law will be delayed 180 days or until the state legislature and teachers can work out an agreement. It is important to note that only section 162.069 will be delayed…the rest of the bill, which is a good bill related to prevention of sexual abuse will go in to effect as planned.

Hurricane Irene, Earthquakes, Social Media, Oh My!

Hurricane Irene along with the east coast earthquakes are creating shakes, waves and jiggles on the social media scene this week. (corny yes I know but I couldn’t resist). Many of the articles talk about increase mentions, is SM good or bad, and citizens relying on SM during disasters. Consumerreports.org noted some very interesting facts that were brought to my attention by David Erickson (fyi…David provides a great daily email you should subscribe to if you like stats):

24% of Americans would use social tools to tell people they are safe
1 in 5 would try an online channel if they were unable to reach EMS
80% expect emergency responder to monitor social sites
One-third expect help to arrive within an hour of posting a need to a social site

You have to wonder, does our police, fire and other emergency rescue services realize these kind of expectations exist? It is somewhat scary to think that people may be requesting help when nobody is listening. The Social Media Club of Kansas City had a great breakfast a few months ago where the Johnson County Sheriff department shared with us what steps they are taking to monitor and participate in social media. We can only hope that other community emergency services are adopting similar best practices.

Britain Meets with Twitter, Facebook and Blackberry

You know you are beyond early adoption when the Queen comes knocking on your door. Obviously the Britain riots are no laughing matter and I think it is an important step by leaders to acknowledge the role social media may play in not only creating civil unrest but possibly calming it as well. There are many of my peers in this industry that may interpret the Britain conversations as an attempt to prohibit free speech. However, if there is a main channel that is causing destruction don’t we have to ask our leaders to take a responsible look and understand how that channel functions, how to minimize the risk and ultimately how to shut it down in the event that it leads to wide-scale tragedy? Many of the uprisings we have seen this year have led to freedom but we would be naive if we didn’t respect the potential for technology and new media to be just as dangerous as they are liberating. This is the kind of topic that makes for great happy hour conversations! What a crazy, wacky week …we hope you were able to experience more positive than negative and wish you the best of fun, safety and enjoyment this weekend! Cheers, Lisa

Wrapping Up the Week in Tech

freshid — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 16:28:34 +0000

There’s been a lot of buzz and happenings this week in the technology world, so I thought I’d update you on some of the newest and latest stories! This week Google+ quietly rolled out that you can now start a Google+ Hangout with a YouTube video right from YouTube. No flashy announcement from them on this, but this cool feature does allow you to watch those crazy videos together! I see a family Google+ hangout in my future, we can’t get enough of those funny videos…. Rest in peace HP’s TouchPad. This is the first victim of the IPad. HP made the announcement Thursday that they are discontinuing the manufacturing of their webOS devices meaning goodbye the HP TouchPad. “HP Killing Phone Tablet Business” article from Hufffington Post The big news that came out on Monday was that technology powerhouse Google bought Motorla Mobility (for $12.5 billion, or as Google calls it “Lunch Money”). This deal sets up Google to take on Apple in the mobile and home battle. “I think there’s an opportunity to accelerate innovation in the home business by working together with the cable and telco industry,” Google CEO Larry Page said in announcing the deal early Monday. Speaking more about Google, they announced that they are adding another layer to their Google Maps, allowing you to instantly see current temperatures! I love this because as a traveler, my number 1 stress is what to wear and pack, so this new ability is right up my alley…. To prove that the dictionary is still “relevant” it’s added a few new words that have seemed to creeped into the human language. “ReTweet”, “Cyber-Bullying”, “Sexting” , “Mankini” and “Jeggings” are now officially words with definitions. What has the human language evolved into…. Here is the Story: Oxford-English Dictionary From “Tom’s Guide” Hope these 5 stories help you feel up to date with all that’s gone on this week!

We Are All Paid to Tweet… Sorta

Kristi — Sat, 07 May 2011 14:48:28 +0000

People often think I am tweeting for dollars, because I gush enthusiastically over a brand name or a particular thing on Twitter. If some people are saying that, and asking me directly about it, the likelihood of many other people thinking it but never saying it is high. So I wanted to clear up any misconceptions and also share with you our philosophy at Fresh ID on being paid to tweet (or Facebook, or whatever) and the principles we use with clients, for the curious. At any given point in time, seeing a tweet like this from me is not rare: I was reading something online, possibly Girl’s Guide to Paris or some such blog, and I found that post. You’ll note it is to the Nine West tumblr. I am going to Paris, love France, love pink and red together and find that shoe next to the Eiffel Tower DELICIOUS, hence… I shared it. I was not paid by Nine West to promote anything, nor have they ever even contacted me, but if they want to send me a pair of those shoes I wouldn’t turn them down! That’s just one recent example. I have many. On any given day I may be mentioning my standard brands Apple, Nike or Starbucks, though just this morning I became turned off by Starbucks food entirely, when I read and shared Is Starbucks Any Healthier than McDonald’s? (Short answer, no. Long answer… ewww, faux ingredients everywhere!) The funny thing about people assuming – and they are making a totally false assumption – about me being paid to tweet is that no one has ever even offered that to me. No one of note, at least, like a major brand. Some people have solicited me in the past to promote them and I declined, as it is not something I intend to ever do. I told a friend and client the other day, as we discussed my love for Twitter, that I wanted to follow a million people and wanted a million followers. He asked if I would tweet for dollars then, and was a little surprised when I said I never would. The reason I like to follow so many people is for ready sources of information, knowledge and companionship. I gain far more attempting to have more genuine online relationships in a share-and-exchange type of environment than I would if I amassed followers so I could pimp stuff out to them mindlessly, while counting my dollars in the bank. That said, I realize I DO promote things and people and activities. Some of them a lot. Some of them, despite complaints (I am aware of the soccer murmerings behind my back. It amuses me, because people could just unfollow me.) Some things I routinely promote & why: Olivier Blanchard, aka @thebrandbuilder – I adore him. He rocks. He has a Big Brain but not a Big Head. (He’s delightfully French!!) He is one of my best friends, which he may not even realize. I tell him (almost) everything. We help him with his sites and digital assets and in doing so often point people to them, to him, and to his various activities. (He keeps saying I could be his agent, but he has not paid me to do so. Perhaps I HAVE missed my calling as an agent… another delightful friend called me a “cheerleader to the stars” recently.) Gary Vaynerchuk – He inspires and motivates me personally, with his views on business and social media and going for things with nothing but the sweat on your brow and determination. He has never paid me for anything, but I remember the first magical DM I ever got from him! (It said “agreed on pink!” about a tshirt color. I loooove my Garyvee.) Kidsongs – We helped them get going a little bit on Twitter when doing some work for them, and I tweeted as the beloved blue Billy Biggle character some, to show them how they could interact with folks on Twitter as well as promote their merchandise. I know that a lot of friends have small children, and their stuff is well suited to occupy kids for hours on end, so when I see they are having a promotion of some type I often try to share that on Twitter and Facebook so those people might learn about them, even though they are not products I use myself. Meers Agency – We helped them build up the agency Twitter handle last year and disclosed our names along with others who were tweeting in the bio of the Twitter profile. It wasn’t a secret that we tweeted right along with them, but then we backed out gradually and now don’t tweet from their account. Cabot Cares – We helped the Cabot team get setup on various social media platforms when we set up a donor campaign for them online, and started out doing the tweeting and showing them how to engage, then as is our custom, gradually backed out and let them manage the account on their own. Sporting KC - My beloved soccer team! We don’t tweet from their accounts but yes, I promote them constantly because somehow, as they have become our client and we work more closely with them, I have caught the soccer fever for the team and I am interested in all their activities. I stay home Saturday nights to watch them play on KSMO, bugged Lisa to death to buy season tickets (Section 107, over the tunnel!!), and though we are being paid regularly for web design and software design, we are NOT being paid to tweet – they just can’t stop me. There is a time when your genuine excitement over something surpasses a client relationship if it resonates with you, and that is what has happened with me & SKC. Kansas City Chiefs – You will see us refer to them more and more as they are a client and we are working on social media ideas for the coming season with them, that involve sponsors and hopefully fun things to do. We are not paid to promote them from OUR accounts, but we will because we are excited about what is going on with these different campaign ideas. We also know that given we have a lot of Chiefs fans who follow us, we want to share things going on with the team when we catch them, just to keep people informed. I’m sure there are many others but this is representative of client scenarios. At Fresh ID, we have a number of social media-related clients. They hire us to both come up with ideas for campaigns AND to execute them digitally, with sites, apps, landing pages, email marketing designs or live event pages. In the case of live events, we usually do a lot of promotion from our accounts because we want people to attend the event. We sponsor some events, like LikeMinds, so we have a vested interest in promoting it, as it showcases our Intefy platform. (And they always have awesome events!) We are watching these events and usually pretty excited about it all, so the tweets we send out are a mix of natural enthusiasm and support for our client, but NONE of them are planned, paid tweets. I realize this is probably a gray area a lot of people would debate endlessly, but this is our reality:

We don’t take cash to tweet
Tweeting for promotion is not in our contracts
We are indirectly paid, via client retainers to do other things, to help spread the word… we usually OFFER this or it is unmentioned, rather than being ASKED for it, because we are all active, fluent social media users it is a natural course of business for us
We sometimes feel something for a particular project or client that causes us as individuals to talk about it more than other things (our true personalities take over, in other words, since we aren’t tweeting automatons)
We do tweet for clients as part of a Getting Started package that we do, but we do NOT do this long-term as we can’t do it meaningfully enough, not being with their company all day long. Our standard is to get them talking online more than we are, within about 3 months and then we stop tweeting, facebooking, etc. from their accounts.
We encourage using social platforms as customer service outlets MORE than for marketing, but the reality is some clients or prospects want to add Twitter for marketing only and don’t use it like we do personally for real engagement, which we can’t control
The exception is live event coverage: sometimes we will tweet from a client account during a live online event because they are too busy to do it, as they are putting on the event
I can’t speak for other members of our team, but I (Kristi) will personally not take cash to tweet and I would highly frown upon anyone else in our company doing so – it’s a matter of principle as it changes the dynamic of everything you’re doing online

We have lucked out, regarding the clients we’ve had and social promoting we have done. We haven’t had someone with a toilet plunger hire us to do a campaign wherein we felt we should talk about them out of client loyalty and a genuine desire to help them succeed, but it would be beyond odd to do so, given it’s about something obviously not interesting to us. I don’t love celebrity endorsements for this reason. They seem, about 60% of the time, not to be totally genuine. Does Kim Kardashian actually wear her bottom-plumping Sketchers around?? I’ve never seen them on her in non-promotional pictures, so I don’t think so. She just took some cash to promote them, regardless of any real excitement about them. A lot of people think that is great… and I certainly would like to make a lot more money. But I am not a “celebrity” who sits around all day being famous for tweeting about random merchandise. I have a real job IN the social media, design, software related industries and the things I come across or am introduced to via clients in a given week are the things I am talking about with my social media friends. The beauty of Twitter is, if you don’t like a person’s style or excessive soccer tweeting, you can opt-out and unfollow them at any time. If you don’t unfollow someone, but are kvetching about them, WHY are you not unfollowing them? Are you hedging a bet you may want them, and their perceived influence to promote you or your interests someday? That could be one reason. Or maybe you like the links they tweet that suit your interests, but you wish they would tamp down their personality? That’s a bit unfair. We all use social media channels for our own personal reasons (if a personal account), not for an audience we are trying to please. We are all paid to tweet if we hover around the creative services, advertising & social media-focused industries. We all promote something… our bosses, our company, our partners, the games we love to play, the things we eat, drink and do, the places we go, the software we use, our friend’s books and accomplishments, people we admire, conferences we want to attend, etc. Even if you’re not in this business, don’t you promote hobbies, your kids teams at school, your alumni college, or something, if you really examine your updates? Some of us are just more active twitterers – I have pumped out an appalling 64,000+ tweets since I joined in March 26, 2008. So our “noise” is a little more loud than others. If you have any specific questions regarding Fresh ID, our policies and procedures around using social media for ourselves or clients, or any comments about our practices, please feel free to leave them below or contact us privately by email! See you on Twitter.

Fresh ID 1st Quarter(ish) 2011 Recap

freshid — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:55:05 +0000

We’ve got some really fun and exciting things going on at Fresh ID, and wanted to share what’s happening so you’ll know why we’ve not been blogging as much lately… though that’s not a surprise to any of our friends as we are very flaky about blogging, admittedly. The first part of this year we’ve been doing a lot with Sporting Club, who own Sporting Kansas City, the MLS pro soccer team, and the work we’re doing with them hit our sweet spot of services, plus has turned us into rabid soccer fans (well, one of us at least) so this has been a lot of fun.

Did you hear about LIVESTRONG Sporting Park here in Kansas City when we launched the announcement live online? This stadium and event center is a one-of-a-kind place that gives to LIVESTRONG with every ticket purchase! How amazing is that? Any time you attend an event (sporting, music or party) at LIVESTRONG Sporting Park you will be supporting their globally recognized efforts to fight cancer, with the bulk of money raised coming back into the Kansas City area to help support those affected by cancer here. Fresh ID had a hand in introducing the world to this innovative concept where charity-meets-community events. We designed the landing page with social interactivity and remotely managed it during the press conference to announce the partnership between LIVESTRONG and Sporting Club, and we even got to see Lance Armstrong on air… he came out to KC reveal the big news!

Did you hear about Chad Ochocinco coming to try out for Sporting KC? Oh yeah, we got to live stream his try out for the world to watch too! There was lots of buzz in KC regarding the famous football player from the Cincinnati Bengals, Chad Ochocinco, trying out for Sporting KC and re-living his childhood dream of being a soccer player. At www.Sporting85.com, the world got to watch Chad’s tryout and comment about it all at once. Kristi happens to be a huge Ochocinco fan, so this odd connection has made her even more of a SportingKC fan (and will result in pictures of Ochocinco hanging in our new office wearing soccer stuff. Strange times!) Neither of these projects would have been pulled off in time without our development partner Wirevibe… we had two weeks from start-to-finish in the stadium launch, and one week or less for Ochocinco. Wirevibe is our own personal “GE” company – they bring good things to life!!! With all this soccer talk going around in the office, the Fresh ID girls got into the action by getting season tickets to Sporting KC games and are looking forward to cheering on our boys on June 9^th! We are becoming quite the “soccer-junkies” and are very excited for the season… Kristi Colvin has even become quite the “expert” on soccer and has dedicated her Saturday’s to watching their games (and we all know how happy that makes Lisa Qualls, the resident sports-fanatic). After the successful production of the LiveStrong Sporting Park announcement and Chad Ochocinco try out event, Fresh ID is proud to announce that we will be developing, designing and working on the LiveStrong Sporting Park stadium website AND the Sporting KC Membership site! Two exciting projects coming from forming a solid partnership and proving what we can do. We’ve also been asked to do a small site for their software team… and of course all of this will be done prior to the stadium opening. If we are a weary-eyed when you see us, this is why. The partnership (or we like to refer to it as a friendship) that we have formed with Sporting Club and Sporting KC has tested us here at Fresh ID, in a good way. Creating a team atmosphere that works cohesively in a high stress environment with projects that have short timelines, has been a great opportunity for us to really bond and become the well-oiled machine we call Fresh ID. Every company experiences change and “busy times”. Managing those times and creating a team that is functioning, professional and gets the job done is important to the business success. With the events we’ve had the opportunity to produce with our friends at Sporting KC, we’ve been tested to the max but have come out on top, both as a team and as individuals. That’s what’s great about forming partnerships, like we did with Sporting KC and Sporting Club, and not knowing where they were going, because we took it to a place of productivity and opportunities, beyond our wildest imagination! Despite all this soccer business going on, we do have other projects that we’re excited to work on also. We are happy to tell you we have recently signed an agreement with THE Kansas City Chiefs to do so fun social media-related activities for them each month. The way we see it, we can do futbol half the year, and football the other half of the year. (BIG smiles!!!) We are just getting to know the Chiefs and start on some things for them, so more about that will be coming in the next few months. And getting back to our REAL roots and personalities, we are working on a network of sites and a new parent site for the PurseBlog Network. Whew!!! Shoes and purses and celebrity attire are sorely needed to combat all this athletic stuff, when 3 out of the 4 girls have on ruffles or bows nearly every day at work. (Lisa even pops out some ruffles and bows sometimes!!!) PurseBlog owners Megs & Vlad have been the BEST clients to work with – so easygoing and fun, and their sites contain a wealth of inspirational accessory advice and ideas. We can’t wait to get the new look finished and up and running – we’ve designed some neat things to connect the network of sites together that we can’t wait to see developed. Our partners at Wirevibe have their work cut out for them but we know they’re up to the task! We have a number of other things going on – some social media audits and social media onramping for people, and leads for some neat projects we are hoping to close the next couple of weeks. This is our first year ever to have number goals for the quarter and bonuses for the staff associated with making our numbers, and we are so happy to report we made our number the first quarter and gave modest bonuses. Yay! We almost feel like a real company, though corporate monkey antics are severely frowned upon in this establishment (snicker.) We also have two exciting announcements, one which must be kept vague for another month or two as it can’t be made public, and one which became public today. Well, three announcements actually. The first, vague bit of news, is that Lisa and Kristi have invited a third person to be a partner in our agency. He will begin in June as our new Chief Technology Officer, despite his lack of frequent tweeting (we’ll work on that.) They have known him a long time, and are so excited and grateful to bring him in as a partner as our company has needed this gap filled for some time, given nearly everything we do has a development component. He will also be happy to know that we will make a masculine version of our business cards, with photography provided by our amazing commercial photog Zach Cobb! Something that was announced this morning has blown us all away… Lisa and Kristi are going to Paris in June!! A wonderful conference that we sponsor called Like Minds has invited them to speak and is bringing them over the pond to Kristi’s true City of Dreams. There aren’t many words to describe how excited they both are for this opportunity and the conference topic itself, Culture+Tech, is what is driving Fresh ID forward everyday, so the fit is perfect. Kristi has a message for Scott Gould, LikeMinds founder: “Thank you so much for your support of our mission and for making a girl’s dreams come true!” Our third, and final announcement, is that we have outgrown our wonderful office space at Meers Advertising. Sam Meers has been an amazing friend, landlord, business partner and client and we honestly feel his support and help in 2010 helped us achieve a good footing going into this year. Forever grateful. We have not yet finalized lease plans on the new space, but will post pics and things about it as soon as we do. It is only a few blocks away from the Meers building, and Lisa arranged visitation rights for Boulder Meers to come to our office some too, so that Kristi and Boulder will not be devastated by this move. (Kristi is referring to it as “partial custody” – we’ll see how this goes! LOL!) So this is our first quarter recap, the first of, well, four this year. Crossing our fingers that the second quarter will yield half as much excitement and entertainment as the first one has. Have a splendid Tuesday – make something good happen!

Fresh ALERT: Facebook Changes Business Page Design

freshid — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 00:55:19 +0000

Update: We have confirmed the migration date is March 10th vs. March 1st. We have also confirmed that the custom tab width is NOT changing and will remain at 520 pixels. Our friends over at Facebook have once again “surprised us” with changes to Page design. To be fair, they had communicated a few months ago that Pages would at some point change to be consistent with the personal profile design changes they implemented in December, 2010. Unfortunately, not everything was clearly explained and in some cases what they said a few months ago is no longer accurate. These new changes will impact how Pages are designed and managed so we wanted to make sure our clients and friends were in the know. Facebook has started a FAQ list for your reference. A very helpful article we found thanks to our friend Laura Watkins is over at Inside Facebook. Here are the resources we are reviewing that Facebook has provided: Pages manual, Change benefits , Pages Resource Center. You can elect to upgrade to the new design now through March 10th, 2011. On March 10th, all Pages will automatically change to the new design.

The Good….

Post as business

A Page administrator can now log-in to Facebook as their business page and therefore post/comment/interact as their Page vs. your personal profile. In the past, you were only allowed to comment as your business on your branded Page. As an example…I’m a business page administrator for Pepsi. I see all kinds of other people talking about Pepsi on their personal walls or on other business/fan pages. I want to respond to those posts and comments as Pepsi not as Lisa Nicholson Qualls. Up til now I didn’t have an option to respond as Pepsi except on the Pepsi Page wall. Now, I can respond all over Facebook as Pepsi. This feature also allows me to “like” pages as my Page instead of my personal profile. If I happen to manage multiple Pages this allows me to be logged in as one Page and “like”, “post” and view “insights” for just that business. If I want to switch to operating as a different Page, I can simply go to my account settings, select “use Facebook as a Page” and change to the page I need. Prior to this change, I had to “like” pages through my personal account leaving my news feed overwhelmed with updates.

Notifications

Page administrators can now turn on email alerts to help them manage their Pages. In the past I was limited with getting alerts for only my personal profile…now I can set up my settings to have alerts sent for each Page I administer.

Wall Filter

The Page administrator can choose to have Page posts only displayed OR they can show Everyone’s posts based on Facebook’s algorithm to select most relevant information. Facebook states that relevancy will be determined by the post’s geographic and language nature, the timeliness of the post and volume of likes and comments a post has received. The most relevant posts will remain at the top of your page until something more relevant is posted.

The OK….

iFrame vs. FBML Custom Tabs/Applications

A growing trend on Facebook is for businesses to have “custom” tabs design and developed to better captivate and engage Page visitors. These “custom” tabs had to be developed using “FBML” code which had its own good and bad but was something you got used to if you were doing any FB customization at all. FB has now announced that they now support iFrame coding which in many ways should make custom tab and application development a bit easier. However, instead of giving developers an either/or option they are REQUIRING all custom development be done in iFrame as early as March 11, 2011. What has us uneasy is Facebook is “strongly encouraging” all existing FBML tabs be converted to iFrame tabs ASAP. We speculate this could become a requirement by Facebook in an effort to get rid of FBML all together as early as this summer.

The “ugh”…

New Layout

For those of you who have gotten used to and like the personal page layout changes implemented in December then you may be ok with the new layout. We weren’t fans of the layout changes in December and still aren’t fans today. Moving the tabs from the top page navigation to the left side bar makes them hard to see and possibly easily forgotten. Many companies and non-profits have gone to great strides to personalize these tabs to provide their customers, visitors and community members rich information, media, and interaction opportunities. By minimizing the tab visibility, it will be less likely that page visitors will click around as much as they would if the tabs were on the top of the page. We will be keeping a close eye on page analytics/insights to see if and how traffic on the page changes with the new layout. Pictures Lastly, since tabs have now been moved to the left sidebar, Facebook now has pictures posted on the top of the page…just like our personal pages have been since December. Some of our business pages did not have many pictures loaded as we integrated in Flickr and/or used video. Therefore, when we took a tour of what the new page would look like there were only profile pics displayed or empty thumbnails. We have also noticed that the thumbnail views don’t always scale appropriately cutting off pictures in the wrong place. The good news is you can easily hide pictures from being displayed on the wall. On the “ugh” end, this new feature will require some work to make sure pictures are loaded, that they scale correctly in the thumbnail and that as new pictures are added that they go through an evaluation process to make sure they look “good” on the home page.

What we tell our clients…

Obviously changes are going to have to be considered and implemented. We encourage at least 10 quality pictures that represent your brand, products/services, customers and/or employees be uploaded and tagged to your page. All pictures need to be tested for thumbnail scaling for wall display with those not passing the test being selected as “hidden.” You may also want to considering converting your FBML custom tabs to an iFrame solution. If pictures do not exist then this may be a good time for a photo shoot. We are offering discounted hourly rates to ease the burden of these required changes to previous project-based clients. For our retainer clients we are including any necessary FB updates as part of their monthly package. We know change can be challenging and want to make sure we do what we can to make it as seamless and painless as possible. It doesn’t matter to us if you are a past, current or soon to be client, if we can help answer any questions regarding these changes please give us a call at 816.359.3554, leave us a comment or catch us on Twitter at @freshid. Be who you are and learn to be better, Lisa

Fresh ALERT: New Etsy Feature Will Let Users Find You by Email by Default

Kristi — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 16:01:47 +0000

This post could be titled “The Almost Perfect Way to Make a Security Change on a Social Site” This morning I got the following email from Etsy. We sell some templates there so this is in reference to a new site feature that will go live in the next few weeks:

Now, upon first reading this, you might think “Awesome – Etsy actually notifies their sellers IN ADVANCE about a feature that might affect their privacy, security, and usage of the website. What a marvelous approach.” But look closer… yes, they are telling us in advance. Yes, there will be an opt-out checkbox AFTER the feature goes live. Sigh….. so close, yet soooooooo far away from doing what is ultimately in the user’s best interest here. Etsy should have:

Planned to make the feature OPT-IN only
Sent the great email above, describing what’s happening and how to opt-in
Altered their privacy policy to reflect the changes, as they have done
Set all users up to NOT automatically be using the new feature (disabled by default)
Done whatever marketing is necessary to convey the benefits of the feature after launching it

But they didn’t, and just like Facebook’s new privacy setting automatically enabled for all users the other day, they have not done the right thing by the population at large. When will these companies ever learn the boundaries of user experience, security and privacy???