Here's a pot-pourri of what's making us happy at the moment. In no particular order (except alphabetical) ...
Conversocial - a moderation tool for Facebook UGC from iPlatform. We use it very happily, and it's a tool we would recommend to all clients.
Crisp Netmoderator- NetModerator chat analysis engine and filtering tool provides online communities and services with the opportunity to optimise the effectiveness, efficiency and accuracy of their moderation teams
Google Apps - Google Docs, Google Video and Google Sites complement traditional office software to make teamwork easier.
QuickBase - QuickBase can be used for some or all of your information-driven software needs. It officially rocks.
Quora - because we like to know the answer to everything. Or know someone who does.
Reality Digital - Social networking solutions, user generated content platform, video sharing software for social media marketing and interactive advertising campaigns.
Snapbird - does the impossible. Searches thru anyone's tweets, favourites, direct messages you sent or received to find that elusive one you've lost. Superb.
Tweetriver- Aggregate and curate tweets with custom searches on the micro-blogging site Twitter. Then show them live on your site or at your event. But you've got to get it moderated, ahem!
Yammer – a useful little micro-microblogging service. We use it as our virtual water-cooler area ...
Hyperwords - Select webpage text to query - including references, translations and conversions.
A social media links list curated from a (mostly) US perspective. Below are just a few of the week's Social Media reads that captured our imagination. Enjoy!
Last week's links list included an infographic that makes SOPA simple to understand. This week, Techdirt and Joshua Kopstein of Motherboard.tv want Congress to be ready for 2012, as the hearings on SOPA make it clear that thinking the internet is a "series of tubes" is no longer cute and is, in fact, a somewhat dangerous state of ignorance with consequences for us all. Facebook Timeline is Here! Facebook Timeline finally arrives world-wide and on mobile with a special "enable now" 7 day preview time period before an automatic upgrade. Guides are being published fast and furious, but we found Mashable's and PCWorld's two of the most useful. Facebook has its own austere timeline here, with the last update from July 2011. Time to give that a refresh, eh, Facebook?
What Really Gets Noticed on Your Facebook Page Mashable gives us a fascinating study on involving eye-tracking and representative big brand social media page layouts and graphics, revealing what viewers are really noticing. The takeaway? For Facebook, it's all about the wall and photos (the middle swath,) unless your brand is Victoria's Secret. We probably all knew that without a study, though.
KLM: "Social Seating" = In-flight Dating? Dutch airline KLM always entertains us with their fusion between social media and physical space (the KLM crowdsourced plane! Personalized gifts from duty-free!). This week, rumors surface about "social seating," where choosing a seat means also choosing a compatible seatmate. We are eagerly anticipating 2013, when reports of the first KLM babies might be heard. "Delft Blue" would make a lovely name for a girl, no?
All Facebook has just reported that Facebook is testing another tool for page administrators that at first glance looks like a reinstatement of something previously available: the ability to exchange private messages with members of the social network, with a couple of twists not available previously.
It appears to be on a limited test and I've not yet got access to test it and grab shots, so I'm reproducing All Facebook's article in full, with thanks.
The social network had recently revoked page admins’ ability to send messages to individual users; this newest test feature enables pages to receive messages from individual users via a link on the page. The button also enables people who aren’t yet fans to send messages to the admin, which hadn’t been available in the previous incarnation of messaging for pages. We Are Social Singapore and Wise both reported on the new feature, with the latter saying it has surfaced in Singapore and the former also reporting that private messaging for pages is not available everywhere yet. For those pages included in the test, a new message button now appears at the top of the page. Clicking on it produces a dialog box that Facebook users — whether they are fans of the page or not — can access to send private messages to the page administrators.
Administrators will receive notifications under their admin menu that they have received private messages. Clicking on the link provides an overview of private messages they have received, after which they can reply privately, or respond to users’ comments on their walls. The notifications will appear with other general notifications for those navigating Facebook as a page.
The messages are formatted in the same way that messages between Facebook users appear and, from the user’s perspective, appear identical to messages they would receive from their friends.
We Are Social Singapore reported that there doesn’t seem to be a way for page administrators to initiate contact, other than by responding to users’ wall posts. The blog added that real-time chat is not supported, although that could occur at some point in the future.
So it seems as though community managers are at least half way towards the off-page communication with fans that they so badly need in order to perform customer service functions properly. However, there is of course a very real danger of spamming brand pages.
eModeration Head of Community, Blaise Grimes-Viort: "Having removed the forum tool [discussion tab] from brand pages, Facebook has provided admins with some form of customer service tool which will be welcome. One does wonder whether it will become hijacked by spam and other redundant or abusive messages, but certainly the ability to take some conversations private is very welcome."
Hmm. To counter spam, is it possible to block a user from messaging a page? It's also not clear to me from whether it will be possible to message someone who has commented (versus posted) on your page. If anyone has this facility it would be great if you could test it and let us know below. Thanks!
Community Management is a relatively new skill, increasingly in demand as online communities grow and mature and brand see the value in developing online communities. But because it is so recent as yet there's been a lack of training or standardisation in the industry, and it has been hard for employers to select candidates, for community leaders to train their staff, and for community managers themselves to feel confident that they have the skills required. Which is why eModeration was very pleased to be approached as an expert practitioner by WOMMA and The Community Roundtable to author and deliver a module of their new Community Management Certificate program.
The Community Management Certificate program is designed for individuals of all levels who work on social and community initiatives. The program covers both contextual topics like market trends, strategy, and culture as well as specific tactical responsibilities related to content development, moderation, enforcing policies, and measuring success.
The Community Management Certificate Program is divided into three modules based on three distinct job functions within community management:
Community Specialist
Community Manager
Community Strategist
For more details of the modules and to register, see the outline and the syllabus on the WOMMA site.
The course content and structure was developed after consultation with members of the The Community Roundtable, who felt it would be of real value:
Certification can show the difference between those professionals with experience and those who are “faking it until they make it”
More and more employees are taking on community responsibilities and need to understand the fundamentals but our members are stretched too thin to provide this training themselves.
Members are struggling to make hires in this space and want a way to ensure that new hires have a core understanding of the role.
Many hiring organizations are just beginning to understand the different community roles themselves and want to ensure they have a complete understanding of all of the various
The course will be delivered online in a series of webinars, starting in January 2012. For more information and to book a place, click here.
A social media links list curated from a (mostly) US perspective. Below are just a few of the week's Social Media reads that captured our imagination. Enjoy!
How to Tell Athletes Tweets are Forever
This video from Pro Sports Communication on convincing athletes that using Twitter is part of an overall business brand strategy was a surprisingly good time. We watched it more than once, and we're really more Sunday footballers than athlete CEOs.
SOPA Made Simple Infographic
US House of Representatives legislators are scheduled to debate changes to SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act, aka H.R. 3261,) a bill that if passed would have broad consequences for the internet as we know it and social media in particular. Funnyman Stephan Colbert gives us his interpretation of the bill here, but we prefer this (anti-stanced) infographic published by BusinessInsurance.org that presents all the key info in a way that is easy to grasp.
You’ve had our top 10 social media fails of 2011: now for something slightly different. We wanted to highlight the best examples of brands using social media; give the gongs so to speak and learn from the way these cases were handled.
Not necessarily the biggest brands, or the most successful campaigns, just things that have made us go all weak at our collective social media knees at various points throughout the year.
1. Red Cross confiscates the keys
Who can forget the brilliant example of what can happen when you get ever-so-slightly tipsy and update your employer’s official twitter account instead of your own? Reminding us that social media specialists are human too, Gloria Huang of the Red Cross accidentally sent this now infamous tweet from the @RedCross Twitter account (she later cited her unfamiliarity with HootSuite):
Social media being what it is, the tweet, which was live for around an hour, was retweeted around the world, eventually prompting someone to wake up Red Cross social media director Wendy Harman in the middle of the night.
She deleted the tweet and sent the fantastic response:
But that’s not all. Beer brand Dogfish caught the tweet during the teams social media check, retweeted it and encouraged others to do likewise. Then began a mutually beneficial social marketing bonanza whereby local bars started to offer patrons a free beer if they could prove that they’d donated blood to the Red Cross that day, the hashtag #gettngslizzerd became a trending topic and others donated money to the Red Cross. Even @hootsuite got in on the action and donated $100.
The Red Cross took what could have been a slightly embarrassing social media slip up and by using humour created a wave of sympathetic attention for everyone involved. No one was fired for simply being human and they even managed to raise some money in the process. Wendy Harman said it best when she told dogfish blogger Mariah Calagione: "Listen, we deal with huge, natural disasters all the time... this really isn't that huge."
2. JetBlue’s Real-Time Recovery Team
Blogger Dave Raffaele highlighted the great way that JetBlue used Twitter for customer service back in 2009 and the brand continues to be a social media star. It offers Twitter-only airfares and a Facebook app that awards TrueBlue members with points whenever they check-in at official locations, and even sneakily tests its potential new advertising agencies’ level of social media know-how. JetBlue just get social media.
JetBlue even uses social media well during a crisis – as it displayed during the November grounding of flights which led to passengers stranded on tarmac-bound planes for seven hours. The brand understands that to use social media, and use it well, transparency and honesty is a must.
3. Disney: social media marketing powerhouse
Disney makes a huge effort with social media platforms and reaps the rewards, whether it’s incorporating more social elements into its virtual world Club Penguin, or launching a social hub (Disney Reads) based on news around its publishing arm.
Just look at the amazing amount of effort that goes into the Muppets’ social media presences. Ahead of the release of the new Muppets film the Disney social media machine went into overdrive with an official Twitter account run by the hecklers Statler and Waldorf, character pages on Facebook (as well as the Muppets Fan-A-Thon), and a brilliant Google+ Page. There were even movie trailer parodies on YouTube.
As a result of the time and effort it puts into social media, Disney has a thriving community of digital advocates and can keep characters in people’s minds and hearts well in advance of introducing (or often re-introducing) a product for sale.
4. Domino’s: honesty and free food – truly who could ask for more?
2011 saw Domino’s tap straight into the essence of social media when it streamed its Twitter feed onto a billboard in Times Square. Transparency should be the foundation on which all social media strategies are built, and a stunt like this – if managed and, dare we say it, moderated well – can do amazing things for a brand’s image and reputation.
Well, we say that transparency is all important, but free food helps almost as much. Or in the case of free garlic bread maybe more. Domino’s clearly knows its audience, and during its June launch of the new Stuffed Crust Pizza it used Facebook Deals to offer free garlic bread to all UK shoppers that checked-in to a Domino’s restaurant and ordered a Stuffed Crust. Yum. (And with Domino’s stating that its ROI from Facebook is an impressive £2.5m from 100,000 actively engaging fans and you can see why it makes the effort to engage.)
5. Old Spice Guy vs Fabio: who da man?
Old Spice Guy was one of the biggest social media success stories of 2010, becoming the most viewed channel in July 2010 and increasing the sales of body wash by over 100 per cent in the same month. That’s powerful stuff.
The campaign came back with a twist in 2011 as model and romance book icon Fabio tried to steal the Old Spice Guy crown from the original holder of said title. Again, the YouTube channels received huge numbers of views, and the campaign had 64,000 mentions on Twitter alone.
Okay, the 2011 campaign may not have reached the giddy heights of its predecessor, but the YouTube videos did bag 17 million views in a week. As for ROI? Well, it seems that sales didn’t have the immediate uplift seen the year before, but it clearly engaged people online for a second time – which is, after all, the main aim of a social media campaign.
We’re happy to keep this list updated – have you got any social media heroes from 2011?Read more...
Some brands just seem to ‘get’ social media more than others. Understanding the motivation for people to follow, Link to and engage with your brand is at the core of this. There has to be something unique about the experience. Perhaps Liking a brand’s Facebook page is the only way to receive a certain discount, or to read exclusive content. Maybe people visit a brand’s social media page because it’s the best way to get a problem resolved, or to leave feedback.
But sometimes brands don’t do this. Sometimes brands get things wrong.
Avoidable mistakes often come in the form of poor planning or execution. People don’t want brands to be on social media just for the sake of it. It’s annoying to tweet a brand for help and receive no reply. It makes the brand look rude, unresponsive and as if it doesn’t know the first thing about social media. It’s not enough for a brand to have a social media profile: someone has to use it to initiate a dialogue.
Then there are the brands who want to make a social media statement. The ones that want to be the cool kids. The ones that want to make us laugh or to shock us. The trouble is it takes an awful lot of skill (and a good dose of common sense and luck) to entertain some while not offending and alienating others.
On the side which is harder to avoid, you have the mistakes created by human error. Remember, the brand doesn’t Tweet or post a Facebook update. People do. And people make mistakes. But there are preventative measures brands can take to lessen the likelihood of these mistakes happening. And if they do happen, there are also ways that brands can remedy the problem before it becomes a crisis.
1. Kenneth Cole #Cairo
2011 has seen some brands excel on social media, and others hit the rocks. Our notable social media fails would have to start with the Kenneth Cole #Cairo debacle back in February, where the designer decided to post a promotional tweet about his spring collection – on the back of the burgeoning Egyptian revolution. Predictably, the reaction was not to instantly run out and buy jeans. Around an hour and a half later (an eternity in social media time) a new tweet was up on the account apologising for any offense. A fake Twitter account was set up @KennethColePR which mocked the brand by highlighting how it could have exploited other major events.
2. Chrysler
March served up two choice slices of #fail pie. Firstly, Chrysler said that its Twitter account had been hacked when an obscene and insulting tweet appeared on the brands account. However it was soon revealed that someone from the brand’s social media agency (now ex-agency) posted the update by mistaken, thinking it was from his personal account.
3. Go Daddy
March was also the month when Bob Parsons, the CEO of Internet hosting company, Go Daddy posted videos of himself killing an elephant and a leopard. The result? Thousands of customers headed to rival hosting providers, and the CEO being names the “Scummiest CEO of the Year” by PETA. Far from apologising for his actions, Parsons decided to preach to the outraged audience instead. Let’s just say it didn’t go down very well…
4. Weinergate
May brought Weinergate into the world. While no one could accuse Congressman Weiner of being a big brand, he did have a political brand and reputation to protect – and he failed. The Congressman tried to direct message a photo of his crotch to a 21 year old female follower. Unfortunately for him he got it wrong and all of his Twitter followers received the sleazy shot. After claiming that his account had been hacked he eventually had to issue a Mea culpa, but only resigned after a few weeks of media, and social media, frenzy.
5. Entenmann
In July we returned to the land of crass hashtag usage by brands. Donut firm Entenmann (or, should I say their social media agency) used the #notguilty hashtag to promote its fried goodies – at the same time it was being used to tweet news about the Casey Anthony verdict. It seems the agency was randomly pulling trending hashtags to use with tweets.
7. CBSNews.com
September and CBSNews.com discovered exactly what it was like to be damaged by association when the host of a social media web show it had been hosting called What’s Trending mistakenly reported that Steve Jobs had died. The story quickly made its way around the internet and started to be attributed to CBSNews.com, rather than the show. The mistake, reportedly made by a junior staffer at the show, resulted in CBSNews severing all ties with the programme.
8. Ragu
Sauce makers Ragu decided September was the month to annoy the daddy bloggers of the world when it used its Twitter account to churn out spam tweets directing them to view a video of mommy bloggers insulting their culinary skills. What appears to have been an attempt to start a debate, turned into a social media firestorm directed at the brand.
9. Ashton Kutcher
In November, the one and only Ashton Kutcher had to hand over the reigns of his 8 million follower strong Twitter account to the media agency he founded. He wisely decided not to handle it himself any more after he criticised the firing of a popular college football coach, only to be told – through a barrage of tweets – that it was all tied up in an investigation into sexual assaults against children. (It’s surprising that this doesn’t happen more often. A simple mistake, combined with a huge audience can do substantial damage to reputation, which is why it’s probably a good idea for celebrities like Ashton to delegate social media management to a team rather than deal with it themselves).
10. Qantas
Finally, how can a list of social media fails be complete without Qantas? The loveable airline that stranded thousands of passengers in October due to strike action, broke off contract negotiations with employees in November and then a day later launched a Twitter competition where people could win free flights by sharing their #QantasLuxury experiences. Prompting Tweeters to hijack the hashtag for their own amusing takes on the Qantas experience ...
- Don’t exploit controversial situations to promote the brand – even if you, your mother and your employees think it’s funny, others won’t.
- Don’t abdicate responsibility for your social media accounts. When you hand the daily management of these profiles to a third party, you must ensure that they are operating to your guidelines and expressing the values of your brand. Remember that if things go wrong, it’s your brand reputation at stake – not theirs.
- Do check that your social media team – or your outsourced team – have the proper procedures in place. What password security systems do they use? How do they handle switching between accounts?
- Don’t post anything to anyone via social media that would reflect poorly on the brand if it was retweeted or shared online. Try the ‘would you want your Mum to read this?’ test.
- Don’tjump on the twitter trend bandwagon to get more attention for your brand. At best it cheapens the brand and makes it look like it needs to piggyback a hashtag for attention.
- Doyour research before you tweet. Don’t opine before you are fully informed.
- Do make sure that your social media and marketing efforts reflect what’s going on in the business as a whole. Be aware of any potential hot topics and be ready to remedy any disquiet.
Got any faves to add to the list? Leave us a comment. Just to balance it out, and give credit where it's due, tomorrow we're planning to bring you our list of top 5 social media successes.Read more...
A social media links list curated from a (mostly) US perspective. Below are just a few of the Social Media reads from around the web this week that tickled our fancy. Enjoy!
The US Federal Trade Commission settles privacy complaints with Facebook, just in time for a sparkling IPO. Jumping off from the newest apoloblog, Liz Gaines of All Things D has a wonderful time riffing on the many apologies of Zuckerberg. (As Carrier IQ is now on their radar, pretty sure we'll be revisiting the latest with privacy and the FTC next week.)
The
Humane Society of the United States skips the frivolity found in so many
social media stances to ramp their Facebook Likes to 1M. We enjoyed their infographic, and liked even more we could view it without going through a likegate.
The Gray Lady is going with a carrot instead of stick approach to improving the quality of comments on articles, promising those that provide erudite commentary and jump through privacy hoops will be rewarded with "Trusted" status and fewer moderation thresholds. We especially liked the laundry list of things that make for a lousy comment. SHOUTING is so 1997.
Earlier this month the IAB and ISBA issued guidelines specifically addressing the issue of celebrity endorsements within social media. Or, to give it the more legal title, 'the payment for editorial content to specifically promote a brand, product or service within social media'. The guidelines have been developed in consultation with the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and the Committee for Advertising Practice (CAP).
The guidelines do not change the law; the law in this area has been established for some time under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPRs) which specifically prohibits “using editorial content in the media to promote a product where a trader has paid for the promotion without making that clear in the content or by images or sounds clearly identifiable by the consumer (advertorial).” The CPRs also prohibits: “Falsely claiming or creating the impression that the trader is not acting for purposes relating to his trade, business, craft or profession, or falsely representing oneself as a consumer.”
The wording of these legal provisions does not immediately suggest they apply to tweets or Facebook posts; these are not what many of us relate to as “editorial content”. Nor might it be clear that if, say, a luxury car brand has provided a celebrity with a free car, for them to tweet or post about that car either in words or via a picture post would be a paid-for promotion.
This issue was highlighted in the Handpicked Media case which the OFT described as a “precedent setting” enforcement action. Handpicked Media operated a network of bloggers and niche websites across a variety of sectors. The OFT took the clear view that such paid-for blogging and promotion should be disclosed to consumers to ensure that they are not misled. In the enforcement action, the OFT decided that Handpicked Media was in breach of the CPRs and required Handpicked Media to provide undertakings that it would make disclosures to consumers in the future of the paid-for nature of its editorial content.
Perhaps inspired by the Handpicked Media investigation, IAB explained that brands knew they must comply with the law but were breaking the law unwittingly in the social media space. The guidelines were issued to address this problem by giving practical advice and clear examples.
The guidelines provide three basic rules:
1. If a payment has been made (either in cash or free products), the author or publisher must disclose this.
2. Authors must comply with the terms and conditions of the social media platforms they are using and the search engines likely to index the content.
3. The ‘marketing communication’ must comply with the CAP code.
To ensure there was no doubt about what points 1 and 2 mean in practice, the guidelines specifically address each type of social media. A summary of these examples is:
Although this does not change the law there are likely to be some surprises for many in these examples, notably:
1. The #ad requirement in paid-for twitter endorsements;
3. The fact that the requirements extend to consideration of search and use of ‘nofollow’ (Google and many other search engines require paid for links to be designated by adding rel="nofollow" attribute to the tag; again this is based on the principle that payments for content should be disclosed);
4. The pro-active requirement to confirm with a forum owner that paid for content may be posted if there is no prohibition in the terms or moderation guidelines (although this is described in the guidelines as a breach of etiquette rather than a legal compulsion so it is unclear whether strictly this would be a breach of the CPRs).
With issue of these clear examples and guidelines, it is likely to be harder for brand owners and marketing agencies to claim lack of knowledge if the OFT investigates for a breach of the CPRs. The OFT has carried out a number of investigations and given the growth of social media advertising its seems likely to focus on this area in the near future.
What are the legal risks of non-compliance? The OFT has extensive powers of investigation and although the first step of any enforcement action is often to require guidelines, there is a risk of criminal proceedings.
The clarity and practicality of the guidelines is impressive and certainly does not require any legal knowledge to understand. It is a leap forward from the OFT’s guide to the CPRs which used examples of traders selling pencils and cars on stalls and in showrooms and using traditional advertisements. Despite the tables and worked examples, it does rather read like a contract law analysis (not for the faint-hearted).
The global nature of social media means that the law of any single jurisdiction such as the UK needs to be looked at in a global context. The good news is that these guidelines are in tune with the law in the rest of Europe and in the USA:
Similar rules have applied in the USA since 2009 when the FTC published the AFAIK guidelines. These specify that endorsements via conventional, online or social media must contain a clear disclosure. For Twitter users this is indicated by #spon or #ad.
What is the impact of these guidelines for brands and site owners? Again the focus is on smart social media planning and policies. My suggested five first steps to maintain compliance with the new guidelines are:
1. Ensure the social media guidelines for employees and contractors within your organisation are clear and take account of the CAP code and CPRs giving practical examples to assist users particularly for the areas of unwitting breach. One example of potential unwitting compliance that many are unaware of is by simply retweeting a customer’s tweet, the company would be responsible for the content of that customer’s tweet. If a customer said “Go to X shop and buy Y car now for £Z – I just got one and I love it”. If X shop or Y car re-tweeted that and in fact that car was no longer available at that price, there would be a breach of CPRs.
2. If you incorporate sponsored endorsement as part of your marketing programme, ensure you have a payment/free goods provision/entertainment policy.
3. Ensure your marketing agency or team understands these rules.
4. Ensure your terms of use for users posting UGC on your site are clear with regard to paid for endorsements.
5. Reflect steps 1 and 2 in your moderation guidelines to ensure compliance with your policies.
Those amongst you with small children can't have failed to notice that the season of advent has come upon us. So we felt it was time for a quick look at a few of the of Christmas social media campaigns out there.
Black Friday (the most popular online shopping day in the US) has been and gone, and went quite well, by all accounts. I wonder how John Lewis' innovative virtual store in Brighton will take off and impact online shopping in the UK?
All of the retailer's ‘top 30 things to buy for Christmas’ are included in a window display at a branch of Waitrose, and customers can scan the QR code of the item they want, which will then take them to the John Lewis mobile site to complete their purchase. John Lewis is using the launch to promote its 'click and collect service' which it is currently trialling in 94 Waitrose stores: after ordering online, customers can pick the item up after 2pm the following day from any John Lewis or participating Waitrose store, if the order is place before 7pm the previous day.
And talking of John Lewis, after last year's social media storm-in-a-kennel, they've taken the temperature of their audience and got it very right this year. Their viral YouTube ad wrenched a small tear from even my jaded eye (shame that the typical YouTube spam-mob have hijacked the comments for a racist slag-fest, but that's YouTube for you).
However, with the same basis ingredients (children + present-giving), Littlewoods managed to get it horribly wrong. Accusations of blatant commercialisation of Christmas (not overly surprising for a retailer, but look how well John Lewis hid their true motives), pressure to overspend at a time of recession (who amongst us feels inclined to buy a laptop for Grandpa this year?) and worse - oh far worse - letting it slip that (look away now kids) there's no such thing as Santa have resulted in complaints to the ASA and a Facebook online petition no less.
What else in on our Christmas list this year? Well, if you're too old to be disillusioned by a Littlewoods ad, but want to make sure you actually get what you want, Nordstrom's Santa hint app approaches the buying season by using technology and social networking to keep the spirit of Santa alive (hah!). The Seattle-based retailer’s “Nordstrom Santa” project is a Facebook app that will post a gift hint on the user’s Facebook wall, linking to a gift the person hopes to get.
Or is you're trying to undo the damage wraught by a certain retailer, then tryConde Nast's "Santa's Hideout" wishlist site, where parents and children can make wishlists, and parents can use a tool to respond as "Santa" via email.
The most online advent fun can be had at Norad Santa: today the Norad Tracks Santa website goes live - and indeed is all over, with @santa on Twitter, a Facebook page, and a NORAD Tracks Santa mobile app too, where you can enjoy playing the splendidly-named 'Elf Toss' right through the month.
Photo appShoebox has teamed up with Blurb to ‘print the most amazing Santa photo book ever made’. It needs your help to find and submit the weirdest, funniest or most awkward Santa photos you can find. To enter, you can submit the photo via Twitter or Facebook before 1 December. (Oh. Oops, sorry).
Finally, in juxtaposition with the Littlewoods having jaded small children bypass Santa by asking Mum directly for what they want, Target offers the "Christmas Champ," a slightly insane super shopper (performed in the ads by a comdedienne named Maria Banford) who tweeted "advice" for making it through Black Friday. Congrats to one of our clients, agency Weiden + Kennedy for a fab job - and we're asking Santa if we can have a go at doing the tweets next year, if we're very very good?
This blog has been created by some key eModeration members to provide up-to-date information about user-generated content (UGC) moderation, social media, child internet safety, virtual worlds and MMOGs, and ... well ... pretty much anything else which interests us.
Based in London UK, with offices in Los Angeles and New York, eModeration provides multi-lingual moderation and community management services, consultancy and social media crisis management training to clients in the TV, entertainment and digital publishing industry and blue chip clients hosting online communities.
Committed to ethical business practices and to the promotion of child online safety, eModeration's CEO Tamara Littleton recently worked with the UK Government department UKCCIS to produce its guidelines on how to moderate online environments for children.
eModeration contributes to the growth of knowledge in the social media world via its white papers, blogs and seminars, and has a strong roster of returning clients who appreciate the high quality of its services.
