Branding Mistakes Archives

Hashtag branding: 7 social media lessons from #HeartMyYOW

UPDATE! As of 11 AM, diagnosis apparently this project is running all day, web so you can still Tweet to the @CBCOttawa hashtag I discuss below.

This morning, I heard Robyn Bresnahan on the CBC Ottawa Morning radio show telling listeners to Tweet photos of a day in the life of Ottawa before 8:30 AM, so they could win a prize package. I got excited! Then I got lost….

7 Lessons on Hashtag Branding

1. #BALANCE! Brevity, clarity, consistency.

Hashtags are hard. Let me say that first. It’s hard to get a hashtag short enough to be Twitter-friendly but yet intuitive enough that people can clearly see what the Hashtag is about.

But a hashtag for a Twitter project or event is also a BRAND. So as a branding and social media guy, there are a few lessons that I’d like to pull out of this story for those of you who might need to develop hashtags in the future. (Or contact me now if you really need help fast!)

In this case, I wasn’t listening closely to the radio, and by the time I realized I wanted to participate they had moved on to the news. I thought I heard Robyn tell us to hashtag “Heart My Ottawa”, but I wasn’t sure. And since incorrect spelling makes a hashtag useless, I needed to check before I Tweeted.

2. #USEIT! Make sure your people USE the tag first and often.

Being uncertain,. My first step was to go to the @OttawaMorning stream on Twitter. Turns out, they hadn’t used or mentioned the hashtag at all today. Neither had host @RobynBresnahan, CBC social media guy @Luccidor (who wasn’t at work as I later found out) or a couple of other CBC accounts I checked. And worse, despite the major media push, it wasn’t trending in Ottawa on Twitter either (right).

3. #ABBREVIATEWITHCARE! Use easy-to-interpret short-forms.

So I searched on Twitter specifically for “HeartMyOttawa”. Sure enough, the Tweet at the right came up – the most relevant thing I’d seen yet. But it was the only one.

But then I looked at the embedded CBC Ottawa graphic “Aha!” I thought. It’s supposed to be “#HeartMyCity”. So I searched… and… no luck. #CelebrateOttawa didn’t work either. Neither did #HeartMyOtt, #LoveMyOttawa, or #LuvMyOtt.

So I started thinking, is there a new way to add an actual HEART SYMBOL into a hashtag that I somehow missed…?

4. #YOWDOINGITWRONG! Avoid cool-kid slang.

But then, Robyn came to my rescue on the radio – kind of. She mentioned the contest again. And now I heard it clearly: “#HeartMyYOW“.

Now as most people in Ottawa know, “YOW” is the airport call symbol for Ottawa. And, I knew that along with the “613”area code, YOW is occasionally used as slangy shorthand for Ottawa – but mostly among Twitter power-users. But it’s not as widely used as the much more intuitive “Ott”, as used in long-running hashtags #OttNews #OttWeather #OttPoli or #OttCity. One look, and it’s clear to everyone what “#OttNews” is. “#YOWNews” just doesn’t scan.

So I finally had the right hashtag as of around 7:45 this morning and began using it myself. But even so, there were only a dozen or so Tweets to that tag by that point in the morning – with the 8:30 deadline looming. So I’m guessing I wasn’t alone in having trouble.

5. #CONSISTENTGRAPHICS! Manage the visual ID

But that’s not to say the CBC hadn’t been *trying* to brand and promote the hashtag. They’d used it before in February, and for months it seems, they’d been recruiting partners and local celebs to promote today’s effort – as with this Tweet from last week.

Ottawa! On Monday, March 21 @CBCOttawa wants you to share your pics & vids of life in our city using #heartmyYOW pic.twitter.com/AAG9uKqnzu

— Waubgeshig Rice (@waub) March 16, 2016

But the technical problems with the hashtag were compounded by a scattered design effort. Take a look at the three graphics on the right. All three are ostensibly supporting the same project. But the visuals are all so different, and the wording so all over the map, that you can understand how those of very little Monday morning brain (like me) could get confused.

If #HeartMyYOW is the tagline, and the whole project is meant to happen on Twitter, “#HeartMyYOW” needs to be the headline, logo, and call-to-action everywhere. And the visuals need to be packaged and managed like a brand for maximum impact.

6. #IFYOUTAGITOWNIT! Be part of the conversation.

Apart from making sure staff and social media accounts had been using the hashtag correctly before the conversation/event, it helps to ensure there is a human being actively engaging on the hashtag during the intended window of activity – particularly if that window is before 8:30 AM on a Monday morning (which, by the way, is not a great time to ask for photos of the city – as most people are either just waking up, having their coffee, or commuting).

The @CBCOttawa main account did get back to me as you can see – shortly after I’d figured it out for myself. As did @RobynBresnahan herself. So credit where credit is due – and thanks for the help!

7. #TALKTOME! Branding and social media are what I do.

In the end, eventually several dozen people did actually manage to Tweet their photos to #HeartMyYOW before the deadline. So this wasn’t a failed project by any stretch. But it could have been more successful, with a bit of help.

And that’s where I come in. I’m a branding guy AND a social media advisor (geek) AND a really active community promoter in Ottawa. So please please talk to me or Tweet to @DenVan if you have a local project you’d like to promote on social media, a Twitter hashtag dilemma, or just want to bounce an idea around! I’m happy to offer a few words of branding or social media advice to worthy causes, charities, and public good groups for free – EVEN THE CBC!!

If it’s a larger strategy project, training session, or if you need advice for your for-profit company, contact me anyway! For you, I’ll be happy to let you buy me coffee/lunch/beer and give you some thoughts, and a quote for more of my professional time and energy.

Ottawa Citizen “reinvents” logo, Website, the wheel.

My take on the new Ottawa Citizen design – and my hope for better in the future.

So here’s the big story in my local paper: “Postmedia and the Ottawa Citizen today unveil a reinvention of the local news business.” But after looking it over, it’s not the local news business they are re-inventing. It’s something far older. Something that already works…

Here's my take on the ad campaign that accompanies the launch. — Here’s my take on the ad campaign that accompanies the launch.

The Ottawa Citizen is Ottawa’s oldest newspaper, tracing its roots back to 1845, when it was called The Bytown Packet then renamed The Citizen in 1851 – right around the time the city was undergoing its own rebranding from Bytown to Ottawa. Over the years, Continue reading “Ottawa Citizen “reinvents” logo, Website, the wheel.”

Telco Brands: the Fair for Canada FAIL in one picture

Rogers, Bell, and Telus blow their big chance. By being their same old big-Telco selves…

My friend Ottawa blogger and media commentator Mark Blevis has put out a couple of smart and incisive critiques of the “Fair for Canada” campaign by Canadian telco mega brands TELUS, Rogers, and Bell. Please do go ahead and read the MarkBlevis.com and Full Duplex posts.

But I think the many, many problems with this PR blitz can be summed up in one picture – brought to you by your three friendly Canadian mega corporations.

Sorry big Telcos, the combined boards of Telus, Bell, and Rogers don't qualify as ordinary Canadians to, you know, ordinary Canadians. — Actual screen capture from the Fair for Canada mini-site:

Sorry big Telcos, but the combined “Bell, Rogers, and TELUS Boards of Directors” writing a letter to Stephen Harper doesn’t qualify as “What Canadians are Saying” to the rest of us, you know, Canadians. Continue reading “Telco Brands: the Fair for Canada FAIL in one picture”

Exposing the naughty bits: 10 new Facebook features nobody was asking for

So yesterday, more about I accidentally exposed my naughty bits on Facebook. It was okay though, buy more about because it was a Private Group. You know. Members only. But to my shock and dismay, viagra 40mg a new Facebook notice appeared out of nowhere that told me 55 people had seen my naughty bits. But only four had Liked them. You might think I’d want to know that. I Beg to Differ.

Exposing the naughty bits

Like me, Facebook has been exposing its naughty bits lately. And yes Facebook, they were Seen By many. And not all of us Liked them.

You see, Facebook has this odd way of suddenly adding “features” to its site and mobile apps with little or no warning or explanation. They just appear. And some just make you scratch your head. Now, let it be said: I’m not the type to just complain about change, because some Facebook updates are brilliant, and actually useful things – like Tagging, which appeared in late 2009 to much joy and thumb-upping. Or user friendly names for users and pages. Or Pages themselves. Or Groups. All good.

And some are structural revisions like Timeline – which was disorienting and caused some ripples when it appeared. But largely this kind of change make sense as a step in the evolution of the platform, so the furor died down. And I for one, became a fan. Because Timeline was helpful.

But then there are the others, the “features” that appear suddenly and randomly, but don’t seem to serve any real purpose, and actually hurt Facebook’s usability and simplicity. Or even worse, increase the sense that Facebook is being sneaky or Big Brotherish. So without further ado:

Ten Facebook features we didn’t need

1) “Seen by” in groups

This is the one I mentioned above. Where Facebook tells you how many people have supposedly “seen” your post in a group. And then, if you hover over the “Seen By” message, it tells you who saw it, and what time / date. I say supposedly, because it’s unclear either a) how Facebook defines “seeing” – i.e. is scrolling past something “seeing” it? or b) why that is even important or relevant information – i.e. to anyone but the most anally retentive admin?

Weird. Creepy. And makes users feel like they are losing a little bit more control over how they interact within a group. Just a bad, anti-social idea.

2) Find Friends Nearby

If you hadn’t heard of this one, it was a mobile feature Facebook tried to introduce quietly that was designed to instantly find friends in the vicinity based on mobile GPS location data. But then, when it rapidly caused a privacy stink, Facebook killed it the same day because it was too obviously creepy-stalkerish, even for Facebook.

3) Your picture in other people’s ads (a.ka. “Sponsored Stories”)

Thanks to Maddie Grant from Social Fish for this one.

This one has been making the news lately because of a just-settled, then un-settled, lawsuit. Here’s what Facebook officially says about this “feature”. Basically, because you “Liked” something – say OB Tampons – your photo can appear in an OB Tampon ad in my stream. Again. Creepy. And in this case, feels unethical too because Facebook is using people’s faces without permission to endorse products and make money.

4) Facebook e-mail switch

From Shinyshiny.tv

Do you remember back when Facebook wanted to revolutionise the way we message one another by giving us all @facebook.com email addresses? Yeah it was pretty “meh” and no one really cared. Well now in an attempt to make our Facebook inboxes more relevant Zuck and the gang have got rid of your regular email addresses and replaced them with a Facebook one.

Again, silly, creepy, and bad strategy.

5) Editing comments

The problem here is not that you can edit your typos and screw-ups. You could do that (kind of) for a while – but it was time limited, so you could make small changes if you were quick, but after a while, they became permanent. Which worked. My problems are 1) the bizarre “edit” history thread that tracks your edits forever, and 2) that they didn’t aply this behaviour consistently – as Techdrink points out.

But here’s what you can’t do. You can’t edit your comments on the Comments Box plug in used by many websites like TechCrunch (and even TechDrink at one stage). You can’t edit your comments on mobile where it would arguably have been infinitely more useful (isn’t that right, auto correct!). And you still can’t edit original posts!

Also, there is the potential for abuse. Say I post a comment that says “I like kittens!” and 520 people “Like” it. I could then go back and write “Kill all the kittens”, and it would look like all 520 people were secret kitten murderers as well.

6) Sidebar “Tickers” – all those bloody right hand sidebars.

Back when I first saw them last August, I thought the new sidebars were kind of cool and an interesting addition to Facebook. That is, until they actually appeared on my Facebook screen, constantly moving as they scroll by, and created an exponential increase in the clutter and “Wall of Noise” effect you get from Facebook.

Gah!!! Again, it made me feel less in control of Facebook. Not good for Facebook!

7) Facebook messages popping up like chat requests

(Thanks to Dave Harrison for this one.)

Yeah. That. We didn’t ask for that one either. It sucks because we could ALWAYS tell when we had a message through that little red icon at the top. But you could ignore it until you actually had time to look. Now it’s in your face and you feel rude if you don’t answer immediately.

8) An iPhone mobile app (and other mobile apps) that really suck

(Thanks to Jon Aston for this one)

Okay, this wasn’t a feature they chose (I hope), but it’s one of my biggest sources of Facebook frustration. I’d love it if they pulled every engineer from the useless projects above and assigned them to fixing their wonky, slow mobile apps. And maybe letting us tag people and do other basic stuff? Huh? Please?!?!

9) People who complain about every new feature on Facebook.

(Thanks to Shelly Kramer for this one)

I agree, in that this annoys me too. But I’d also argue this is actually a “feature” of how Facebook rolls stuff out. By changing so frequently, radically, and in many cases with a tin ear for how the changes may be received, they are constantly shaking the platform. Which makes people feel unsteady.

1o) <Add your own Facebook feature here.>

What do you think? Are we being fair to Facebook? Do they deserve the constant criticism? Please share your pet peeves, your faves, your tirades or praises in the comments.

A tricky balance: social etiquette

I took some flak last week online from a long-time online friend for sending her a LinkedIn invitation-to-connect, but without (gasp) adding a personal message….

Can we learn social etiquette from 1908? Tricky. Read on…

I took some flak last week online from a long-time online friend for sending her a LinkedIn invitation-to-connect, unhealthy but without (gasp) adding a personal message. Now, buy information pills I was catching up on a bunch of LinkedIn stuff and realized there were dozens of friends and colleagues I wanted to invite. Also, I’ve been using the standard “Dennis Van Staalduinen would like to connect with you” template for years without thinking about it, and never stopped to think how impersonal that might be.

But her reaction got me thinking of Social Etiquette in general and how the online world and the “norms” of the offline and online worlds get a bit muddled up. And how, without a manual, it’s easy to cross lines and offend people without realizing it.

Which brings me to the manual – and yes there really is one. Or should I say “was”? Below, I stitched together a few iPhone / Instagram shots I took from a delightful old book I have in my office from 1908 called the New American Encyclopedia of Social and Commercial Information.

As you can see, things change a lot. But do they really change that much?

The book – which is awesome – was an ambitious project purporting to teach upstart Americans all kinds of “useful” European skills like how to play the violin, dance, speak German and French, and play polo, among other self-improvement pursuits. How about a magic trick where you pull a cannon ball from a hat? It’s in there!

The section on Letters of Introduction is to the right. What do you think? Could that serve as an etiquette manual for introductions on LinkedIn? I’m not sure, it’s pretty heavy. But it certainly sounds like what my friend was trying to tell me about my lapse in social judgement.

But a few things have changed: 1) the tone of snooty confidence, 2) the idea that all things on earth can be contained in one volume (who needs Google?), and 3) the classic old illustrations – including one of an early form of “planking” (see above).

If you’re interested, I can post some more nuggets. Or if you’re really eager, you can find the whole book in PDF form here. (Warning: it’s HUGE.) Particularly interesting are sections on “Health for women” (spoiler: not very progressive), “The automobile” (debates whether steam, electric or gasoline will prevail), and the dancing section (check out the Polka instructions which are just hilarious).