elysa says

So there are some mega advantages to being a nerd (especially in the Dallas area) but I’d say one of the top advantages is I get to meet some pretty fantabulous people. About a year ago I got to meet Colin & Alyssa in person at my very first crawfish boil. It was traumatizing, but Alyssa showed me the ropes and all turned out well. If you live in the Dallas area and you haven’t yet met this duo you’re clearly living under a rock! They’re both on the board of SMC (Social Media Club) of Dallas, they are forever dueling over various mayorships in the DFW area (power to the foursquare nerd!) and recently they were givin a car to drive FOR FREE! I still can’t believe it!

Last night I received the following email from Colin, with some requests on how we can support their team! And of course I offered to spread their request for help to the world, because well they’re awesomesauce. So please read, and pass along, and retweet, and email your grandmother … the following message.

Friends and Family,

As you may or may not already know, Alyssa and I were selected to participate in Chapter 2 of the Ford Fiesta Movement.  The Ford Fiesta Movement is a promotional program for the new Ford Fiesta, a car targeted towards millennials and city dwellers (us).

Only 40 people (20 teams) were selected out of well over 1,000 applicants.  For the next 4 months, we’ll be driving a Ford Fiesta around town, and completing a series of challenges for points.  At the end of the 4 months, the team with the most points wins a pair of new Fiestas!  Given the fact that Alyssa and I are sharing a car – we’re very motivated!

There are a few ways that we could really use your help to win this competition.

First of all, one of the scoring criteria is the number of pageviews to our official team page.  So, if you could set your web browser’s default homepage to the following URL, or try to visit our page regularly, it would help immensely.

Our official team page is: http://www.fiestamovement2.com/dallas.

If you need help doing this, just let me know, I’ll be more than happy to show you!

The next way you can help is by “following” our team’s profile for updates.  All you have to do is go to our official team page (http://www.fiestamovement2.com/dallas) and click the “follow this team” button (see the picture below for guidance).  You’ll be asked for your e-mail address, but you will only receive updates from the Fiesta Movement program.

Next, each of our challenges will require us to plan and host a major event.  RSVPs for the event count towards our point total.  It would be helpful if you could RSVP each time we have an event (we’ll let you know!).

Finally – feel free to pass this along to anyone and everyone you’ve ever met!  We can’t pull this off without the help of our friends and family, so anything that you can do to help is very appreciated!

There may be other opportunities that come up from time to time, and we’ll let you know when we know!

Much love and thanks,

-Colin

Big Money recently released The Big Money Facebook 50, a ranking of the brands that are currently making the best use of Facebook. Various metrics—including fan numbers, page growth, frequency of updates, creativity as determined by a panel of judges, and fan engagement—were factored into each page’s score and ultimate rank on the list.

Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Disney, Victoria’s Secret and iTunes round out the top five. James Ledbetter notes that contests and other promotional activities drove the success of most of the list members.

While I’m really excited to see a list like this put together I’m a bit disappointed that the listings don’t actually link to the respective fan pages. So, I decided to look up a few of these fan pages and see what I think works about them. What’s great about social media is what works for one brand can usually easily be transferable to another.

• Buffalo Wild Wings (#48): asks questions – that are fan based and have nothing to do with wings, such as “Who’s the better quarterback in tonight’s game?” and a few that are BWW specific “Got a favorite sauce? Let’s hear it!”
• Taco Bell (#47): posts promotions with photos – people like photos when they are being sold to.
• Audi (#44): asks for feedback “Automaker Audi seeks out fan feedback. It hosted a campaign encouraging fans to discuss what its next car should look like, and the company recently posted a survey asking fans what they wanted from the page.“
• Target (#43): got fans involved in giving back – Target hosted a two-week “Bulls eye Gives” campaign, during which fans could vote for which charity they thought most deserved Target’s donations.
• Harley-Davidson (#42): asks fans for photos – Harley has a great custom landing page on their fan page and has over 10,000 fan submitted photos
• CNN (#33): integrates with their website – CNN utilizes Facebook Connect to allow fans to add comments via CNN.com or from their fan page.
• Louis Vuitton (#32): carries the brand imagery forward – Louis Vuitton has a beautifully designed Welcome tab on their fan page that’s a great compliment to their already strong branding.
• Disney/Pixar (#21): utilizes a lot of video – it’s no surprise that the animation giant would post frequent videos.
• Adidas (#15): customizes for the fans – “Recognizing its international fan base, sports retailer Adidas occasionally posts updates in languages other than English.“
• Dunkin’ Donuts (#12) : features their fans – “While most fan pages use corporate logos as their profile pictures, the doughnut and coffee retailer uses the space to honor the winner of its “Fan of the Week” contest.“
• Redbull (#9): remembers not to take themselves too seriously – Redbull gets their fans involved by creating games. They recently had a fan scavenger hunt.
• Chick-Fil-A (#8): has a lot of pictures of cows – ooh is that just us that likes that? The cow is the mascot for my job so we’re all about the cows!
• iTunes (#5): takes votes – iTunes creates weekly polls to get user feedback
• Victoria Secret (#4): promotes their other advertisements – Victoria Secret utilizes their fan page as a way to promote their texting advertising program, their mobile site and other traditional advertisements.
• Starbucks (#2): gives away free stuff – hey you may not be Starbucks but you can give away free pastries to people who come by and visit your office.
• Coca-Cola (#1): brings it all together – Coca-Cola integrates twitter, youtube, fan photos and videos all in one fun interactive place.

Is your favorite big brand fan page on this list? What have you learned from that fan page?

Photo of Ben Smithee & I speaking at Big (D)esign Conference back in May.

Thanks @FrankLogic for sending it to me via twitter.

I received a tweet tonight from Monica Obrien, of Twenty Set, stating “two influentials I’d like to thank” and included a link to her latest blog post on Word of Mouth Marketing. She was referring to myself and Tim Jahn.

According to Monica’s recap she was calling me an influential based on criterion she had heard at a marketing meeting:

Only one person out of 10 is a true influential. Influentials have three traits:

• They try things just because they are new
• They tell stories to friends
• They get intrinsic value from sharing their stories

Note #1: Influentials are not people who like free stuff simply because it’s free! True influentials are happy to buy the things they are interested in.

Note #2: Bloggers are not necessarily influentials and influentials are not necessarily bloggers, though many influentials use blogs as an outlet for sharing.

Note #3: Influentials self-identify, because they are proactive about finding new things and sharing stories with their friends.

I’ll say it’s pretty cool to be considered among the 1 out of 10! Monica is certainly an influential herself. Her first book is due to come out in December!

I love the design and the content of this Road to Innovation slideshow.

The point is:
there is no box!
there is no line in the sand!
there are no excuses!

Innovation is often the result of putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

Ideas work better together.