You never know when useless trivia will come in handy. Did you know there are 19 billion chickens running around right now? That’s almost three chickens to every one person. Here are some more fun facts about chickens in this infographic from Snapple (yes, the drink company):
**This will be updated throughout the day.**
Twitter
If you want others to see your tweets, use hashtags like #election2012, #vote and #electionday.
Reuters
Share your photos, videos and reports from the field with them via Twitter. Tag your content with #ReutersLive
Financial Times
Tweet your election photos to them directly at @FT or use hashtag #ftelection. They’ll share their favorites at ft.com/retweet.
U.S. News & World Report
What do you think the electoral vote will be? Tweet your predictions with hashtag #evotes and they’ll feature you if you guess correctly.
Mashable
Tweet your picture (preferably with your I Voted sticker) with hashtag #sharethevote on Twitter or Instagram — or upload it directly, here.
Huffington Post Politics, Style and Live
Email HuffPo at offthebus@huffingtonpost.com or tweet them at @off_the_bus with your voting experience. They’re especially interested photos and videos. Even HuffPost Style (@huffpostsyle) is having some fun. You can tweet them a photo of what you wore to the polls and use hashtag #dressedtovote. And, don’t forget about HuffPost Live (@huffpostlive), they want photos to use on air. Send them via Twitter with hashtag #HPL2012.
MSNBC
They want your photos. Tweet them with hashtag #msnbc2012.
ABC World News
They are particularly interested in how “generations go to vote.” Did you bring your kids? Take your mom? Tweet @abcworldnews your photos with hashtag #yourvote.
YWCA USA
The YWCA has promised to retweet all “I Voted” sticker photos if you tag it #ywcaVOTE.
CNNiReport
Submit your voting experience through CNN’s iReport for potential inclusion online or on air.
Obama has 178,641 public lists following his official Twitter handle while Governor Romney has 12,773. In terms of reach, by number of public lists followers President Obama leads Governor Romney 1,680,596 to 8,302 public list followers. Keep in mind that Obama has a slight advantage in that he is already President and has successfully used social media in the past. That said, Romney is still really lacking in the list category. There’s a clear distinction in the number of Twitter followers, as well. Obama’s 21.5 million followers dwarf Romney’s 1.6 million (Obama also follows more than 600K people, while Romney follows a mere 274).
Want to know how major political campaigns for the Senate stack up?
If you’re still reading, don’t forget to vote on November 6!
Want your brand to join the Instagram craze where there are roughly 58 photos uploaded each second? Launching a photo challenge isn’t a bad way to go. Here are four examples of people and brands doing it well:
Anderson Live
With Anderson Live premiering September 10, the publicity team is in full gear. Playing off the successful Instagram photo-a-day challenges, Anderson launched Anderson’s Summer Photo-A-Day Summer Challenge.
In addition to promoting via Instagram, the challenge has its own landing page.
The landing page isn’t just your boring old “here’s how to play” overview, but features actual photos from participants, giving their insta-feeds a boost. To play along, participants must follow Anderson Live (@andersonTV) on Instagram in addition to using the hashtag. Great way to build up buzz before the show launches. It also doesn’t hurt that each day someone won a new phone.
Statigram
By far my favorite Instagram third party application, Statigram is rewarding their community after reaching one million users with an insta-challenge. The instructions are hosted on the contest section of their site. Reaching their target audience shouldn’t be too difficult considering those who visit the site are already familiar with or use Instagram. To really entice people to play along, they through something in for the community — coveted tech items, like a MacBook Air. See a theme here? In addition to insta-cred (building up your influence via Instagram), a prize can often encourage people to participate.
@Owlbolt
You know how I just told you prizes entice people to play? Not always. There are unique Instagram superstars like the user known as @owlbolt. She’s part of a strong (and growing) network of parents who share daily photos (usually creatively edited) of their children. The parents don’t just share photos, they actually interact and connect with one another in the comments. It’s not strange to see people part of this network promoting one another’s photos in order to help them win a challenge. In addition to sharing her own photos, @owlbolt often launches photo challenges where the only prize is the satisfaction of winning (sometimes there are challenges specifically for those who have never won a challenge). Most recently she launched the #evenmoreawesomethanlasttime challenge where people can reedit old, favorite IG photos. The instructions are typically in the comment section of the photo used to launch the challenge. The initial post went live on August 14, and as of August 16, there were already 114 photo submissions, 295 likes of the original post. Those are amazing results within a niche community.
Naked Juice
@NakedJuice launched a contest via Instagram and, because of the nature of the network, used an image to communicate the instructions. While the contest takes place via Instagram, the image is such that it can be repurposed and promoted in other locations. If an Instagram user wants to re-post the photo to their networks they can either take a screen shot of it or use a tool like Statigr.am (example below). They did a great job of integrating product photos into a relatively small space without it being gaudy.
(Disclaimer: @NakedJuice recently sent me a housewarming gift. It was not sent to receive a blog post. I discovered the contest after searching their feed.)
Know of another brand using Instagram to promote creative challenges? Share them in the comments.
A little coopetition can go a long way. Small businesses have limited resources, and, if you’re a solopreneur, there are even less. You can maximize your media efforts, while minimizing time collaborating with others. Why?
How do you do this? By building a team of social collaborators (3-5 people)!
You have two choices for who you ask to be part of your team. Either gather three to five peers in the same industry who don’t overlap geographically or three to five non-competitors with the same size business.
These should be people who would like to generate more awareness for their brand and have limited resources.
Now, invite them.
Who to pick? Simple. Only include those people who are do-ers. The people who get stuff done (#gsd). You don’t want to create a never-ending funnel of media tasks, but rather focus on those things which are achievable and executable by those involved. The do-ers in your network will be more likely to ensure the success of this team.
Invite them in whatever way is appropriate to you. You can either go the email route, or invite them directly from your fave collaboration platform (might I recommend Tracky).
Not sure how to ask someone to collaborate with you? It’s as simple as copy, paste and personalize:
Dear <insert name>,
You’ve got a lot on your plate. I’ve got a lot on mine. Not sure about you, but that means my PR efforts are often put on the back burner. I’m creating a small group of superstar <non competitors> who are in the same situation. I want to help us work better, together (and, hopefully, garner some media attention of each of us).
The Social Collaboration Team <insert link to group> is a place we can combine efforts to rev up our individual PR by helping one another by sharing:
Why recreate the wheel, right?
So, what does this look like? It means we share resources we’ve created and leverage the power of those in our group. The thought is if we all share a few resources we’ll buy back some time. I’ve already created my first Pitchengine pitch <insert link> so you can see what it looks like.
Our first project is to research a media list and populate a one-month editorial calendar. <insert your own task>
Are you in?
What should you work on?
Here are a few tool templates to get you started:
More to come…
***DISCLOSURE: I am currently serving as the Chief Evangelist for Tracky. Any reference to them in any post is part of my mission to spread the word about social collaboration.***
