Category Archives: Google+
Spotlight on Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream (@benandjerrys)
It’s been a while since I highlighted a brand’s use of social media tools. I covered Target, Pillsbury and Oreo. I need to get on it. No time to waste…here we go.
Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. It’s a house-hold name and incredibly delicious. The brand is known for its fun flavor combinations, catchy names, whole ingredients and being philanthropic. What more can you ask for? Moreover, they’ve got social media covered so ice cream fans can connect 24/7 and spread the goodness that is Ben & Jerry’s.
You can find Ben & Jerry’s being sweet in these online avenues -
Facebook
Twitter
Mobile
Google+
Instagram
YouTube
tumblr
I am not seeing Pinterest. Ben? Jerry? Thoughts on this? I am interested to see how Ben & Jerry’s will leverage Pinterest to satiate ice cream fans’ desire for visual delicacy.
The company is active in so many avenues, we’d be here all month if I covered each of these in detail, so I’ll cover a few.
Facebook – 3.7 million “Likes”
The Social Media Managers behind Ben & Jerry’s Facebook Page are leveraging the Timeline banner image with an image that resonates with us…green hills with the iconic black and white cows in the foreground.
You can find photos of employees, customers and a wide variety of content such as new flavor launches, event information, polls and even a countdown to Free Cone Day and a Whirled Map (both are Facebook apps).
Twitter – 45,000 Followers
#VT, #phish, #halfbaked, #fairtrade, among others…these are all hashtags you’ll see Ben & Jerry’s tweeting about. For a brand who has a Facebook Page of over 3 million fans, I am a little shocked to find it only has 45,000 followers on Twitter. Nevertheless, Ben & Jerry’s does a great job of compartmentalizing it’s content so that followers and flavor advocates can easily join the conversation. Additionally, the Social Media folks behind @benandjerrys are posting a variety of content to keep us interested. We’re seeing retweets, replies, tweets about causes it’s supporting, teasers about new flavors and more.
Instagram – 21,000 Followers
Naturally, we’re all very visual people, so apps like Instagram, Hipstamatic and others give us that desire to post and view photos that are unique. Ben & Jerry’s is using this tool to leverage the beauty of Vermont and its products. This photo, what can I say? Now I am craving a creamy ice cream cone!
YouTube – 807,000 Video Views
Completely grassroots, fun and non-corporate videos here. Ben & Jerry’s staying true to their roots.
Google’s Privacy Policy. What You Can Do.
It’s the topic du jour, Google is updating it’s Privacy Policy and need I forget to mention Google is NOT allowing users to opt-out. That’s right. All Google users must opt-in to the new Policy. That fact alone doesn’t sit well with me! It’s not so much the changes taking place (although those changes are important and concerning), but the fact that Google is “forcing” it’s users to opt-in and accept…no questions asked.
You may recall in Part One of Be Smart, Secure and Safe. A Guide to Managing Your Online Privacy, I advised of the functionality to opt-out of targeted ads if you have a Gmail account. You’ll now want to consider clearing our web history. This post will be an extension of Part One and represent Part Five as you’ll gain an understanding of how to clear your web history in Google.
Nutshell explanation of Google’s Privacy Policy Update*
If you’re a Google product user: Gmail, YouTube, Blogger, Google+ etc. Prior to March 1, 2012 Google would keep your personal information separate from each product. Each product had it’s own standalone Privacy Policy. For example, your behavior and information on YouTube wasn’t stored in the same way as your behavior and information on Google+.
Moving forward Google will combine your personal information and your behavior in each of it’s products into a “global profile” (sounds weird, right? “global profile”) so that it can roll-out more targeted advertising and more relevant search results. Google doesn’t state this, but many believe it’s in an effort to boost advertising dollars by presenting advertisers with more robust database of personal data. Gross.
One of the ways Google is tracking your behavior is through your web history. Challenge Google on this and clear your web history as frequently as you can.
Here is a helpful video I found on CNET.
* Click here for a broader explanation of Google’s Privacy Policy update.
Heads-up. YouTube Changes Underway.
The team at YouTube are up to something…I logged-in to YouTube today (1/2/2012) and was surprised to see a completely new look and feel, as well as more features. When I visited the site two weeks ago, it didn’t look like this. Clearly, the YouTube folks are stewing up a change. This must be in beta because under my Video Manager account, it offers me the opportunity to go back to the “old look.”
Now that the major social media players are on the cusp of maturity, we’re seeing many new layouts, features and functionality from YouTube, Twitter (back in December ’10) and Facebook’s launch of Timeline.
It appears YouTube is making an effort to increase engagement and increase user-friendliness by the looks of the options on the left navigation bar.
- Add channels
- New comments
- Subscriptions. Click on one of the channels you subscribe to and see it’s most recent activity.
- Social. This gives you the option of connecting your current social networking outlets such as Google+, Facebook, Twitter and Orkut.
- From YouTube: Trending, Popular, Music, Entertainment
- Suggested channels. Use this to find what you’re missing or what YouTube thinks you’ll like.
The navigation options on the left side help us find what we’re really after, whether it be trending videos, most popular videos, YouTube activity from our Facebook friends and more.
With a new YouTube home page comes a new look and feel for YouTube channels. Here’s an example from one of the channels I subscribe to, which is StyleMint. Ok ok, no Mary-Kate and Ashley jokes…I subscribe for the fashion snippets. First thing I noticed was channel subscribers can now easily interact with the channel by posting a comment in the status box (top right). Prior to the “makeover,” the status box was toward the bottom and difficult to find (red arrow in image below).
Do you frequent YouTube often? What are your thoughts on the change? More change may be coming, but I wanted this post to be a heads-up for you all!
Here’s a snapshot of the old YouTube channel layout, from MINIUSA.
