Who owns social content?
A year later, most clients are now active in social media – they are asking for Facebook apps, one of them has even replaced their corporate website with a Facebook Page and many of them are even using Twitter, personally if not for their brands. The legal/creative issues for user generated content have not gone away – the clients lawyers are still saying “no” to many creative, social content campaign ideas.
It goes like this:
1. Creative team pitch in a cool, engaging user generated/social content, game/application/tactical campaign
2. Client loves it
3. Digital producers spec it out, and it all looks like its all systems go.
4. Then it gets run past the lawyers
5. Lawyers say no
6. Campaign gets killed or its “Back to the drawing board”
What’s so great about Tumblr?
Tumblr, the NY based, mini blogging or micro blogging service, seems to be reaching critical mass, now hosting more than a million blogs. It’s been described as “the easiest way to share yourself” It’s the essence of the social web – Tumblr has had some high profile blogs get book deals based on popularity along, such as LATFH, and This is Why Your Fat. Smart copy and ideas get a lot of traction, like Wordboner, and Steal Our Ideas. Tumblr has created an entire sub-culture of categorized, sharable content, F***Yeah Tumblrs such as F***YeahBabyAnimals.
If you’re not familiar with it, its like a cross between Twitter and a more traditional blog such as Wordpress or Blogger. I fell in love with Tumblr a few months ago, because its so easy to use and intuitive. It became a way to keep the photos, conversations and links recorded in a timeline. I realised when I started using it that I’m a compulsive sharer, and it became a fun extension of the kinds of things I like in my personal life, a more aesthetic focus than my Wordpress blog where I write about work related subjects
What’s so great about Tumblr then?
sharable content and social brand building
There’s nothing like a competition running on Twitter with a hashtag #squarespace and trending topic to make you check it out. The US-based competition would never have got through legals in Australia – they’re advertising “Win an iPhone every day” but it turns out that its a “Win a $199 Apple store voucher, which you need to add your own money to to get an iPhone”.
Which is a shame because the rest of the social brand building (on Vimeo and shared on Twitter), associated with Squarespace is highly amusing and very sharable. Watch the video and see what you think.
