I caught up with Kelly Rigg, the executive director for the Global Campaign for Climate Action after she won a Game Changer award at We Media Miami '10. She talks about the TCKTCKTCK.org campaign and how to unify a brand across multiple well-established organizations.

Kelly Rigg on a unified brand message with many orgs for TCKTCKTCK from Genuine Interactive on Vimeo.

The transcript is now available. Special thanks to Genuine's Brianna Giambrone for getting this turned around so quickly!

Kelly Rigg: My name is Kelly Rigg I am the executive Director for the Global Campaign for Climate Action which is the organization behind the TCKTCKTCK campaign.

Genuine Interactive: You talked during your presentation about the importance of the logo. Could you talk about what it enabled the project to achieve?

Kelly Rigg: Well we have a membership, partnership I should say, of about 250 organizations, many of whom who have very large brand recognition; Greenpeace, Amnesty International, WWF, Oxfam, Avaaz, Red Cross ... 200 organizations. And they all have their own unique identities, their own campaigns, their own creative sources etc. If you were to try to get them to cooperate and all do a joint campaign under a single image, a single modus operandi, you’d never get it.

So what we wanted to do, step back, as I said in my presentation. We also need to make sure that all of their individual campaigns add up to being more than the sum of their parts because they’re all very powerful and wonderful but unless somehow you can create a coherent whole that actually there is a mandate on a global level there’s a global movement really demanding action - it’s not going to add up to enough to really change the game.

So the idea was that ...they would continue to run their own national international campaigns with their own focus but by using this coordinated logo, the TCKTCKTCK logo, they would be able to communicate but at the same time they were part of this global movement, that it was more than the sum of the parts.

Genuine Interactive: Did it work as well as you had hoped?

Kelly Rigg: Yea, it was fantastic, I mean when we got to Copenhagen everybody knew about TCKTCKTCK, "you guys were everywhere." And that was exactly the intention behind it was this feeling that we’re everywhere. Because obviously we don’t have anywhere near the kind of resources that the industries that are opposed to climate action have at their disposal so we needed to be more creative and smarter about how we show our presence and mandate the public that we had behind us.

Genuine Interactive: Personally that must have been very rewarding.

Kelly Rigg: It was really exciting. I think one of the most exciting things for me was there is a lot of organizations that all work independently — and we got to Copenhagen and we had a meeting the day before the meeting started in which we were collaborating on what we were going to do, how we were going to do it, setting up these rapid-response meetings, so we would have a morning meeting everyday where we had strategic insiders, the lobbyists who would tell us what was really going on and then it was immediately followed by a group of 100-200 activists who would sit there and brainstorm about what to do.

And as I said, at the beginning of this whole process, with this meeting everybody was together. I thought I’m going to be completely drained just going into this meeting we had been working so hard. I walked into that meeting and I came out with more energy than I think I’ve ever had. It was so exciting because every group stood up and "I’m from this organization and we have 200 youth activists here, I’m from this organization we have costumes, we have this, who’s got this" and people were just raising their hands and they treated it like it was a whole campaign, like they were part of one massive organism as opposed to their individual campaigns competing for attention. And if you saw one of the slides that I showed about the 100,000 people marching in Copenhagen, you’d see a lot of slides, there’s no branding on it, people created signs for the global good. That was one of the most inspiring campaigns I’ve participated in for that reason.

Last week, Josh Hoekwater (a.k.a. @digitalhoek) and I gave a talk to the New England Conservatory titled "Web Site Basics: Tips for Do-It-Yourselfers"

We weren't totally sure what to expect in terms of the audience, but we did some prep work that covered a variety of areas including hosting, domains, blogs, social media and metrics. The SlideShare version of our PowerPoint is listed below:

In the process of preparing for this, I reached out so some friends and colleagues and got some great insights from a couple musicians and a promoter who are committed to their web presence.

• Montreal-native Chris Velan has released a few solo albums, including his latest Solidago.
• Lou Paniccia is the drummer for a band that’s “just getting started” called Oranjuly. 
• Justin Poirier, a video editor at here at Genuine Interactive, plays guitar for The Hollow Sound.
• Roman Lojko, an HTML wiz at Genuine who "eats chunks of CSS for breakfast" during the day then books, promotes and writes about music at night, runs the web site undressmerobot.com/hmsputnam
• Mike Norman, Genuine’s Director of development, is a guitarist for the band Action Verbs.

I first met Chris online, kind of. During a business trip, I had a free night with nothing to do, and found a listing of musicians playing local bars. I Googled Chris, found his site, listened to some of his music and enjoyed the show in front of a very small crowd because the gig was added very last-minute on a weeknight. I've seen him several times since and am a big fan of his music. What impressed me from the beginning, aside from his music, was how he set himself up for success by already having a robust web presence.

I met Rob through a friend of a friend who used to work with him down the hallway from us at SonicBids.com. (Disclosure: Sonic Bids is a current client of Genuine).

:: What were your goals for your first web site? What are they now? What changed and why?

CHRIS VELAN: My goals for my first website (in 2003) were drastically different than they are now. Then, it was just about getting all of the info and media up on the site in a presentable, cool, well-navigable fashion and that was it. There was not much consideration for making the site dynamic, changing, interactive, etc. Updates to the site were in the hands of the all-knowing web-master. Now it's all about having the Facebook and Twitter feeds on the home page and making sure that I can change, update content as easily as possible. My site www.chrisvelan.com is built on a Word Press platform. I find it works really well.

What changed? A couple of things. The meteoric rise of social networks, the corresponding need for constantly-updated media and a general expectation in the music industry that artists need to foster a close ongoing relationship with fans.

JUSTIN POIRIER: For my band, The Hollow Sound, our first website was a way of creating awareness for the band, and providing an outlet for any and all information about us, that anyone would want to know. While being somewhat self indulgent, it gave us a chance to talk about some of the questions that potential fans might have wanted to ask. We also used it as a place for fans to download our first ep for free.

MIKE NORMAN: We had a MySpace page, because every other band had to have one. We played follow the leader. When it came time, we realized we needed to grow beyond MySpace due to the indicators that MySpace is losing market share and that the market place there is just flooded with bands befriending everyone. While we created a Facebook page (that is actually the best communication tool we have), we didn’t want that to also be the same problem 2 years down the road so we created our own website where we have complete control. And we keep our MySpace page, but message it clearly that the users should visit our actual web site.

ROMAN LOJKO: My friend and I initially just wanted to share the music we loved with other people via internet radio. Eventually, since circumstances changed and we weren’t able to stream music anymore, our website turned into a music webzine, where we tried to give exposure to bands that we thought were overlooked or unjustly ripped apart by other webzines.

:: How do you activate and engage your audience, create a connection with them that extends beyond the music your performing, essentially give them a window into your musical soul?

CHRIS VELAN: It's really about maintaining an active presence on all of your social media sites AND being genuine, consistent, and honest in your postings/outreach. By doing that, you will attract the people you're meant to. You have to consider that a fan is not someone to be manipulated. They're you. The edict, "treat others as you wish to be treated" applies.

Don't be the artist/person you think you should be or think they want you to be. Be yourself.

But be ACTIVE as yourself.

LOU PANICCIA: We post videos of warming up backstage before a gig, or tweet about what we’re listening to in the van on the way to a gig. I don’t see our online content as a way to let people see more about the music as much as I see it as a way for our fans to get to know a bit more about our personalities and what it’s like to be a band on the run.

JUSTIN POIRIER: Currently we take advantage of all the major social networking tools, we have a MySpace with over 20,000 friends (although that is becoming less and less relevant every day), we have a Facebook with over 500 friends, we have individual Twitter accounts as well as a band twitter account, as well as YouTube and Vimeo video channels.

One of the recent things that we did was we began to set up a series of acoustic covers where we asked fans what songs they wanted to hear us do acoustic. We got through two of them before we got distracted, but we've currently got about 6 more songs that we are ready to film and post weekly.

Other than twitter, we try to update our videos on YouTube as much as possible. Any time we go into the studio or on tour we always bring a camera and piece together some tour or studio diaries to give the fan's an insight into our personalities and give them a feeling of being connected to us beyond just listening to our music.

MIKE NORMAN: We use Facebook, Twitter, and the website all integrated together to keep engage our fans, as well as online streaming tools like ReverbNation. We make sure we post a couple of times a week to keep our name in people’s minds. We thank everyone that ever mentions us on Facebook or plays us on the radio to curry favor. As for the giving people a window into our musical souls: that’s not our goal. I dear say that’s the goal of people who have far too much ego in their music.

ROMAN LOJKO: Some artists keep engaging web journals or tour diaries active, and that generates a lot of interest. Some notable examples:

-Troels Abrahmson, a Danish electronic artist, shares all of his deep emotions and thoughts in his weblog: http://supertroels.dk/. For whatever reason his fans love it, and even share comments to almost all of his posts.

-The band Candy Claws actually had an “online world tour” where they went around cities and videotaped stripped down versions of their songs through a blog in each city they were in: http://www.candyclaws.blogspot.com. Everything was posted on their blog and each blog they hit and they definitely generated a lot of interest that way.

:: What tools in the digital toolbox work particularly well for artists to connect with their audience?

CHRIS VELAN: I'm using my iPhone more and more for just about everything. The touring artist is always on the move and needs things to be portable, easy and quick.

I don't have the new 3G phone so I can't yet do video (but I will soon).

I take all my photos on my iPhone (using various photo apps) and do most of my tweeting, Facebook updates, etc on it.

It's a crucial tool for me.

LOU PANICCIA: Profiles on MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook are what connect us to fans. We use our website as a central starting point to direct the fan to the network they want to use to connect with us. Then we use tools like BandCamp, ArtistData, and WordPress to push content from our website to the social networks and vice versa.

JUSTIN POIRIER: Social networking is huge, but it is also completely over saturated. MySpace, which is the leading website for bands, is currently a virtual ghost town for fans, and each fan is constantly bombarded by bands looking for fans. The most effective outlet for breaking bands right now seems to be blogs, if a band can really blow up on a blog, then they can likely draw more attention to themselves from fans that trust that blog. In the punk scene the biggest blog is Absolutepunk.net and in the indie scene it's Pitchfork.com, but if a band can get a number of people from those blogs behind them, they can really widen their fan base.

There is also digital music streaming and selling. If a band does not have their music up online somewhere to be streamed for free, they are not going to get booked and they are not going to get fans, end of story. The process of putting music on iTunes is easier than ever. We currently use a service called Tunecore and have our music up for sale on a number of different sites. Not only does this potentially widen your fan base, but it also gives bands a certain amount of credibility when they can be found easily online. Currently when you look up "The Hollow Sound" on Google our MySpace is the first thing that comes up.

ROMAN LOJKO: Following and connecting with music blogs is by far the most advantageous way a band can achieve early recognition. Blogs are run by people who love music with all their hearts, and they are almost all connected to other people who showcase music locally. These people will do anything to get other people to love the bands they love, and they play a huge part in creating underground global musical “scenes,” which are much more powerful and influential than individual bands.

:: Other than yourself, do you know of any artists - musicians, painters, sculptors, writers, etc. who do a great job using digital tools to create deeper connections with their audience?

LOU PANICCIA: John Hodgman (I’m a PC) actually does really great things with his audience on Twitter http://twitter.com/HODGMAN. I’ve seen several trending topics on Twitter that started with him and his fans (#starwarsbandnames was a personal favorite).

JUSTIN POIRIER: There are certainly a number of people that have used Twitter very successfully to market themselves. Mark Hoppus of Blink-182 comes to mind, as well as John Mayer, but the key that I have seen is consistently delivering high quality or interesting content. One of the more interesting marketing campaign for bands that I have seen lately was by a band who streamed their whole new CD for free but with a different blog sponsoring each song. Another band, had all of their songs for free download, but each song had a commercial for DW drums at the beginning, not only are these good ways to cross market but they are ways for bands to still make money and drum up support.

ROMAN LOJKO: There’s a growing movement of underground, lo-fi musicians that release everything they make free on the internet. By embracing the internet’s functions they gain much more recognition than they ever would otherwise, and their fans respect them for it. They take away the “illegal downloading guilt” most people feel (at least on some level), and make music wholesome once more. If their music is actually decent then when they tour around they have small fan bases everywhere they can make use of, and they didn’t have to pay a cent to get their names out there.

As 2009 comes to a close, more and more clients are asking whether or not they should create a Facebook fan page. That inquiry is usually immediately followed up with, why should I become a fan of your Facebook page? What value are you going to be providing to your Facebook fans?

I’m not going to tell you NEED to have Facebook fan page, because I don’t believe that is entirely true for every business. If you don’t have a concrete strategy and plan to not only acquire Facebook fans but also keep your fans interested and engaged with your brand, product, and/or service than you probably shouldn’t waste your time. You can’t just create a Facebook fan page, post some photos, and write a few witty wall posts then expect droves of fans to want to become your fan. You have to approach Facebook from your fans’ point of view – what’s in it for me?

People love free stuff. When it comes to Facebook, the actual dollar value of that free stuff really doesn’t matter. Whether you are running a large sweepstakes or offering a simple money-saving coupon for a consumer product, there needs to be something given to your consumers that adds value to their experience of becoming your Facebook fan.

Also, the value you provide through Facebook shouldn’t end after you acquire each fan. Your Facebook fans should be offered continued value and treated differently from the masses for as long as Facebook remains the social media mecca - as noted by it's steady growth to 350 million active users.

If you’ve haven’t started your Facebook fan page strategy, don’t feel out of the loop. There are still many big brands that are just getting started with Facebook. As an example, Subway Restaurants launched their official Facebook fan page on Dec 24th.

Why should someone become a fan of Subway's Facebook fan page? Well, Subway is running a promotion to give away $50 gift cards to 10 Facebook fans a week from now through the end of January. They are advertising their gift card give-away promotion using targeted Facebook ads and also leveraging the immediate viral power of Facebook to promote the give-away. As I began writing this blog post, Subway Restaurants had 39K fans. When I got around to posting it about an hour later, Subway Restaurants had over 60K fans. I told you people love free stuff.

I think we've all heard the term "the fold." If you haven't 1) get with the times, and 2) forget that I even mentioned it because “ the fold" is on it's way O-U-T, out!

Back in the days where little Timmy would ride his bike around the neighborhood and throw a newspaper at your front door, scaring the jeepers out of old Fido, this was how you got your news. Big headlines were what caught peoples’ eye. And where did these big headlines appear? Right on the front page. More specifically, above the literal fold of the newspaper. In our geeky web world, the infamous "fold" is a term we adopted from the days of newsprint to delineate the area above 600 pixels of a website (on a normal resolution screen) before the user has to scroll down. There was a time when vertical scrolling could not exist in AOL, so "keeping it above the fold" became a best practice in web design strategies. However, it is not 1997 (I heart Nirvana and acid wash jeans), and web technology has clearly advanced since. Yet, the idea of “the fold” sticks.

This is a perfect example of humans evolving slower than our technology is. Clients are scared that if everything isn’t above the fold, the user will miss the information entirely; now we are forced to cram an entire page worth of content in half the space. Don’t get me wrong, I see the thought process behind “the fold;” I understand the importance hierarchy, but what I don’t get is the extreme we have brought this to. There is such a strong disbelief that users will scroll, yet the exact opposite is revealed in research that shows users WILL continue to explore a page if it is designed properly with visual cues to entice the viewer further.
 
This does not mean that you should throw out the ideology behind “the fold”; keeping traffic-driving content high on the screen is beneficial, but worrying about jamming it all in above 600 pixels will do you more harm than good. Conveying the general purpose of your site above the fold is one thing, but success should be measured below this imaginary line.

I vote for busting the myth of the fold! MUTINY!