Lick Frozen Yoghurt in Brighton is made with fresh yoghurt from a local dairy in Sussex. The farm follows all organic farming practices. Their yoghurt and ice cream are delicious and their social media policies are worth sampling.

After discovering that customers enjoyed taking pictures of themselves eating frozen yoghurt or ice cream, they are encouraging people to post their photos on their site, and this enables them to get a free natural yoghurt. They are listening to their customers and they are rewarding their loyal ones who will then naturally be energised to tell others.

You can also follow them on Twitter.

Fascinating interview/case study here about how FedEx is using social media.

Good points: they have a strategy in place. A lot of companies still don’t have an overall guiding social media strategy.

If you don’t, and would like help creating one then try us.

What I also like about FedEx is that they see social media as a way of humanising the business. There are so many large monolithic companies out there who appear not to care one fig about who you are when you call, how long you are on the line for etc etc. Social media is a golden opportunity to put some humanity back into your business.

Also what FedEx has clearly realised is that social media is a way of communicating directly with their stakeholders. Again there are many organisations who still persist in spending fortunes on traditional media advertising, broadcasting messages out – often inefficiently, when their customers are using social media and can be engaged with there in more personal and meaningful ways.

Read the full piece here.

The Ecologist magazine is no longer available in print. The magazine has switched off the presses and is only available online at www.theecologist.org. In print, the magazine’s director, Zac Goldsmith, says the publication is limited and can never reach the audience it aspires to reach. ‘Online our potential readership is limitless. If we get it right, we can reach millions,’he says.

 Of course there are sound environmental reasons for The Ecologist to be saving trees. But you do begin to wonder how long it will be before other magazines and newspapers turn off the presses. Could this be the start of a trend?

Few marketers these days want to start a campaign without a good idea of what return-on-investment they can expect. That applies as much to social media as to any other marketing channel.

So its good to see the market leader Facebook teaming up with Nielsen, the market research company, to provide the kind of measurability that businesses need. The project, called Nielsen BrandLift, uses opt-in polls to measure consumer attitudes and purchase intent from display advertising that has appeared on the site.

The idea is that Nielsen will carry out regular surveys with the site’s advertisers, and these will appear on Facebook’s homepage in the same space where people see sponsored messages today. “Together we will be able to provide the missing elements to clients seeking better understanding of how Web content and online advertising affect consumer behavior,” says John Burbank, CEO of Nielsen’s online division.

Nielsen BrandLift will launch in the US with select test partners this week and roll out to all Facebook advertisers in the coming months. More details here.