Iceland Was Social Before You Were Born

Have you seen Iceland’s new cheeky Twitter feed @hipstericeland?

They’re tweeting hilarity  such as:

- Yeah, it’s true. My Hekla is the gate to Hell… vetica.

- Yeah, nice piercing, see my ring road?

- Is it just me or is Greenland trying to hard? (to which I responded and they tweeted back)

The feed, as I found through my Google-sleuthing, was made by TakkTakk the genius firm behind all of Iceland’s social efforts.  Looking at their stuff gives me total social envy – @HispterIceland is only the latest evolution to their incredibly well organized, consistent and open-to-change integrated social media campaign called “Iceland Wants to Be Your Friend,” where the idea is the country itself is just discovering the “inter-nets,” and how to communicate with humans.  Its’ endearing, funny and engaging.

Iceland had a Brand Character Before you Ever heard of The Old Spice Guy

Back in 2009, at the request of Promote Iceland, TakkTakk  decided to take a risk and give Iceland a real personality in their social channels (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Vimeo, Flickr, Foursquare).  They didn’t worry about if not all their stakeholders weren’t cool with Iceland having a quirky, edgy voice and clunky style, occasionally misspelling stuff.  Earlier, I suggested they leverage the adorable, dancing, British girl – but they didn’t need to, they’ve already got a perfect “Brand Character,” this staccato voice that permeates all channels of “Iceland wants to be your friend.”

Super Hip Takeaways

Two lessons: (1) its neither possible nor desirable to please everyone – but going for something unique and memorable is.  This way, those who connect with Iceland’s brand are really going to connect. (2) Leaving room for growth is key – HipsterIceland is a recent addition to the family of social channels, but since Iceland is well known for hip bands, cool wool sweaters and ice bars – they decided to leverage the top of mind associations.

Its probably super hipster to be writing a blog about this; but to be safe, I’m wearing skinny jeans and listening to bands you’ve never heard of as I write this.  Maybe now @hisptericeland will follow me back, (it’s @getnat, boys).