Shall We Do Something Together

Last week I had a call from the MD of Manual Link Building (MLB), Gareth Hoyle. As one of the lead sponsors of tomorrow nights’ UK Search Awards, MLB receive in return signage and exposure, as is normal in a sponsorship agreement. Hoyle told me that they had decided to donate a page of exposure in the awards programme to a charity and when searching for a suitable cause had discovered that the WWF are currently running an awareness campaign.

The opportunity to support a worthwhile cause and at the same time make a tongue-in-cheek reference to the (algorithmic) events of the year was just too perfect. However, more than giving away a bit of ad space we discussed how the WWF campaign name and timing seems completely fortuitous. We have over 400 internet marketers all in one room on Thursday night, plus extensive extended networks, skills and talents in wider reach (when including those search marketers who aren’t present.) Perhaps we could ask the whole search community if they would like to take part in the WWF awareness campaign first and foremost; and then secondly if community members would like to add their skills to the mix by helping to promote this cause.

About the WWF campaign

The Panda Made Me Do It is an awareness campaign that according to the WWF “It’s about you – and all the simple but effective things you can do to help protect the natural world. Whether you’re an experienced environmental campaigner or brand new to the whole thing, we’ll make it easy to get involved. Just tell everyone the Panda made you do it…”

The site provides a list of suggestions that you can make a commitment to either personally or as a business. Examples including pledging only to use FSC approved recycled paper or only buying fish from certified sustainable sources in the weekly shop.

How You Can Help

If you have a spare five minutes and would like to support this cause, perhaps we can coordinate a little in order to increase awareness of this campaign between now and tomorrow evening.

1. Choose a “change,” make a pledge or commitment. You can use helpful suggestions from the WWF campaign website if you don’t already have an idea of your own.

2. Write a post about the WWF campaign if you have the time and the platform to share with your audiences. (Please don’t link to or refer to this post, just the campaign message).

3. Share your pledge with your social networks.

4. Schedule or tweet your pledge using the hashtag #ThePandaMadeMe - between 7 – 8pm tomorrow, UK time (that is Thursday 3rd November 2011) in an attempt to get the hashtag to trend, thus increasing awareness considerably.

Hopefully this sounds like a worthwhile cause and some well-timed conditions for a cross-community project.

Nichola Stott

Nichola Stott is owner and co-founder of theMediaFlow; online revenue optimisation and audience services (including SEO, SEM and SMM). Prior to founding theMediaFlow, Nichola spent four years at Yahoo! as head of UK commercial search partners. More articles and bio from Nichola Stott